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You’re reading Dispatch Culture, our weekend newsletter featuring essays about American culture, staff recommendations, book reviews, and more.
Happy Saturday!
Everyone knows that William Henry Harrison was a short-lived president, serving only 31 days before dying of an illness. But fewer people know about William Goebel, who was governor of Kentucky for just a few days before succumbing to a gunshot wound.
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Add Us as a Preferred SourceValerie is Ideas Editor at The Dispatch, based in New York City. Prior to joining the company in 2025, she worked at The New York Times and NewsGuard Technologies, and she is currently a Novak Fellow through The Fund for American Studies. When Valerie isn’t commissioning and editing the next big essay for The Dispatch, she is probably people-watching in a funky cafe or scheming up her next oddly-themed party.
Alex Hibbs is a writer and researcher working in Washington, D.C. He was previously an editor at National Affairs and Ad Fontes.
Greg Fournier writes the Substack newsletter “Armchair Thoughts.”
Alex Demas is an editor at The Dispatch and is based in Washington, D.C. Prior to joining the company in 2023, he worked in England as a financial journalist and earned his MA in Political Economy at King's College London. When not heroically combating misinformation online, Alex can be found mixing cocktails, watching his beloved soccer team Aston Villa lose a match, or attempting to pet stray cats.