Midwestern History Association
MHA Newsletter -- September 2015
Dear Friends of Midwestern History –
Best wishes to you as fall approaches and as many of you are returning to your classrooms. The Midwestern History Association took a newsletter break during the August doldrums and so we now have lots to report to you on our activities as we approach the one year anniversary of our formal creation on October 11, 2014. As always, we greatly encourage you to share this newsletter with your friends and colleagues and let them know of our activities. I am going to begin this newsletter by sharing the latest on the prize front since some important deadlines are looming:
Book Prize: Professor Andrew Cayton, now of The Ohio State University, is the chair of this year’s annual Jon Gjerde book prize committee for the best book written about Midwestern history during the calendar year 2014. Drew recently reported the list of book award nominees to the MHA and they are revealed below (addendum 1). This year’s book prize winner will be announced within the next month or so.
Article Prize: Dr. Catherine Cocks of the University of Iowa Press is the chair of this year’s annual Dorothy Schwieder Prize for the best academic article written about Midwestern history during the calendar year 2014. Catherine recently reported the list of article award nominees to the MHA and they are revealed below (addendum 2). This year’s article prize winner will be announced in coming weeks.
Turner Prize: The deadline recently passed for nominations for the annual Frederick Jackson Turner Prize for Distinguished Career Contributions to Midwestern History. This prize committee, chaired by Professor Pamela Riney-Kehrberg of Iowa State University, will announce its winner in coming weeks.
Public History Prize: The MHA is especially interested in reaching out to public historians and public history programs and thus created a new prize in public history. The Alice Smith Prize for a Midwestern Public History Project for the best public history project during calendar year 2014 carries a deadline of September 15, 2015. The public history prize committee will be chaired by Professor Aaron Shapiro of UNC-Charlotte. Professor Shapiro is a native Midwesterner who won the 2014 Gjerde Prize for best book on Midwestern history for his book entitled The Lure of the North Woods (University of Minnesota Press) on the development of tourism in northern Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. The call-for-nominations for the Smith Prize is pasted below (addendum 3) and we ask that you please spread the word.
Popular History Prize: The MHA is also interested in reaching out to a general audience and to all writers and authors who are interested in exploring the Midwest’s history and thus created a new prize in popular history writing. Nominations for the MHA’s annual Hamlin Garland Prize for Popular History are due October 1, 2015. The prize committee is chaired by Professor Kristin Mapel Bloomberg of Hamline University in Minnesota. Please note that Professor Bloomberg is looking for a final member to serve on the selection committee for the Hamlin Garland Prize. Professor Bloomberg reports that the committee member will get to help choose the winner and also help fine-tune the nomination requirements for next year. She plans to finalize the work schedule in the coming weeks and have her committee meet via email and gDocs. If you're interested in serving, please email Professor Bloomberg at [email protected] The call-for-nominations for the Garland Prize is pasted below (addendum 4) and we ask for your help distributing it to interested parties.
2016 MHA Meeting: The next formal meeting of the MHA will be held in conjunction with next year’s Western History Association meeting in St. Paul, Minnesota. The WHA graciously agreed to welcome the MHA’s presence at the conference and asked me to scout out panels about Midwestern history for the conference and to serve on the conference’s Program Committee. I’m very pleased to report that the following six panels were proposed to the WHA for the conference: (1) Panel Discussion: The State of American Regional Studies; (2) Public History in the American Midwest; (3) Reclaiming the Middle Ground: The 20th-Century Midwest as a Forgotten Horizon in American History; (4) For God and Home and Native Land: The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union in the Middle West; (5) From French Voyageurs to the Farm Crisis: New Research on the Midwest (lightning round); (6) Expanding Horizons of (Mid-) Western History and Identity: Confronting the Past and Present through Public History and Memory. These panels are quite impressive and represent some of the best and forthcoming work about the Midwest. The details of each panel can be found at the very end of this newsletter.
The American Historian: The most recent issue of the Organization of American Historians’ magazine The American Historian contains a very helpful notice of the creation of the MHA by OAH President Jon Butler of Yale University in his presidential column. Professor Butler grew up in Minnesota and recently moved back to Minneapolis. He is a board member of the MHA.
OAH Blog: The new blog about American history run by the Organization of American Historians and entitled “Process” granted some space to the MHA a few months ago for a piece about Midwestern history. If you’d like to read it, go here: http://www.processhistory.org/?p=385
Midwest Conference: Discussions are now underway to have the second annual free- standing conference on Midwestern history. The time being discussed is early June and the venue is Grand Valley State University in Michigan. Please watch for more information about this conference in coming months.
H-Midwest: Please be advised that the various state-based H-Net discussion networks such as H-Illinois have been terminated and that the H-Net advisory board has voted to create an umbrella discussion network entitled H-Midwest. This transition will allow future H-Net discussions to be less state-based and more regionally-oriented in keeping with the mission of the MHA. If you are interested in being a part of H-Midwest and volunteering to help, see the announcement below (addendum 5).
Borderlands Book: Please note that this fall is the deadline for proposals for a new book about the Midwest to be published by the Center for Western Studies at Augustana University. The focus of the book will be the question “Where Does the Midwest End and the Great Plains Begin?” and it seeks to bring the soft parameters of the American Midwest into the general historical discussion of borderlands. The Center has issued a call-for-chapters for the book, which is currently entitled “In Search of the Interior Borderlands: Where Does the Midwest End and the Great Plains Begin?” If you are interested in submitting a proposal, see the CFP below (addendum 6).
Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association: A panel will be held at the spring meeting of the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association under the rubric “Performing the Midwest: What of the Myth.” This panel will ask questions such as: What does “Midwestern mythos” mean today? To what extent does the myth continue to influence or to complicate and vex life in the Midwest? What attitudes and behaviors can be considered “Midwestern” today? And what does it mean to perform the attitudes, behaviors, narratives, counter-narratives, and perspectives of the Midwest? Organizers welcome creative literary performances of this mythic place as it exists today, as well as scholarly interrogations of its expression in film, literature, music, art, religion, technology, or the media. See below for more details (addendum 7).
Sponsorship: In keeping with a vote of the MHA’s board of directors, the MHA agreed to allocate money to support the May 2016 “African Americans in the Nineteenth Century West Symposium” to be held at St. Louis University. More specifically, the MHA will be paying for the coffee breaks at the event. More details on this conference can be found below (addendum 8).
SSML: The Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature asks that we announce the CFP for its 46th annual conference “Writing the Midwest: A Symposium of Scholars and Creative Writers” to be held June 2–4, 2016 (Thursday–Saturday) at Michigan State University. Proposals are due to University of Wisconsin-Fox Valley professor Scott Emmert, SSML program chair, by January 29, 2016. The full CFP is below (addendum 9).
Symposium: From the University of Indianapolis comes the announcement of the Civil War Study Group’s Eighth Annual Symposium entitled “The Consequences of the Civil War” to be held on Saturday, September 19, 2015, at the University of Indianapolis. All of the details are below (addendum 10).
Conference: Next spring’s meeting of the Mid-American American Studies Association has been scheduled and the theme is “Battleground Midwest: Defining Who and What Matters in the U.S. and Beyond.” It will be held at the University of Kansas in March. Proposals are due by November 1. The CFP is pasted below (addendum 11).
Book About the Midwest as a Field of Study: Last spring, the MHA held a conference about Midwestern history in cooperation with the Hauenstein Center at Grand Valley State University. The lectures from this conference are now being consolidated into a book that will soon be reviewed by a university press for possible publication. The lectures from this conference are also available for viewing on Youtube (just search “Hauenstein Center Midwest” and you should find the videos).
Book on Midwestern Regionalism: The newly-minted Hastings College Press in Nebraska is now completing the review of proposals for at least one book about Midwestern regionalism during the early twentieth century. These potential publications are the result of a call-for-chapters which was circulated during the past 6 months. Watch for future books to be forthcoming from HCP along these lines.
2017: The MHA has nearly finalized plans to hold its 2017 annual meeting in conjunction with the Agricultural History Society. It is likely that this meeting will take place in June 2017 at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Stay tuned for details.
Newberry: In 2018/19, the Newberry Library in Chicago will be focusing their scholarly and public programs on the question “What is the Midwest?” The MHA has been in discussions with the Newberry about this very exciting venture and we ask that you please stay tuned for details.
