Dear Friend,

This is going to be uncomfortable, but I need to tell you something.

Most local history is dying.

Not because nobody cares. But because the people who hold it are passing on. And when they go, what they know goes with them.

I've watched it happen.

I've sat in the back row at too many funerals for people whose knowledge never made it onto paper. I've seen boxes of research notes get thrown out by family members who didn't know what they were looking at. I've opened filing cabinets at historical societies and found half-finished manuscripts, meticulously organized source material, and a handwritten note that says "Someone should write this up someday."

I'm tired of watching history get lost because the people who carry it don't have a system for sharing it.

That's why I built the Historian Sydicate.

I'm Anthony Clemons, an Army veteran and public historian. I've spent years in archives and courthouses, at society meetings and cemetery surveys, learning how to do this work — and learning how much of it disappears because nobody teaches historians how to publish.

I'm not a professor. I'm not a tenured academic with a university press behind me. I'm a working historian who figured out that the skills that matter most—research, writing, and audience-building—which aren't taught in history programs. They're taught by people who've done it. And I decided to be one of those people.

I've built the Historian Syndicate because I believe that every community in this country has stories worth preserving, and that the people best equipped to preserve them are the ones who already live there.

On a regular basis, I'll be writing to you.

I'll share what I'm learning about turning research into readable narrative. I'll share the stories I'm uncovering in Kentucky archives. I'll share the lessons from historians I've worked with — what's worked, what hasn't, and what they wish they'd known sooner.

I'll also share practical, specific guidance:

  • How to structure a local history book that people actually want to read
  • How to find and cite primary sources to a professional standard
  • How to build an audience around your specific area of history
  • How to go from manuscript to published book (without a university press)
  • How to write a newsletter that keeps subscribers paying month after month
  • How to work with historical societies, museums, and local institutions
  • How to turn your historical expertise into sustainable income

I want to be direct with you about why this matters.

There is a generational transfer happening in public history right now.

The generation that built most of our local historical societies in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s are in their 70s, 80s, and 90s. They've done extraordinary work. And a staggering amount of what they know has never been written down.

Every month that passes without a system for capturing that knowledge is a month of permanent loss. You can't interview someone after they're gone. You can't reconstruct thirty years of courthouse research from memory. You can't recover a box of notes that got thrown out during an estate sale.

I believe the answer isn't just to urge you to write more. It's to give you a system for aggregating your knowledge and and to turn what you know into something that outlives yourself. A book. A newsletter. A documented archive. Something physical, permanent, and findable.

That's what the Historian Syndicate does. And that's what I'll be teaching you.

Here's what I believe is possible and what I'm building toward:

A life where you spend your mornings in archives, your afternoons writing, and your evenings knowing that the work you're doing will outlast you. Where the history you've researched isn't sitting in a filing cabinet; it's in people's hands, on their bookshelves, in their mailboxes. Where your expertise doesn't just earn you respect at society meetings — it earns you the income to keep doing the work.

I'm not promising you'll get rich. I'm not selling a get-rich-quick scheme for historians. Public history will never be a path to millions. But it can absolutely be a path to a meaningful, sustainable life, where the work you love is the work that pays you.

I'm building that for myself. And I'm teaching others how to build it too.

If this interests you, then I'd like you to join me.

I will be writing to you regularly to share the latest from my research and from the Syndicate community. I'll be sharing the very best lessons about researching, writing, publishing, and building an audience for the history that matters to you.

If you would like to join my list, then you need to apply.

I don't let everyone in.

Your application will be reviewed and I'll let you know within twenty-four hours if you're the right fit for the Historian Syndicate community. Please submit your application below.