HistoryHype at Casebook.org

Every writer and every blogger face the same exact challenge each day: the terror of the blank screen (or page). For bloggers, the satisfaction point is reached far more easily. Scan a favorite newspaper, magazine, Web site or message board and, BANG, you have something to react to.

That’s the essence of blogging. Reacting to something someone else wrote. Spouting off an opinion that may or may not be based in careful consideration of and research into the item to which one is responding. That’s where the challenge of the person who dabbles in history is a bit more daunting.

History, or even the true-crime spin-off of history I am currently dabbling in with my Jack the Ripper research, is not written via off the cuff remarks in knee-jerk fashion. It requires careful, sometimes exhausting as well as exhaustive research, and quite a bit of analysis and thought, before one can be certain enough of the prevailing facts to even begin to speak authoritatively on anything.

That’s where blogs and history crash, and probably why there’s not too many blogs dedicated to the study of history. Either the research has already been done any it is in a textbook somewhere, or the research is incomplete and it’s far too soon to speak authoritatively on the subject.

Even in Ripperology, there are plenty of good examples. As Tom Wescott pointed out on the Casebook: Jack the Ripper message board recently, few Ripper researchers discount Mary Jane Kelly as a Ripper victim and only one researcher he is aware of even attempted to do so based on the evidence: Stewart Evans, in the course of investigating Ripper suspect Dr. Francis Tumbulty. Even then, Evans did so hesitatingly and only called it a remote possibility. Wescott further pointed out that further research proved Tumbulty may have been out of custody after all at the time of the Kelly murder, and quickly added Kelly back into the canon of Ripper victims.

Such caution is worthwhile when dealing with history; conclusions, especially if they contradict previous understandings and interpretations, should not be asserted too hastily. Yet it happens daily on sites like the message board. Without a whisper of research or understanding of the prevailing facts, all too often Ripper enthusiasts will boldly proclaim they’ve discovered an incontrovertible fact that sheds new light on everything and their word is Gospel.

Of course, upon further questioning, some of these folks are merely smoke-blowers; they want to fit in with the research heavyweights, but are unwilling to do the work themselves, instead challenging others to “prove me wrong.”

Sorry, but it’s not our work to prove you haven’t done yours. Most of the minds in Ripper research are bright, well-reasoned, careful folks who, sure, want to write an essay that garners them some attention, but more importantly, want to be sure that if they do discover something new about the case, it is something that won’t be easily dismissed or disproved. Too often, these “overlooked facts” that “shed a whole new light on the case” are things most Ripper scholars have known for a long time but realized were either untrue myths that grew up around the facts of the case, or not of any real significance.

It takes time, caution and diligence to put together a solidly-researched historical essay, even of the true-crime variety. Yet some less-restrained message board boasters are more than willing to rip such work to shreds on a whim, rather than look into any of the evidence the author researched to at least see if there is another way to interpret it.

While such an atmosphere makes for a lively message board community, I fear that it can grow out of control and draw precious time away from researchers who would be better off checking for the real birth records of Mary Jane Kelly or something else far more useful than quarreling with a simple attention-grabber addicted to contradiction.

Writing and maintaining a history blog promises similar challenges and pitfalls. It will be interesting to see if I maintain the slow, careful pace of my research and still find things to blog about at a pace that makes search engines happy.

Welcome.

This site will initially be a mirror of a blog I maintain at my own domain, HistoryHype.com. Over time, I may add some original posts as well. The main difference will be that most of what I post here, whether mirrored or original, will focus on Jack the Ripper and related topics. If you have any interest in other historical topics I may eventually write about, then my main HistoryHype.com site would be worth a visit as well!

 I’ve been a student of the Jack the Ripper case for nearly 30 years now, but only recently have I started conducting my own research into the topic and writing professionally about it. My first Jack the Ripper-related article appeared in Ripper Notes #28, and you’ll find a final draft version on this site in the next post, without the benefit of Dan Norder’s masterful final edit. As it stands, this is about 95 percent the way it appeared in Ripper Notes #28.

Currently, I am hard at work on my next article, which, unlike the one-0ff piece, “Romanticizing Mary Jane Kelly,” will focus more on my main area of research insterest, which is the comparative study of Jack to other serial killers. I’ll likely be using this blog, as well as my main HistoryHype.com blog, to test out some of my thoughts as I work toward completing my next manuscript.

I hope you enjoy the time and discussions we’ll share going forward. I know I will.