New Board Member: MHA board member Melissa Marsh resigned last spring due to her increasingly busy writing duties. We are pleased to announce that her replacement is Kathy Borkowski, who has been the Director of the Wisconsin Historical Society Press since 2004. The Wisconsin Historical Society Press is the state’s oldest press and publishes titles on Wisconsin history and culture. Previously Kathy was the Director of Historical Research for American Girl, publisher of children's historical fiction. She holds Masters degrees in U.S. History and Library and Information Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Kathy says the best part of her job is sharing the many stories of Wisconsin's past with a wide range of readers.
Ex-Officio Board Members: At last spring’s meeting of the MHA at the Organization of American Historians conference in St. Louis, the MHA voted to bolster our outreach efforts by adding new ex-officio members from related organizations. Thus we want to extend a welcome to the following new ex-officio board members: Sara Kosiba of Troy University (a Wisconsonite representing the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature); Anne Mosher of Syracuse University (a Nebraskan representing geography); and Virgil Dean, adjunct professor of history at Washburn University and long-time editor of Kansas History and director for publications for the Kansas State Historical Society (representing the public history/Midwestern journal world). Note that the MHA has often discussed reaching out to other like-minded organizations and doing more coalition-building so if you have ideas along these lines please share them.
Wunder: The summer issue of Great Plains Quarterly includes an interview with long- time University of Nebraska historian, regionalist, and native Midwesterner John Wunder. You might be interested in his response to the following question: “How often, during all these years when you were thinking about and leading inquiries into research on the Pacific Northwest, the Southern Plains, the Deep South, and the Great Plains more generally, did you think to yourself ‘why is there no coordinated effort to study my home region of the Midwest’?” Wunder: I often thought about that, and I'm glad I'm around to watch the latest discussions and developments to revitalize Midwestern history and studies. My first position was in Ohio, in the area that had been in the Northwest Territory. I subscribed to the very first issue of The Old Northwest that included historical and literary studies of the states that evolved from the Northwest Territory. In my view the infrastructure for the study of the Midwest is missing. This developed over many years. Major universities gave up offering Midwestern history; virtually no one identified themselves as a Midwest historian; graduate schools did not train Midwest historians; university presses in the Midwest were quite weak with small lists and offered few series dedicated to Midwestern history (an exception being Indiana University Press); large Midwest universities had no endowed chairs in Midwestern history or literature (Wisconsin, perhaps, being the exception with the Turner Chair); Midwest historical societies became more insular; and state education bureaucracies ignored requiring local history above elementary school levels. Indeed, it was a shocking development given that so much of the early years of the evolution of American history was done by outstanding historians from the Midwest. See the summer 2015 issue of Great Plains Quarterly if you’d like to read the entire interview.
Etter: On the afternoon of October 23, 2015, the library at Western Illinois University (Macomb) will host a memorial celebration for Illinois writer Dave Etter. Etter, a prolific poet, is best known for his collection of small-town portraits Alliance, Illinois (1983).
Bismarck: The State Historical Society of North Dakota and Bismarck State College are proud to host the 50th Annual Northern Great Plains History Conference at the Radisson Hotel in downtown Bismarck from September 30 – October 3, 2015. This conference features the research of historians who live and work in the Northern Great Plains, as well as that of other historians, on a variety of topics in local, regional, U.S., Canadian, and world history. Presenting the keynote address after the Friday evening banquet will be Dr. Paul Beck, who will speak on his book Columns of Vengeance: Soldiers, Sioux, and the Punitive Expeditions, 1863-1864 and related research.
Omaha: The 59th Annual Missouri Valley History Conference will be held March 3-5, 2016 in Omaha. This year's theme will be “Sacred Sites, Holy Places.” For fifty years the Missouri Valley History Conference has been an annual rite of spring for the midwestern historical community. Founded and organized by the UNO Department of History, the conference is the longest standing professional gathering of historians in our region. With panels on all time periods of history, from the classical era to the modern, and with all topical emphases, from political history to newer social and cultural approaches, the conference allows scholars to exchange ideas and advance historical knowledge.
New Magazine: Tina Casagrand has announced that she is starting a new magazine focused on the Midwest entitled The New Territory. If you would like more information, go here: http://tinyletter.com/tinacasagrand/letters/introducing-the-new- territory-a-magazine-for-the-midwest
Studies in Midwestern History: The MHA’s online journal entitled Studies in Midwestern History is going strong with six articles published to date. If you are interested in contributing your thoughts on a Midwestern topic or in learning more about Studies, please go here: http://www.midwesternhistory.com/studies-in- midwestern-history/
Middle West Review: The new journal Middle West Review, which is published by the University of Nebraska Press, is approaching its first birthday. This fall MWR will be releasing volume 2, issue 1, which is a special issue focused on the 1980s farm crisis. If you would like to know more about MWR, go here: https://uimiddle.wordpress.com/
Media Matters: The MHA now has 883 friends on Facebook, 943 Twitter followers, and nearly 900 people on the MHA email list and they all continue to grow. All the information that’s available about the MHA is also at the MHA’s website: www.midwesternhistory.com Again, if you have ideas for additional outreach, please let us know.
To Donate: If you feel that you could share some of your resources and help the MHA to grow, please send a check to Professor Robert Morrissey, Treasurer—Midwestern History Association, Department of History, University of Illinois-Urbana, 309 Gregory Hall, 810 S. Wright Street, M/C 466, Urbana, IL 61801.
Thanks again for all of your support of the MHA. Your suggestions for additional MHA projects and outreach are always welcome. Jon Lauck
ADDENDUM 1:
2015 Nominees for the Jon Gjerde Prize for Best Book on Midwestern History Published in 2014:
J. L. Anderson, ed., The Rural Midwest since World War II (Northern Illinois University); Daniel P. Barr, A Colony Sprung from Hell: Pittsburgh and the Struggle for Authority on the Western Pennsylvania Frontier, 1744-1794 (Kent State University); Martha Bergland and Paul G. Hayes, eds., Studying Wisconsin: The Life of Increase Lapham, An Early Chronicler of Plants, Rivers, Rocks, Mounds and All Things Wisconsin (Wisconsin Historical Society); Brenda J. Child, My Grandfather's Knocking Sticks: Ojibwe Family Life and Labor on the Reservation (Minnesota Historical Society); Linda M. Clemmons, Conflicted Mission: Faith, Disputes, and Deception on the Dakota Frontier (Minnesota Historical Society); Barbara L. Floyd, The Glass City: Toledo and the Industry That It Built (University of Michigan); Auvo Kostiainen, ed., A History of Settlement, Dissent, and Integration: Finns in the United States (Michigan State University); Patty Loew, Seventh Generation Early Ethics: Native Voices of Wisconsin (Wisconsin Historical Society); John E. Miller, Small-Town Dreams: Stories of Midwestern Boys Who Shaped America (University Press of Kansas); William F. Moore and Jane Ann Moore, Collaborators for Emancipation: Abraham Lincoln and Owen Lovejoy (University of Illinois); William Patrick O’Brien, Merchants of Independence: International Trade on the Santa Fe Trail, 1827-1860 (Truman State University); Lisa Westberg Peters, Fractured Land: The Price of Inheriting Oil (Minnesota Historical Society); Pamela Riney-Kehrberg, The Nature of Childhood: An Environmental History of Growing Up in America since 1865 (University Press of Kansas); Lori Sturdevant, Her Honor Rosalie Wahl and The Minnesota Women's Movement (Minnesota Historical Society); Stephen E. Towne, Surveillance and Spies in the Civil War: Exposing Confederate Conspiracies in America's Heartland (Ohio University); Mark W. Weber and Stephen H. Paschen, Side by Side: Alice and Stoughton Lynd, The Ohio Years (Kent State University); Allen Stuart Weller, Lorado Taft: The Chicago Years (University of Illinois)
ADDENDUM 2:
2015 Nominees for the Dorothy Schwieder Prize for Best Article on Midwestern History Published in 2014:
Katharine Bjork, “Prairie Imperialists: The Bureau of Insular Affairs and Continuities in Colonial Expansion from Nebraska to Cuba and the Philippines,” Nebraska History 95:4 (Winter 2014): 216-229
