Thursday, August 03, 2017

More on the Whipping Post

There has been a tremendous amount of public controversy about the post on the Green. Although many people seem to be picking and choosing facts that support their strongly held opinions, others have been more open-minded and are genuinely interested in learning more. Since this is such a widely-discussed topic, I've spent some time doing more research. Please be aware that the research is not completed: there are thousands of archival documents to sift through, photographs to compare, decades of newspaper articles to browse on microfilm, and scientific analysis of the post (just for starters). That level of research is not something I can undertake, since I'm doing this in my free time. It's the sort of research project for which a museum or historical society can get grant funding, or which a grad student might undertake for a dissertation.

The post on the Green in 2017, about a week before it was removed.