2008 OAH Annual Meeting • New York 1
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Welcome ear colleagues in history, welcome to the one-hundred-fi rst annual meeting of the Organiza- tion of American Historians in New York. Last year we met in our founding site of Minneap- Dolis-St. Paul, before that in the national capital of Washington, DC. On the present occasion wew meet in the world’s media capital, but in a very special way: this is a bridge-and-tunnel aff air, not limitedli to just the island of Manhattan. Bridges and tunnels connect the island to the larger metropolitan region. For a long time, the peoplep in Manhattan looked down on people from New Jersey and the “outer boroughs”— Brooklyn, theth Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island—who came to the island via those bridges and tunnels. Bridge- and-tunnela people were supposed to lack the sophistication and style of Manhattan people. Bridge- and-tunnela people also did the work: hard work, essential work, beautifully creative work. You will sees this work in sessions and tours extending beyond midtown Manhattan. Be sure not to miss, for example,e “From Mambo to Hip-Hop: Th e South Bronx Latin Music Tour” and the bus tour to my own Photo by Steve Miller Steve by Photo cityc of Newark, New Jersey. Not that this meeting is bridge-and-tunnel only. Th anks to the excellent, hard working program committee, chaired by Debo- rah Gray White, and the local arrangements committee, chaired by Mark Naison and Irma Watkins-Owens, you can chose from an abundance of off erings in and on historic Manhattan: in Harlem, the Cooper Union, Chinatown, the Center for Jewish History, the Brooklyn Historical Society, the New-York Historical Society, the American Folk Art Museum, and many other sites of great interest. Th e theme for this meeting is “Bringing Us Together,” and we have come together beautifully in a medley of themes. Please take advantage of this bounty to spend time with colleagues beyond your own fi eld of specialization. Art student that I am, I urge you to attend, in particular, “Re-envisioning the American History Survey Course,” the session on teaching from a visual perspective. Th e program and local arrangements committees’ hard work pays off in a range of historical commentary ranging from Jamestown four hundred years ago to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Th is program also addresses recent events that have shaped the history of the New York metropolitan region and the United States as a whole: teachers’ strikes, unions, and race; 1968; and immigrants from many continents. I thank the organizers in the knowledge that you will fi nd this meeting both thought provoking and gratifying. — Nell Irvin Painter, OAH President et me join Nell Painter in welcoming you to New York for our one-hundred-fi rst annual meet- ing. It seems appropriate that we should meet in Manhattan for the fi rst convention of our Lsecond century. If there ever was a city that captures who we are as Americans and where we are going, it is New York. We owe a debt of gratitude to the program committee, ably led by Deborah Gray White, for assembling an amazing array of interesting and exciting sessions. Many thanks also go to the local resource committee which, under the dynamic leadership of Mark Naison and Irma Watkins-Owens, has helped propel this convention beyond the walls of the Hilton New York to a number of fascinating and intriguing local venues. Along with publishing Th e Journal of American History, the annual meeting is one of the most important things that OAH does for its members. Each year we fulfi ll our mission—promoting excellence in the scholarship, teaching, and presentation of American history, and encouraging wide discussion of historical questions and equitable treatment of all practitioners of history—by bringing together more than two thousand scholars from research and four-year universities and their col- leagues from two-year institutions, precollegiate teachers, and public historians, to present and hear the latest scholarship, teaching methods, and ways of presenting history in public places. — Lee W. Formwalt, OAH Executive Director 2008 OAH Annual Meeting • New York 1 c-frontmatter.indd 1 12/19/2007 11:27:23 AM Schedule of Events Registration and Information Hilton New York, Third Floor Thursday, March 27 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. (preregistration only) Friday, March 28 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Saturday, March 29 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Sunday, March 30 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Book Exhibits Hilton New York, Third Floor Friday, March 28 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Saturday, March 29 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Sunday, March 30 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Greenberg Photos copyright Jeff copyright Photos c-frontmatter.indd 2 12/19/2007 11:27:45 AM Bringing Us All Together 2008 OAH Annual Meeting March 28 to 31, 2008 New York, New York 2008 OAH Program Committee Table of Contents Deborah Gray White, Rutgers University, Chair Registration ...................................................................................... 4 Neil Baldwin, Montclair State University Hilton New York ............................................................................. 5 Mark Philip Bradley, Northwestern University Travel ................................................................................................. 6 Alan Gallay, Th e Ohio State University Meals ................................................................................................ 8 Wanda A. Hendricks, University of South Carolina Receptions......................................................................................... 9 Stephen Kantrowitz, University of Wisconsin, Madison Public School Exhibition ..............................................................10 Eduardo Obregón Pagán, Arizona State University Special Events .................................................................................11 Dylan Penningroth, Northwestern University Especially for Teachers ..................................................................12 Patricia A. Schechter, Portland State University Deborah Willis, New York University Especially for Graduate Students ................................................. 13 Off site Sessions ...............................................................................14 2008 OAH Local Resource Committee Tours ................................................................................................ 20 TAH Grant Symposium ................................................................ 22 Mark Naison, Fordham University, Cochair Irma Watkins-Owens, Fordham University, Cochair Meetings .......................................................................................... 24 Elise Abegg, New York City Department of Education Sessions at a Glance .......................................................................25 Floris Cash, State University of New York, Stony Brook Maps ................................................................................................ 29 Robert Cohen, New York University Sessions Elizabeth R. Del Tufo, Newark Landmarks & Historic Friday .........................................................................................33 Preservation Commission Saturday .....................................................................................40 Hasia Diner, New York University Sunday ........................................................................................58 Kate Fermoile, Brooklyn Historical Society Participant Index............................................................................ 65 Steven G. Fullwood, Schomburg Center for Research About the OAH ..............................................................................69 in Black Culture OAH Leadership Advisory Council .............................................77 Pamela E. Green, Weeksville Heritage Center Building a Lasting Legacy for OAH .............................................78 David Greenstein, Th e Cooper Union for the Advancement OAH Distinguished Members ......................................................80 of Science and Art Exhibit Hall Map ............................................................................95 Sarah M. Henry, Museum of the City of New York Exhibitors ........................................................................................ 96 Valerie Paley, New-York Historical Society Advertisers Index ...........................................................................97 Clement Alexander Price, Rutgers University Deborah F. Schwartz, Brooklyn Historical Society TAH Symposium Registration Form .........................................190 Suzanne Wasserman, Gotham Center for New York City History Preregistration Form ...................................................................192 Th e papers and commentaries presented during this meeting are intended solely for those in attendance and should not be recorded, copied, or otherwise repro- duced without the consent of the presenters and the Organization of American Historians. Recording, copying, or reproducing a paper without the consent of the author is a violation of common law copyright. On the cover: Mulberry Street (Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division) 2008 OAH Annual Meeting • New York 3 c-frontmatter.indd 3 12/19/2007 11:30:36 AM Registration Preregistration Preregister using the form located on page 192 or on the OAH Registration Fees secure website at <http://www.oah.org/2008>. Preregistration is available through March 7, 2008. Forms sent in the mail will Regular Preregistration be accepted if postmarked