John Byczynski, “My Father's Past, My Children's Future: Agrarian Identity and a Powerline in Minnesota, 1974-1980,” Agricultural History 88:3 (Summer 2014): 313-335
John Fraire, “Mexicans Playing Baseball in Indiana Harbor, 1925-1942,” Indiana Magazine of History 110:2 (June 2014), 120-145
John Craig Hammond, “’The Most Free of Free States’: Politics, Slavery, Race, and Regional Identity in Early Ohio, 1790-1820,” Ohio History vol. 121 (2014)
Suellen Hoy, “Chicago Working Women's Struggle for a Shorter Day, 1908-1911,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 107:1 (Spring 2014)
Kelly Marie Kennington, “Law, Geography, and Mobility: Suing for Freedom in Antebellum St. Louis,” Journal of Southern History 80 (August 2014): 575-604
Doug Kiel, “Untaming the Mild Frontier: In Search of New Midwestern Histories,” Middle West Review, vol. 1, no. 1 (Fall 2014): 9-38
Rosalyn LaPier and David R. M. Beck, “A ‘one-man relocation team’: Scott Henry Peters and American Indian Urban Migration in the 1930s,” Western Historical Quarterly vol. 45 (Spring 2014): 17-36
Rebecca Mead, “The Kawbawgum Cases: Native Claims and the Discovery of Iron in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan,” Michigan Historical Review 40:2 (Fall 2014)
Andy Oler, “’Their Song Filled the Whole Night’: Not Without Laughter, Hinterland Jazz, and Rural Modernity,” College Literature 41:4 (Fall 2014)
Daniel Ott, “Producing a Past: McCormick Harvester and Producer Populists in the 1980s,” Agricultural History 88:1 (Winter 2014): 87-119
William C. Pratt, “Observations from My Life with Farm Movements in the Upper Midwest,” South Dakota History 44:2 (Summer 2014): 140-62
Shari Rabin, “‘A Nest to the Wandering Bird’: Iowa and the Creation of American Judaism, 1855–1877,” Annals of Iowa 73, no.2 (Spring 2014), 101–27
Emily Remus, “Tippling Ladies and the Making of Consumer Culture: Gender and Public Space in Fin- de-Siecle Chicago,” Journal of American History 101:3 (Dec. 2014)
Gregory Schneider, “Saving a Piece of the Rock,” Annals of Iowa 73:4 (Fall 2014): 348-72
Kathryn Ann Schumaker, “Investing in Segregation: The Long Struggle for Racial Equity in Cairo, Illinois, Public Schools,” Ohio Valley History 14:3 (Fall 2014)
Eric Steven Zimmer, “Settlement Sovereignty: The Meskwaki Fight for Self-Governance, 1856–1937,” Annals of Iowa 73, no. 4 (Fall 2014): 311–47
ADDENDUM 3:
Alice Smith Prize
2015 Alice Smith Prize Committee Chair: Aaron Shapiro, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
The Midwestern History Association invites nominations for the inaugural Alice Smith Prize in Public History. Named after thedirector of research at the Wisconsin Historical Society from 1947 to 1965 who authored six books and numerous articles on the state's history, the prize honors a public history project completed in the previous calendar year (2014) that contributes to broader public reflection and appreciation of the region’s past. For purposes of the award, “the Midwest” includes the twelve states of the region as defined by the US Census: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.
Projects by individuals, groups, community organizations, businesses, or other organizations or work done in support of such projects may be nominated. Projects may include, but are not limited to the following areas: Media, Exhibits, Public Programs or Written Works (such as research reports, brochures, working papers, or historical fiction) that broaden public history understanding. Non-fiction books and journal articles are not eligible for this award.
Nominations must include name and contact information of project participants along with appropriate materials documenting the project. For consideration, please submit nomination and materials to Aaron Shapiro, Chair, Smith Prize Committee at [email protected] or via mail at Department of History, UNC Charlotte, 9201 University City Blvd., Charlotte, NC 28223.
Deadline for submissions: 15 September 2015
ADDENDUM 4:
Hamlin Garland Prize for Popular Midwestern History
2015 Hamlin Garland Prize Committee Chair: Kristin Mapel Bloomberg, Hamline University
The Midwestern History Association invites nominations for the inaugural Hamlin Garland Prize in Popular History. The prize is named after the Midwestern writer Hamlin Garland, a product of Wisconsin, Iowa, and South Dakota who sought to promote writing about his home region and published widely in popular outlets. His many books include Daughter of the Middle Border, which won the Pultizer Prize in 1922.
The Garland Prize honors a work of popular history about the Midwest published in the previous calendar year (2014) that contributes to broader public reflection and appreciation of the region’s past. For purposes of the award, “the Midwest” includes the twelve states of the region as defined by the US Census: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. Works of popular history eligible for the prize may include, but are not limited to, articles in popular history magazines and journals, feature stories in magazines and newspapers, and books written for a broad public audience.
Nominations must include the name and contact information of the nominated work’s author and three copies of the work nominated. For consideration, please submit nomination and accompanying materials to Professor Kristin Mapel Bloomberg, Chair, Garland Prize Committee at [email protected] or via mail at Manor Hall 33B, PO Box 158, 1536 Hewitt Avenue, St. Paul, Minnesota, 55104.
Deadline for submissions: 1 October 2015
ADDENDUM 5:
H-Midwest Has Been Approved
On July 1, 2015, H-Net Council voted to decommission H-Illinois and several other networks dedicated to the study of the history and culture of Midwestern US states, due to lack of activity. Council also approved a plan to create a new network, H-Midwest, dedicated to Midwestern Studies. Subscribers to H-Illinois will be automatically merged into H-Midwest when it is created.
Midwestern Studies is a relatively new and growing field with much infrastructure still to be built. H- Midwest is an exciting opportunity for H-Net and scholars of Midwestern Studies to help build this significant new resource. The full range of H-Net capabilities will allow H-Midwest to provide a central gathering place for resources, publications, and communication among scholars of Midwestern history, literature, folklore, foodways, geographies, economics, sociology, material culture, political science, and other disciplines in the dynamic field.
We are assembling a multi-disciplinary team of editors and contributors to produce a range of online open access publications. These will include periodic roundtable discussions around issues in Midwestern Studies, such as "Why Midwestern Studies?" and "Midwestern Gender." H-Midwest will also host a peer-reviewed, open-access journal for Midwestern Studies. Building from what already exists on H-Net's Midwestern state networks, H-Midwest will be a clearinghouse for information and resources, including teaching resource centers, news from the many historical societies and archives in the region, and academic announcements. H-Midwest will embrace the diversity of the Midwest region itself, remembering "the heartland" is not all farms, not all white people, not all frozen, and not all "nice."
If you are interested in building the field of Midwestern Studies at H-Midwest as an editor, contributor, peer reviewer, or book reviewer, please contact Patrick Cox, H-Net Vice-President for Networks, at [email protected].
ADDENDUM 6:
CALL FOR CHAPTERS: MIDWEST/GREAT PLAINS BOOK
Proposals Sought for New Book on Midwest/Great Plains Debate
The Center for Western Studies seeks chapter proposals for "In Search of the Interior Borderlands: Where Does the Midwest End and the Great Plains Begin?,” an edited collection focused on exploring the dividing line, or imagined dividing line, between two of the nation’s understudied regions: the American Midwest and the Great Plains.
This interior border has yet to become a significant point of discussion in the broader movement to analyze the borderlands of the United States and this volume is designed to advance the discussion in this direction.
Proposals should explain the author’s general approach to the topic and include the sources to be consulted as well as the author’s curriculum vitae. Topics to be explored include, but are by no means limited to, historical understandings of the Midwest/Great Plains dividing line; the geographical and topographical approaches to designating a dividing line; literary or other cultural understandings of a dividing line; analyses of the regionalist thought and practices which have contributed to belief in a dividing line; agricultural practices which help explain the dividing line; environmental factors such as rainfall, glaciation, river development, and grasses which help to delineate a dividing line; historic and more recent discussions of the taxonomy of American regions, especially the real and imagined boundaries between the Midwest, the Great Plains, and the West; the understandings of Native Americans, American settlers, immigrants, political leaders, environmentalists, geographers, political scientists, and others which help explain the dividing line.
