Time Magazine’s inaugural 100 Creators list, honoring the “most influential digital voices” of 2025, predictably includes the people behind the most popular accounts of the major social media platforms — YouTuber Mr. Beast, TikToker Khaby Lame, Twitch streamer Kai Cenat — along with pranksters, podcasters, “it girls,” make-up tutorialists, finance and fashion influencers, and a slew of other mostly young people with slick headshots.
The list also includes historian and author Heather Cox Richardson, who fits exactly one of those descriptions.
Richardson’s “Letters from an American” newsletter, which she started in 2019, is the most popular newsletter on Substack, with 2.5 million subscribers. Additionally, Richardson, who lives in Maine and teaches history at Boston College, has 3.2 million Facebook followers.
In the crowded and high-energy market of digital “content creation” Richardson’s innovation, it seems, has been a kind of calm perspective. In her newsletter and evening live chats on Facebook, she analyzes current events and connects them to historical patterns in U.S. history.
“At the core of Richardson’s work is ensuring people have an understanding of past mistakes, in hopes the nation can avoid repeating them,” Time writes.
Richardson, 62, is also the author of seven books, including “To Make Men Free: A History of the Republican Party,” “How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America,” and “Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America.”
