ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN HISTORIANS ANNUAL REPORT Building a Strong Community of Historians 2016 Organization of American Historians® fy 2015–16 annual report 2016 Organization of American Historians©. The report covers OAH activities and initiatives from July 1, 2015 to June 30, 2016 (FY 2015–16). All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopied, recorded, or other means without prior written permission from the Organization of American Historians, 112 North Bryan Avenue, Bloomington, IN 47408. Phone: 812–855–7311. Web: oah.org. First edition: December 1, 2016. 2 2016 OAH ANNUAL REPORT ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN HISTORIANS ANNUAL REPORT JULY 1, 2015 – JUNE 30, 2016 3 2016 OAH ANNUAL REPORT TABLE OF CONTENTS YEAR IN REVIEW From the OAH President 5 ORGANIZATIONAL REVIEW From the Executive Direc tor 9 FINANCIAL OVERVIEW Treasurer’s Report and Audited Financial Statements 11 MEMBERSHIP OVERVIEW Renewal, Recruitment, and Benefits 16 PROGRAMS OVERVIEW Distinguished Lectureship Program 17 OAH-NPS Collaboration 18 International Residencies 19 PUBLICATIONS OVERVIEW Journal, Magazine, Blog, and E-newsletter 21 MEETING OVERVIEW 2016 Annual Meeting in Providence 24 AWARDS AND PRIZES Recognizing Achievement in American History 27 DEVELOPMENT & PHILANTHROPY 32 VOLUNTEER LEADERSHIP Boards and Committees 37 FOUNDERS, PRESIDENTS, TREASURERS, EDITORS, AND STAFF 55 4 2016 OAH ANNUAL REPORT Y EAR-IN-REVIEW YEAR-IN-REVIEW FROM THE OAH PRESIDENT NANCY F. COT T The OAH remains vital by keeping up with changes in the historical profession and in higher education and by adapting to the demands of the current ” media environment. I am happy to report on the 2015–16 year’s activities and current challenges of the Organization of American Historians. The OAH remains vital by keeping up with changes in the historical profession and in higher education and by” adapting to the demands of the current media environment. Its continued flourishing relies on the skills and commitment of hard-working staff led by Executive Director Kathy Finley, the generous volunteer efforts of elected and appointed committee members, and the adherence of the wider membership. The dues of members, the contributions of OAH lecturers, the working relationship between Indiana University and the OAH, the many compensated services that the National Park Service contracts with the OAH to provide, and the generosity of donors all are essential to sustaining the OAH. As president I feel enormously appreciative of all those contributions and want to express my thanks. The OAH has maintained its financial stability because of excellent financial management and implementation of strict cost-cutting decisions. Yet, the conditions that have made the past few years difficult are likely to remain. I would point out two, in particular: the availability of the Journal of American History online through educational institutions reduces the incentive for historians to join the organization in order to read the journal; and the rising proportion of adjunct and part-time employment among historians means that our would-be members are less able to afford membership or registration and travel expenses for the annual meeting. The latter condition has been exacerbated by cutbacks at colleges, universities, K–12 schools, and public history institutions, making fewer sources of conference funding available for those with full-time jobs as well. The OAH has addressed these difficulties creatively and to a notable extent successfully by offering numerous new incentives to join the organization and allowing teachers and students to register for the annual meeting at reduced rates, as well as by improving its profile overall, as indicated below. The OAH Merrill Fund and the Presidents’ Travel Fund award competitive grants to graduate students and recent Ph.D.’s to cover costs of attending the annual meeting, but there is a need for wider funding. Several different approaches are being taken to improve the outlook. One important shift this year is a restructuring and enlarging of the Membership Committee to promote likely avenues for stimulating growth in membership. The new committee should be functioning by the fall of 2016, and staff member Elisabeth Marsh is working with the new 5 2016 OAH ANNUAL REPORT Y EAR-IN-REVIEW committee to maximize efforts to maintain and augment the membership. Appointments to the restructured committee rely on the work of the Committee on Committees, which makes almost all committee appointments outside of those made by the Nominating Board. The valuable service of the Committee on Committees is often invisible to the wider membership, and I want to point it out here, to express the whole organization’s indebtedness to that committee and its hard-working chair during 2015–16, Jennifer Brier. Another approach is to upgrade the organization’s social media outreach. Retaining existing members year after year is as important as recruiting new members, and social media can