Chapter proposals will be due November 20, 2015. If a proposal is accepted, the author’s chapter will be dueOctober 21, 2016. Final chapters should be approximately 5,000 words, including notes, and in Chicago style. All proposals should be sent to Harry Thompson, Executive Director of the Center for Western Studies. The editor of the collection will be Jon K. Lauck, President of the Midwestern History Association. The edited collection will be published by the Center for Western Studies. http://www.augie.edu/center-western-studies/publishing/proposals-sought-new- book-on-midwestgreat-plains-debate
ADDENDUM 7:
Performing the Midwest: What of the Myth Sponsored by the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature at the 2016 Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association Monday-Friday, March 21-25, 2016 Seattle, Washington Please send abstract of 250-300 words for paper proposal, creative performance, or roundtable discussion to Mary Catherine Harper, Defiance College. [email protected] Deadline: October 1, 2015 The Midwest is a complicated place. The mythos of an idyllic agricultural place supporting the grounded lifestyle, productivity, prosperity, and neighborly ways of its people has been foundational to the Midwest. This place in the middle has also produced a wide range of counter-narratives and ironic perspectives. What does “Midwestern mythos” mean today? To what extent does the myth continue to influence or to complicate and vex life in the Midwest? What attitudes and behaviors can be considered “Midwestern” today? And what does it mean to perform the attitudes, behaviors, narratives, counter-narratives, and perspectives of the Midwest? We welcome creative literary performances of this mythic place as it exists today, as well as scholarly interrogations of its expression in film, literature, music, art, religion, technology, or the media. How would you respond to the idea of the Midwest as a mythic space where the natural order supports the social order?
ADDENDUM 8: African Americans in the Nineteenth Century West Symposium, May 2016, St. Louis University
We are organizing a symposium titled African Americans in the Nineteenth-Century West, to be held at Saint Louis University, May 20-22, 2016. We are inviting scholars who focus on the western African American experience in the long nineteenth century. Our list of participants includes senior scholars, junior colleagues, and public historians. Quintard Taylor, Jr., Scott and Dorothy Bullitt Professor of American History at the University of Washington, will present the keynote address. Dr. Taylor is one of the pioneers of African American western history. Lynne Jackson, a local activist and also a direct descendant of Dred Scott, will speak at the end of the conference. The principal purpose of the symposium, however, is twofold: first, to present exciting new research in the emerging field of African American history in the western United States, and second, to strengthen creative and mutually beneficial connections between Saint Louis University and the wider community, particularly with St. Louis City teachers.
At the 2015 Organization of American Historians annual meeting held in St. Louis, a substantial, provocative, and fruitful discussion arose about the present-day place of race in St. Louis and its historical antecedents. Yet historians and educators often overlook the field of nineteenth-century black western and Midwestern history, and pay much more attention to the nineteenth-century South and the twentieth century West and Midwest. Nevertheless, research into the African-American experience in the West has become a growing field that helps us better understand African American history as a whole. The time has come to foreground this exciting new work in a scholarly conference solely dedicated to this topic. It is also our hope that the symposium will help engage with some of the issues surrounding race and power that are increasingly relevant in our region, particularly with the deaths of Michael Brown and VonDerrit Myers, Jr., in the St. Louis area and Tamir Rice in Cleveland. While the core theme of the research papers presented at the symposium will focus on the nineteenth century, we believe that an engagement with the African American experience in the West will bring light and understanding to the issues of racial divisions and activism in the western United States.
In order to support that effort, we will invite members of the wider St. Louis community to the keynote address. The audience will include, in addition to faculty and students from St. Louis area universities, senior citizens, students, teachers, local clergy – in short, anyone interested in the lives and experiences of African Americans in the nineteenth-century West. The community will be invited to the keynote address and to Lynne Jackson’s presentation. Teachers will be encouraged to participate in all aspects of the symposium, and will participate in a special workshop designed to link the symposium presentations to their pedagogical work.
During this workshop, teachers will also analyze primary source documents submitted by conference participants, create lesson plans, and discuss ways of bringing material from the symposium into the classroom. Silvana Siddali, one of the conference organizers, has run many such workshops in recent years, both in St. Louis City and County schools, and will work with local educators and administrators to organize and run the workshop.
There are several other important benefits to consider. First, service to the community is a significant aspect of Saint Louis University’s Jesuit mission. Our symposium will build on the university-wide discussions on race and inclusion, beginning with the diversity speakers series earlier this year, which included the “Race and Expression” symposium held in April and hosted by the Walter J. Ong, S. J. Center.
Second, given SLU's Catholic worldview, as well as the religious focus of Trinity Christian College, the organizers consider it of vital importance to include religious history as part of the symposium. Third, our symposium can play a significant role in attracting students, both undergrad and graduate, to a university that is prioritizing the area of African American history. Fourth, this symposium represents a collaboration between a Catholic university, a small Christian liberal arts college, several large secular universities, and a Historically Black State University. And finally, our symposium will reach out to St. Louis City teachers, to encourage them to participate in and contribute to a conversation that brings together a community of scholars, educators, and learners.
Speakers:
Reynaldo Anderson, Harris-Stowe State University
David Brodnax, Sr., Trinity Christian College Marne Campbell, Loyola Marymount University
Sundiata Cha-Jua, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Anna-Lisa Grace Cox, Harvard University
Victoria Harrison, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville
Nathan Jérémie-Brink, Loyola University, Chicago
Diane Mutti Burke, University of Missouri-Kansas City
Silvana R. Siddali, Saint Louis University
Stacey Smith, Oregon State University
Nikki Taylor, Texas State University
Dana Elizabeth Weiner, Wilfrid-Laurier University
Fay Yarbrough, Rice University
ADDENDUM 9:
Writing the Midwest: A Symposium of Scholars and Creative Writers 46th Annual Conference of The Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature June 2–4, 2016 (Thursday–Saturday) Kellogg Hotel and Conference Center, Michigan State University
We welcome proposals for individual papers, panels, and roundtables on Midwestern literature, and reading of original creative work with a Midwestern emphasis.
Proposals: Due no later than Friday, January 29, 2016 to Scott Emmert, SSML program chair, [email protected]. Proposals should include the following:
1) contact information: name, surface mailing address, email address, phone number, and institutional affiliation (or home town) for the conference badge. 2) proposal details: Provide the title of your proposed paper. New participants should include an abstract of no more than 150 words for critical papers or a brief description of creative work. Students should indicate whether they wish to be considered for a Wydeven scholarship.
3) equipment requests: Please indicate any requests for audiovisual equipment, but please note that in order to budget for such equipment, which must be rented, presenters must indicate their needs with the proposal. We can provide PC-compatible data projectors suitable to display content on a laptop, but presenters must supply their own laptops, and Mac users must bring the proper connectors. For internet captures, there is connectivity throughout the Kellogg Center. If additional equipment is desired, we can rent it for you at cost, or you can bring your own. Late requests will incur costs if additional equipment must be rented.
4) restrictions: Please indicate any scheduling restrictions along with your proposal.
ADDENDUM 10:
Subject: Civil War Study Group Symposium, September 19, 2015
The sesquicentennial of the Civil War captured the imagination of many in the media, public, and historical profession over the past five years. The 150th anniversary of Reconstruction is unlikely to receive as much attention, as the peace settlement does not enjoy the popularity of the war. Yet the era presents us with opportunities to engage questions about race, politics, social and cultural change, the role of government, gender, economics, armed and unarmed resistance to the law, and terrorism in ways that are directly relevant to our own time.
With this in mind, please plan to join the Civil War Study Group in its Eighth Annual Symposium, "The Consequences of the Civil War," on Saturday, September 19, 2015, at the University of Indianapolis.
Mark Wahlgren Summers (University of Kentucky), author of the acclaimed book, The Ordeal of the Reunion, will start the day by discussing why Reconstruction, seen as a failure in later generations, was judged a success within the context of the time. A. James Fuller (University of Indianapolis), biographer of Oliver P. Morton, will tell the story of how Indiana's Senator saw Reconstruction as a continuation of the rebellion and famously waved the bloody shirt against his political foes. At lunch, Anne E. Marshall (Mississippi State University) will look back at her book, Creating a Confederate Kentucky, and offer her thoughts on its impact and reception. A. Glenn Crothers (University of Louisville) will explain how Quaker abolitionists in Virginia turned away from African Americans to address the issues of Native Americans during the 1870s. Krista Kinslow (Boston University) will take us to the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia where the nation's celebration of the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution actually focused on the Civil War, as the contested politics of Reconstruction shaped historical memory and commemoration.
