John McLaren, the Ghastly Historian, is a public historian based in Greenville, Rhode Island. He attained his B.A. in American History with a minor in Museum Studies from Framingham State University in 2008. He obtained his M.A. in History, concentrated in Public History, from Southern New Hampshire University in 2023. During his undergraduate studies, he completed several humanities courses on mythology, folklore, and religion. In his graduate work, his research topics continued on that same trajectory. His master’s thesis culminated in a published work that focused on the impact of sensationalism on the 19th-century U.S. Spiritualist movement. You can read more about this in the Publications & CV section.

These courses and topics fascinated him and continue to inspire his passion for researching and writing about social and cultural practices that may be considered more obscure. John will continue his research and writing on these ghastly topics in his Ghastly series:

• The Ghastly History blog is a mix of written, audio, and video content; the blog is currently inactive and archived.
• Ghastly News is a daily series where unique newspaper accounts and stories are shared from across the country (with some international stories mixed in).
• Ghastly Images is a weekly series where images of persons, objects and places are shared with brief, but descriptive, synopses of their unique circumstances.
• Cemetery Crawl is a video series of cemetery and graveyard walkthroughs, with their distinct histories and facts of the surrounding areas added in.

John is also available for freelance research and consultancy work. His areas of expertise include New England history, Colonial American history, the American Revolution, the Civil War, history and religion, family history, and folklore. He can work with you on various items, including peer reviews, annotated bibliographies, and research and writing projects. Check out the Freelance Research page for more information.