make members frequently aware of the benefits of membership. The OAH no longer publishes its print newsletter (Outlook); instead, it sends updates to members bimonthly by email, keeping recipients current with the organization and alerting them to relevant events, prize opportunities and application deadlines, and breaking news about the organization and the history field. A new committee on Marketing and Communications, vigorously chaired by Sara Georgini, is now operating; its members have excellent plans for blogging and tweeting to support the OAH Annual Meeting, the OAH Distinguished Lectureship program, and all OAH publications. The new committee will coordinate its efforts to complement the OAH blog Process, initiated two years ago under the leadership of then-Executive Editor Edward Linenthal. Process has been gathering clicks and contributors, which suggests the efficacy of using these new media to tie both members and nonmembers to the OAH. The organization’s glossy quarterly magazine, The American Historian, launched only two years ago, was intended to appeal to a very wide range of those interested in U.S. history, serve as a membership benefit that would attract new members, and possibly turn a profit (by attracting advertisers). The editor, Jonathan Warner, has recruited historians to write such varied and engaging articles that the magazine is consistently a “good read” and advertisers’ willingness to sign on has been gratifying. The OAH Distinguished Lectureship program has added dozens of new lecturers, too, who are appointed by the OAH President. These OAH members donate to the organization their speaking fees for a Distinguished Lecture solicited through the program. The OAH is also encouraging lecturers to consider donating at least one speaking fee each year for an invited lecture not recruited through the program. The lecturers’ generosity is an important source of income. While all previous OAH lecturers have been college or university faculty, the OAH Executive Board this year voted to expand the pool to include high school teachers. Outgoing board member Andrea Sachs, of St. Paul Academy and Summit School in St. Paul, Minnesota, became the first high school teacher to be appointed as an OAH Distinguished Lecturer. The Journal of American History continues to be the flagship journal of the American history field, its peer-reviewed contents both leading and responding to intellectual developments in the broader profession. Stephen Andrews, previously Associate Editor, has been serving as interim editor since July 2016, when Edward Linenthal retired from the position, while a national search has taken place for a new editor (who will also become a tenured member of the Indiana University History Department). The search committee 6 2016 OAH ANNUAL REPORT Y EAR-IN-REVIEW was composed of two Indiana University faculty members and two OAH members, Jane Kamensky and Michele Mitchell. The entire OAH Executive Board is immensely grateful to Professors Kamensky and Mitchell, whose dedication to the task and whose excellent judgment played a very strong part in the success of the search. We are very happy to welcome the new OAH Executive Editor, Benjamin H. Irvin (presently Associate Professor of History at the University of Arizona), who will take up the post in July 2017. The annual meeting of the OAH in Providence in April 2016, convening under the theme of “Leadership” in a presidential election year, proved to be a convivial and intellectually stimulating occasion. It attracted 1,745 registrants, approximately an 18% increase over the previous year. Several new features in addition to regular sessions, such as “Hey, I Know Your Work,” chat rooms, and an opening day Happy Hour in the book exhibit, have become popular and will be continued. Plans are firm already for the 2017 annual meeting in New Orleans. The Program Committee, led by Robert Self and Brenda Stevenson, has made heroic efforts to assemble a fascinatingly diverse array of sessions under the theme of “Circulation.” All the Program Committee members together worked very hard through 2015 and 2016 to bring the most exciting new work to all who attend the meeting. The equally hard-working and creative Local Resource Committee, under the vigorous leadership of Mary N. Mitchell and Rosanne Adderley, is making the most of the conference location in New Orleans, bringing local historical institutions into collaboration with the conference program and setting up a fantastic array of events and tours. All the historians who plan the meeting— or attend it—owe an immense debt to OAH staffer Hajni Selby, who has devoted herself tirelessly to improving the process of creating the meeting program. She expedited the Program Committee’s tasks by working with the OAH’s IT department to mastermind the creation of new digital tools and then to publicize the meeting, with an increasingly accessible and smooth web presence. With today’s instant global communication, the international programs of the OAH are more important than ever.