You are invited to join the group for a day of intellectual exchange and engagement in a cordial setting as we study how the Civil War turned out and the ways in which its legacies still speak to us in the early 21st Century. Registration: $25. For questions or to register, contact James Fuller via e-mail at [email protected].
A. James Fuller, Ph.D. Professor of History Chair, Indiana Council for History Education (ICHE) Department of History and Political Science University of Indianapolis 1400 East Hanna Avenue Indianapolis, Indiana 46227 (317) 788-2190
ADDENDUM 11:
Call for Papers and Sessions
Battleground Midwest
DEFINING WHO AND WHAT MATTERS IN THE U.S. AND BEYOND
Mid-America American Studies Association 2016 Conference
Friday, Saturday, March 4-5, 2016 University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS
The major issues of the 21st century are being fought in the backyards of the Midwest, the geographical U.S. center. Since the last gathering of the Mid-America American Studies Association, this region has drawn international attention and mass organization around Ferguson, Missouri, police brutality, and varied forms of structured violence; unequal taxation and declining school districts; a rise in poverty among the urban, suburban, and rural populations; union busting and ruthless assaults on public education; immigration and human trafficking; religious freedom, academic intellectual censorship; women’s and LGBTQ rights and protections; and growing hunger and deprivation that do not discriminate between Native American, African American, Latina/o, and white children. The Midwest has become the political battleground for policies, rhetoric, and practices that are shifting definitions of who and what matters in the U.S. and beyond: who eats, who starves; who learns, who fails; what flourishes, what is abandoned. These are not just regional phenomena. There are indicators of where, as a society, we are headed. These trends indicate the direction of our humanity.
Students, as well as new and established scholars, have a responsibility to explore and understand the conditions of the region, its parts, and its people. We have the responsibility to articulate how this U.S. geographical center interacts and connects with people, places, and circumstances within the U.S. and beyond and across borders. We share the responsibility to act, to aggressively and openly define who and what matters. We must choose to engage as scholars, collectively and in our respective communities. Together, as part of this regional association, we can rotate policies, shift rhetoric, and curb practices that hinder humanity in the Midwest and, without intervention, will further diminish it everywhere.
MAASA welcomes papers, proposed panels, roundtables, poster sessions, and other session formats from students, faculty, and activists. Adherence to the 2016 theme is encouraged but not required. All paper and session topics will be considered.
Please send queries and submit 1-2 page paper abstracts and proposed panel, roundtable, poster and other sessions by November 1, 2015
MHA proposals for the Western Historical Association Annual Conference, St. Paul 2016
Panel Discussion: The State of American Regional Studies
The basic nature of Western history presupposes some level of regionality, or the recognition of the value of the study of history with the specific nuances of a region in mind. The same assumptions undergird long-standing fields such as New England Studies and Southern History and more recent upstarts such as Midwestern History, Arctic Studies, and Appalachian Studies. This panel, which will be chaired by the president of the Organization of American Historians, will delve into the health of these various fields in an age when regional thinking and analysis is generally thought to be in abeyance.
Chair: Jon Butler, Yale University/President Organization of American Historians
Panelists: Dona Brown, New England Studies David Rich Lewis, Western History Vernon Burton, Southern History Jon Lauck, Midwestern History Ross Coen, Northern/Arctic Studies Phil Obermiller, Appalachian Studies
Dona Brown is professor and director of the graduate studies program for the department of history at the University of Vermont. She came to UVM in 1994 after having earned her Ph. D. at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Her first book, Inventing New England: Regional Tourism in the Nineteenth Century (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995), explored the significance of the tourist trade in creating an enduring image of New England. She has also published a number of articles on the history of tourism and regionalism, and is the editor of a collection of nineteenth-century tourist stories (A Tourist’s New England: Travel Fiction, 1820-1920). Her second book is Back to the Land: The Enduring Dream of Self-Sufficiency in Modern America (University of Wisconsin Press, 2011). For that book, she took a break from her focus on local and regional history, looking as far afield as California and New Jersey for her stories. She is still interested in local and regional history, however: most recently, she published “The Landscape of Self-Sufficiency: New England Farms and the Back-to-the-Land Movement of the 1930s,” in New England: A Landscape History (MIT Press, 2011), and she is currently working on several projects involving the history of agriculture in northern New England. She teaches courses in United States cultural history, New England history, and Vermont history. Many of her courses are cross-listed with the Vermont Studies program, and she was director of the Center for Research on Vermont from 2003 to 2006.
David Rich Lewis is professor of history at Utah State University and has been part of the editorial team of the Western Historical Quarterly since 1992, including the journal’s editor since 2003. He earned his PhD in American history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1988, and has published widely on the history of contemporary Native American environmental issues, economic development, sovereignty, and identity. He is currently at work, as general editor on a new college-level Utah history textbook.
Orville Vernon Burton is Creativity Professor of Humanities, Professor of History, Sociology, and Computer Science at Clemson University, and the Director of the Clemson CyberInstitute. From 2008-2010, he was the Burroughs Distinguished Professor of Southern History and Culture at Coastal Carolina University. A recognized expert on race relations and the American South, and a leader in Digital Humanities, Burton is often invited to present lectures, conduct workshops, and consult with colleges, universities, and granting agencies. Burton's research and teaching interests include the American South, especially race relations and community, and the intersection of humanities and social sciences. He has served as president of the Southern Historical Association and of the Agricultural History Society.
Jon K. Lauck received his Ph.D. in economic history from the University of Iowa and his law degree from the University of Minnesota. Lauck is the author of American Agriculture and the Problem of Monopoly: The Political Economy of Grain Belt Farming, 1953-1980 (University of Nebraska Press, 2000), Daschle v. Thune: Anatomy of a High Plains Senate Race (University of Oklahoma Press, 2007), and Prairie Republic: The Political Culture of Dakota Territory, 1879-1889 (University of Oklahoma Press, 2010) and co-author and co-editor of The Plains Political Tradition: Essays on South Dakota Political Culture (South Dakota State Historical Society Press, 2011) and The Plains Political Tradition vol. 2 (South Dakota State Historical Society Press, 2014). Lauck’s newest book is The Lost Region: Toward a Revival of Midwestern History (University of Iowa Press, 2013). Lauck has worked for several years as a full-time professor, a part-time professor, and a lawyer and is currently serving as an adjunct professor of history and political science at the University of South Dakota, as the Associate Editor and Book Review Editor of Middle West Review, as the series editor of Studies in Midwestern History, and as president of the Midwestern History Association.
Ross Coen is a PhD candidate in History at the University of Washington where he studies the intersections of politics, technology, and environment in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century North American West. His dissertation focuses on a cultural and scientific history of North Pacific salmon fisheries from 1880 to 1960. He holds an MA in Northern Studies from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He is the author of three books, including Breaking Ice for Arctic Oil, a history of circumpolar marine oil transportation, and his published work has appeared in Pacific Northwest Quarterly, The Northern Review, Alaska History, Alaska Magazine, and other publications.
Phil Obermiller is the past president of the Appalachian Studies Association, a senior visiting scholar in the School of Planning at the University of Cincinnati, a fellow at the University of Kentucky’s Appalachian Center, and a member of the Urban Appalachian Council’s Research Committee. Obermiller is coauthor of African Miners and Migrants: The Eastern Kentucky Social Club (Illinois, 2004) and coeditor of Appalachian Health and Well Being (Kentucky, 2012). He also coauthored Valuing Our Past, Creating Our Future: The Founding of the Urban Appalachian Council (Berea, 1999) which won a public history Award of Achievement from the Ohio Association of Historical Societies and Museums and he wrote the chapter on the history of migration in High Mountains Rising: Appalachia in Time and Place (Illinois, 2004). Most recently, Obermiller coauthored the article "'Civilians Came Second': The Impact of World War II Defense Plants on African American and Appalachian Neighborhoods in Pittsburgh and Cincinnati" (Appalachian Journal, 41, 2014).
Public History in the American Midwest
During the beginning decades of formal history inquiry in the American Midwest there was a close cooperative relationship between historians and institutions of public history, perhaps best exemplified by the cooperation between Frederick Jackson Turner and the Wisconsin Historical Society. As has often been noted, the separation between historians and public history became too wide in the later twentieth century. This panel will feature historians who are thinking of new ways for historians to embrace and promote public history in the American Midwest.
Chair: Jon Lauck, Midwestern History Association
Panelists: Jay Price, Wichita State University David R. McMahon, Kirkwood College Jon E. Taylor, University of Central Missouri Chris Cantwell, University of Missouri-Kansas City
“History in Plains Sight: The Opportunities and Challenges of Public History in Kansas,” Jay Price, Wichita State University
Practicing public history in a state like Kansas provides its own challenges and opportunities. The decentralized nature of the state, with the county historical society as the main outlet for local history, spreads out resources and can prove a challenge to coordinating efforts. Meanwhile, state government faces continued pressure to cut costs and limited expenses, limiting particularly the role that institutions such as the Kansas Historical Society can play. Moreover, demographic shifts such as rural depopulation and the growth of a substantial Latino population result in a tension between beloved historic narratives and current audiences. That said, efforts have emerged to help address this, including efforts on the part of college and university public history programs working together as well as larger conversations involving stakeholders in local history, preservation, museums, genealogy, archives, libraries, and public humanities.
“Public History and the Community College Professor,” David R. McMahon, Kirkwood College
This presentation will draw upon one scholar’s experience doing public history in the Midwest as a community college professor. From an early experience working for the National Park Service in Indiana to teaching at a community college in Iowa, Professor McMahon’s eclectic pursuits have led him to think deeply about the role of public history in the Midwest. His experience includes scholarly collaborations, organizing public forums, writing and/or contributing to exhibits, serving on commissions, boards and committees, and lecturing in public. He believes a critical nostalgia for the Midwest can inspire scholarship and foster greater connection to the community. “Finding Public History Scholarship in the Midwest,” Jon E. Taylor, University of Central Missouri Public history has been a challenging term to define and even made more difficult by the fact that the Midwest as a region has been often overlooked as a place where any significant events in “history” actually occurred. This presentation will seek to contextualize and synthesize the public history scholarship that has been written about the Midwest and will offer suggestions about further research into the importance of public history and how it has been practiced in the Midwest.
“From Gown to Town: Urban Public History in the American Midwest,” Chris Cantwell, University of Missouri- Kansas City
Though often portrayed as a land of bucolic simplicity, the Midwest is home to some of the nation's largest cities. Cleveland, Chicago, Milwaukee, Kansas City, and Minneapolis have all been vital in shaping America's heartland. Beyond these major metropoles, the region is dotted with an even greater number of factory towns that has made strands of the Midwest experience a distinctly urban one. But the history of such spaces are often considered the domain of urban history, suggesting that Chicago has more in common with New York than with Rock Island. This paper will discuss the challenges of doing urban public history in the American Midwest. Drawing upon his experience doing projects in Chicago and Kansas City, the presenter will discuss projects that challenge both scholars and the general public to see these communities as part of an integrated broader region, and not insular communities amongst themselves.
Expanding Horizons of (Mid-) Western History and Identity: Confronting the Past and Present through Public History and Memory
Historians are revisiting the importance of the American Middle West, raising questions about its distinctiveness as a region, its relationship to other parts of the country, and its relevance as a place grappling with some of the most critical issues facing the US today. These include race relations, immigration, and human trafficking. The papers in this panel, which originated in response to present-day issues and debates in our communities, examine the diversity and complexity of the Midwestern past as well as the ways in which issues of race, sexuality, and historical memory continue to cast a long shadow in the present-day. The projects examine the complicated efforts to recover, promote, and marry the long-overlooked African American history of Iowa’s second largest city with other historical narratives in the city’s memories and museums; the nature of the illicit sex industry and human trafficking occurring in North Dakota’s oil boom towns; and the contentious effort to return the name of South Dakota’s Harney Peak, the highest peak in eastern North America, to its original Lakota name, Hinhan Kaga. Our projects are explicitly public in nature, situated at the intersection of scholarly research and public history and seeking to broaden the horizons of (Mid)western history—and contentious and difficult histories in general—by engaging various publics with what it means to be Midwestern and to have complex and diverse Midwestern pasts and presents. Our projects grapple with the uses of history and the power of the past to expand horizons and inform contentious public debates in the present-day Midwest.
Abstract for Paper Panelist 1
“Our stories do not meet but are not isolated from one another”: Race and Ethnicity in the Public History and Memory of Cedar Rapids, Iowa Brie Swenson Arnold, Coe College
In the late nineteenth century, the rapid growth of some of the world’s largest grain and meatpacking plants brought an influx of diverse peoples to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, making the city more racially and ethnically diverse than many other Midwestern locales. Native-born black and white American migrants as well as Irish, German, Swedish, Syrian, Lebanese, and particularly Bohemian immigrants interacted in complicated ways once they settled in Cedar Rapids. While the foreign immigration history of Iowa’s second largest city looms large in its public history, memory, and tourism, the African American history of the community has been more obscured. Recent scholarly research, undergraduate classroom research initiatives, and collaborations with the African American Museum of Iowa to develop historical tours have begun the process of documenting and promoting that rich history. Yet during this process significant questions emerged about the extent to which narratives and memories of Cedar Rapids’ past—and arguably also its present—remain fragmented, focusing on single-group narratives and individual aspects of Midwestern identity. Although historically the lives and experiences of African Americans and immigrants overlapped significantly in Cedar Rapids, in the present day, area museums, monuments, and memories rarely link the stories of Cedar Rapids’ many Czech and Slovak immigrants, native-born white “pioneers” and “founders,” and African American settlers. By examining both the historical experiences of Cedar Rapids’ black and immigrant communities as well as present-day narratives and tourism, this paper explores the ways in which better linking those historical narratives can be utilized in service of creating more inclusive and integrated communities in the present.
Abstract for Paper Panelist 2
Confronting an Uncomfortable Past: How History Can Be a Useful Tool in Combatting North Dakota’s 21st Century Sex Trafficking Crisis Dr. Nikki Berg Burin, University of North Dakota
North Dakota’s economic booms of the late 19th and early 21st centuries brought not only a rise in personal and state wealth, but also an upsurge in illicit commercial sex and human trafficking. Public discourse then and now points to a variety of factors contributing to this scourge, none so loathsome to the typical citizen commentator as mercenary outsiders whom they blame for bringing prostitution and sex trafficking into North Dakota. While there is some truth to these accusations, both past and present, the root of the problem lies much closer to home. Traffickers (home-grown and otherwise) ply their trade in North Dakota because there is a high demand within the state for illicit commercial sex with women and children. Citizens, lawmakers, and law enforcement officers have historically dealt with illicit commercial sex and sex trafficking by condemning and punishing prostitutes and prostituted individuals. Rarely did the state and its residents address in a meaningful way the demand for illicit commercial sex fueled by North Dakotans. A notable exception is North Dakota’s many W.C.T.U. chapters that advocated prevention through a problematic purity education program for children and mothers at the end of the 19th century. A modern purity education curriculum is not the solution for the current sex trafficking crisis in the state. However, if there is any hope of stemming the tide of sales in the bodies of women and children, North Dakotans must focus on prevention. It is tempting to place the blame for this problem entirely on troublesome outsiders, but to do so is inaccurate and unhelpful. Moreover, to ignore the demand coming from within the state’s borders in the past and present is to accept the sexual exploitation of women and children. North Dakotans’ preventative effort must begin with a hard look at themselves, their communities, and their collective and historical culpability for this ongoing problem. That history might be uncomfortable, but it provides answers about the root of the problem and it points us in the direction of a promising solution.
Abstract for Paper Panelist 3
When History (Almost) Moved a Mountain: Public Memory and the Battle over Hinhan Kaga Eric Steven Zimmer, University of Iowa
Controversial place names dot the American Midwest. In September 2014, an Oglala Lakota elder asked the State of South Dakota to rename Harney Peak, the highest mountain in the state and the tallest peak east of the Rocky Mountains to the Spanish Pyrenees. The mountain had been named for US Army General William Harney in the 1850s. Harney is a controversial figure for the violence he practiced against his enemies, including at the so-called Battle of Blue Water Creek in 1855, during which he ordered an attack that left eighty-six Lakota men, women, and children dead. This paper explores the role public historians and public memory have played in the so-far unsuccessful effort to rename Harney Peak to its original Lakota moniker, Hinhan Kaga. An initial research report on Harney’s actions—both on the battlefield and off—and legacies pushed the South Dakota Board of Geographic names to unanimously recommend changing Harney Peak to Hinhan Kaga in the spring of 2015. Immediately thereafter, members of the public and several state officials filled newspapers and public comment boxes with complaints that the proposed renaming was a “manifestation of the PC police” and “an effort to change history,” and begged the state to “leave well enough alone.” Other criticisms asked whether “the history should be left in the past” and questioned whose perspectives matter most in public places. This spurred a lively debate over the nature and names of spaces in the Midwest and elsewhere. Within a matter of weeks, the SD Board had reversed its decision in its final recommendation, asking the state not to change the name of Harney Peak. This paper will evaluate this process and ask scholars of public history and the Midwest to consider our roles in ongoing debates about regional history.
From French Voyageurs to the Farm Crisis: New Research on the Midwest (lightning round)
This “lighting round” panel introduces WHA members to a diverse sample of current research by members of the Midwestern History Association, expanding the geographical and topical reach of the WHA’s annual conference. There has been a resurgence of interest in the region in the past several years and this panel surveys a variety of topics, with a strong focus on social history. These subjects range from an analysis of the lives of Mississippi-born fur trade workers in the early 1800s (Nicole St-Onge, Ottawa University) to anti-Klan activism in Missouri in the 1920s (Sean Rost, University of Missouri) to the examination of the lives of children during the Farm Crisis (Pam Riney-Kehrberg, Iowa State). Other research involves a review of the importance of lighthouses for the Great Lakes (Theodore Karamanski, Loyola Chicago), a study of markets and communities in frontier Iowa (Jeff Bremer, Iowa State) and religious innovation in Gilded Age Kansas and Nebraska (Paul Putz, Baylor). Other panelists include a project on native women (Lucy Eldersveld Murphy, Ohio State) and an analysis of the environmental impact of federal water projects along the Missouri River (Maria Howe, Iowa State). This panel consists of junior and senior faculty, as well as graduate students, and includes presentations on a diversity of subfields, using a variety of methodologies. Each of the eight panelists will present a brief summary of their research in 3-4 minutes, with most time during the session reserved for a conversation between panelists and the audience.
Mississippi-Born French Voyageurs in the Missouri Basin Nicole St. Onge, Ottawa University
I am currently working on a research project dealing with Mississippi French voyageur brigades out of St. Louis MO (1825 – 1850) destined for the Upper Missouri country. Some of these fur trade engages had been previously hired out of Montreal. They simply happen to be in St. Louis when they were hired by the American Fur Company. But, quite a few of the men appear to be ‘Mississippi-born French’ . I am analyzing the latter both in terms of their background and of their post fur trade life histories. I want to see if and how the Mississippi French fur trade men life cycle differs from that of men hired out of the traditional Montreal area voyageur recruitment basin. This may give us further insight on Mississippi and Missouri French communities.
Navigating the Inland Seas Theodore J. Karamanski, Loyola University Chicago
The Great Lakes are one of the largest and most distinct features on the North American landscape. Since the 1600s they have played a determinate role in European-American settlement and economic development. The project that I propose to report on is titled “Navigating the Inland Seas.” It grows out an on-going public history project done in conjunction with the National Park Service. Part of the project is to inspect the physical integrity of many of these sites. Yet before “significance” of individual properties can be assessed the agency needs to have the broader context of regional history articulated in detail. That is the reason for writing “Navigating the Inland Seas.” The Park Service’s goal is to determine how Great Lakes navigation and navigation aids have shaped American history.
A Call to Citizenship: Anti-Klan Activism in Missouri’s “Little Dixie,” 1921-1928 Sean Rost, University of Missouri – Columbia
Scholars have long attempted to understand the 1920s Ku Klux Klan by examining locations where the Klan was powerful and influential in politics. While these works have revealed a great deal about the Klan, few scholars have analyzed communities with limited growth or rejection of the Klan. In attempting to provide a new methodological approach, my research analyzes anti-Klan activism in communities in Missouri’s “Little Dixie.” My dissertation argues that the Klan was not able to achieve the power in “Little Dixie” equivalent to that of neighboring Midwestern states due to the high level of anti-Klan activism in the region.
Children of the Crisis Pamela Riney-Kehrberg, Iowa State University
The farm crisis of the 1980s was one of the defining American moments of the late twentieth century. The Midwest’s farmers, long revered as the protectors of America’s agrarian heritage, saw economic reversals of a magnitude unseen since the Great Depression. The farmers hardest hit by the crisis tended to be young and heavily indebted, with children still at home. History tells us little, however, about what this experience mean to those youngest farm residents. While it may not be possible to answer all of these questions with the evidence currently available, it is possible to begin the discussion, and to suggest why the Farm Crisis presented a particularly difficult set of circumstances for the Midwest’s rural and farm children.
Religion, Community & the Prairie Paul Putz, Baylor University
In my dissertation I explore themes of religion and community formation in cities of the “prairie” Midwest – Omaha, Des Moines, Topeka – during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. I study the contested ways that Protestantism was used to address social problems in these rapidly developing cities, and the local and regional distinctives that made them conducive sites for religious innovation. My subjects of study include pastors, but also lay men and women: newspaper editors, laborers, businessmen, housewives. They sought to make religion applicable to local problems, but in the process transformed the shape of Protestantism in the region and the nation.
“Land Was the Main Basis for Business:” Markets and Communities in Frontier Iowa Jeff Bremer, Iowa State University
Families arrived in Iowa with the intent of producing a market surplus to allow them to buy land or improve their lives. Few fled west to avoid capitalism. As areas became more populated and transportation links improved— especially with railroads in the late 1850s and 1860s—furniture, kitchen goods, stoves, store-bought foods and even pianos became commonplace. But, market participation did not erode the community bonds that had helped Iowa families build their farms. Mutual aid helped both newcomers and more established households; it helped families build their farms and transition to greater market participation.
Native Women in the Midwest Lucy Eldersveld Murphy, Ohio State University
Two projects I am involved with focus on Native women’s experiences in the Midwest. One project examines the gendered nature of borderlands during the era of Indian Removal, and includes a look at tribal members who stayed behind, the refugees and resisters, in addition to members of mixed-ancestry families. Did Native women and men have different options and experiences during this difficult period? Another study considers oral histories of Native women with ties to Ohio taken down between 2004 and 2009 during a collaborative research project based at the OSU Newark Earthworks Center. What can we learn from their voices?
Managing the Missouri: Federal Water Projects, the Landscape and the Law Maria Howe--Iowa State University
Many associate water woes exclusively with the far West. This misconception creates a historiography fractured by regions and focused disproportionately on the arid West. In contrast, my dissertation studies three federal water projects across the Missouri River basin. It focuses on how these projects in the Trans-Mississippi West borderland affected the law and the landscape. I propose to introduce my research on an Iowa drainage district and a Missouri levee district. These projects illustrate the importance of adding the Midwest to discussions about water; the legal and environmental implications of moving water from one place to another; and the ways rivers have defined regions and our nation.
For God and Home and Native Land: The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union in the Middle West
Chair: Rachel Bohlmann, University of Notre Dame
“The Patriot’s First Duty: Nelle Burger and the Complexities of Americanism” -- Sean Rost, University of Missouri
“’We Seem Powerless to Stem the Tide at Present’: the Simultaneous Collapse of Prohibition and Dry Reform in South Dakota, 1930-1935” -- Charles Vollan, South Dakota State University
“New Frontiers in Old Bottles: The Untapped History of Post-Repeal W.C.T.U.” -- Janet Olson, Frances Willard Memorial Library & Archives
Commentators: Kristin Mapel Bloomberg, Hamline University and Rachel Bohlmann, University of Notre Dame
Proposal Abstract: Emerging from the Ohio temperance crusades of the 1870s, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union grew into a global organization by the early 20th Century while still very much centered in the American Midwest. Despite a general assumption that it was focused solely on temperance, the W.C.T.U. became one of the most influential reform organizations in American History because it engaged in a broad agenda that included political activity such as voting rights, law enforcement, and legislative lobbying as well as social reforms such as maternal care, child welfare, Christian education, and missionary work. With a focus on the central tenets of the organization and its’ ardent support for women’s rights and Prohibition, this panel examines the reform activities of the W.C.T.U. in the years following World War I and the enactment of the 18th Amendment. Sean Rost surveys the efforts of Nelle Burger and the W.C.T.U. to improve the lives of Missourians through legislation, education, and Americanization programs; while at the same time confronting growing concerns over “One Hundred Percent Americanism.” Charles Vollan argues that South Dakota W.C.T.U. lobbying determined the nature of state prohibition, but the resulting cultural changes left it unable to defend the policy and reduced its ability to advance its larger agenda in the state legislature. Finally, Janet Olson shows how, contrary to popular opinion, the W.C.T.U. did not run dry after Repeal; in fact it continued to undertake new campaigns, including a significant effort to make temperance education mandatory in United States public schools.
Paper Abstracts:
“The Patriot’s First Duty: Nelle Burger and the Complexities of Americanism” Presenter: Sean Rost, University of Missouri
This paper examines the efforts of Nelle Burger and the W.C.T.U. to improve the lives of Missourians through legislation, education, and Americanization programs; while at the same time confronting growing concerns over “One Hundred Percent Americanism” within the state. Though the W.C.T.U. and Burger (state president) cloaked many of their reform agendas in patriotic rhetoric and the need for Americanization, they did not embrace the growing influence of the Ku Klux Klan that emerged in the 1920s. Yet, despite a broad agenda aimed at all members of the state’s diverse population, an uneasy overlap existed between the W.C.T.U. and the K.K.K.
“‘We Seem Powerless to Stem the Tide at Present’: the Simultaneous Collapse of Prohibition and Dry Reform in South Dakota, 1930-1935” Presenter: Charles Vollan, South Dakota State University
As a result of a split between South Dakota’s W.C.T.U. and Anti-Saloon League, in 1917 the state adopted a “bone dry,” strict form of prohibition that went beyond voter wishes. Although South Dakota had a reputation as law abiding, the law proved unpopular and while drys maintained political power throughout most of the prohibition era, 1917-1933, they lost the cultural battle to wets while declining state revenues made enforcement seem a luxury. Even though wets in the state never organized, drys suddenly ceased to be a political force when national alcohol policy changed and they lost their ability to influence alcohol policy or any wider cultural and political agenda.
“New Frontiers in Old Bottles: The Untapped History of Post-Repeal W.C.T.U.” Presenter: Janet Olson, Frances Willard Memorial Library & Archives
Anyone working on American social movements knows about the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), from Frances Willard to the passage, failure, and repeal of Prohibition. But interest in the WCTU runs dry after the US went wet again, in 1933. However, the WCTU, headquartered until the 1990s in Evanston, lived on, and through the 1960s continued to gain membership as it adapted to changing needs. A prime example is the WCTU’s post- Repeal campaign to legislate education about alcohol, drugs, and smoking in American public schools. This paper, while focusing on the WCTU’s Scientific Temperance Education program—which is well documented in the Frances Willard Memorial Library and Archives—will also touch on the Willard Archives’ unexpected reserves of material for historians in fields well beyond the temperance movement.
Reclaiming the Middle Ground: The 20th-Century Midwest as a Forgotten Horizon in American History
Cory Haala, Marquette University Bryan Winston, St. Louis University Christopher Hommerding, University of Wisconsin-Madison Dr. Jon Lauck, Commenter
From the shores of Lake Michigan to the rolling prairies of the Dakotas, the Midwest, in the eyes of modern historians, has become a “Lost Region” of American history. Resigned to the parochial, stereotypical, or flyover, America west of Chicago and east of Denver is generally not associated with contentious historical debate. Yet that region challenges the dichotomies of modern American history in a way necessitating further study, an assertion this panel will explore across political, social, and cultural narratives. Cory Haala’s exploration of grassroots liberalism in the Reagan Revolution, Bryan Winston’s contextualization of Mexican-Americans’ self-identity and community, and Christopher Hommerding’s analysis of queer identity in small-town Wisconsin expose the permeability of standard boundaries in the modern Midwest. Breaking narratives of rural conservatism versus urban liberalism, highlighting ethnic institution-building across varied landscapes, and capturing how controversial topics like sexuality transcend rural-urban dichotomies, the varied histories of the Midwest prove how the region is itself a unique horizon of America. With the commentary of Dr. Jon Lauck, the President of the Midwestern History Association, this panel seeks to explore both the uniqueness of Midwestern history and the ways in which the Midwest’s challenge to traditional historical dichotomies brings it into conversation and contrast with Western history. We expect that not only the borders but also the narratives of the Midwest will spark scholarly debate as to where—if at all—the Midwest begins and the West ends. It is that precise challenge which makes this panel and region of scholarly inquiry particularly worthy of further attention within the field of Western history.
“Corn Belt Meets Sun Belt: The Persistence of Liberalism in the Reagan-Era Upper Midwest” Cory Haala Marquette University
Historiography of the United States amid the Reagan Revolution has emphasized the rise of the rural, religious right, especially across the Sun Belt through California, but so far north as to lead scholars to wonder what the manner with Kansas is. Such a view, however, emphasizes the rise of the modern suburban-rural conservative coalition, pitting inner cities against not just peripheries, but the entire remainder of their surrounding states. In the Midwest, however, the combination of economic catastrophes like the Farm Crisis of 1985-86 and the challenges facing blue- collar industries confused the traditional narrative of the rise of the New Right in America. In Minnesota, mining and foresting interests of the North Woods joined not just with urban liberals but southern farmers in grassroots liberal organizations (like the reformed Farmer-Labor Association) which gave rise to politicians like Paul Wellstone. In Iowa, flagging blue-collar industries from Keokuk to Newton found allies in the struggling farmers across the state to elect advocates like Tom Harkin. Similar results characterized Wisconsin, where labor politics in the state’s northwest rejoined with urban liberals in Madison and Milwaukee to challenge a staunch Republican hierarchy, eventually electing Herb Kohl to the Senate. All three states, coupled with Democratic revivals in the eastern Dakotas, represent the manner in which the Midwest, reminiscent of the Progressive and New Deal eras, transcends the typical rural-urban narrative of the Reagan Revolution. Beyond emphasizing the continuities of Midwestern liberalism through grassroots political and social mobilization, this presentation shows the manner in which the Midwest continues to break traditional scholarship pitting rural areas and suburbs against urban interests. In a unique, widespread, and especially persistent manner, the liberalism of the Midwest demonstrates how the region, especially as a political unit, should be studied as a unique region of modern America.
Mexicans in the Midwest Bryan Winston Saint Louis University
Scholarly research of Mexican migration to the central United States (the Midwest and Great Plains) has been limited, especially when compared to the American Southwest. My presentation will analyze Mexican migration to the Midwest during the first half of the twentieth century, revealing unique racial formations, migration patterns, and labor relations that are specific to the political, social, and economic circumstances of the region. I will use Mexican consul records, which address the economic and social concerns of Mexican nationals, and U.S. Border Patrol records from the region to demonstrate the daily life of Mexican migrants as they followed seasonal work and established long-lasting communities that still exist today, such as in Chicago, St. Paul, Kansas City, and Omaha. My construction of a social history curated from both Mexican and U.S. institutional records based in the Midwest will layer the actions of the Border Patrol in the interior, Mexican migration patterns, and Euro-American attitudes to illustrate unique institutional and racial formations that differ from other regions of the United States. Placing Mexican migrants in the context of Midwestern industries, institutions, and ethnic-diversity challenges both the narrative of Southwestern focused Mexican migration histories and a black-white dichotomy of racial understandings in the United States. A dynamic process of state building and identity formation developed in the Midwest as daily negotiations between Mexican migrants, Euro-Americans, employers, and government officials shaped a region that was not defined by the shared American-Mexican past of the Southwest or the ever-present national border.
“Blurring Boundaries: Using Small-Town Queer History to Decipher the Midwest” Chris Hommerding University of Wisconsin-Madison
The tiny sub-disciplines of Midwestern History and Queer History rarely intersect. Moreover, when these two streams of scholarship do meet, the junction is more often than not focused on issues of queerness in Midwestern cities. Instead, in an effort to better understand the breadth of the Midwestern past and to decipher what differentiates the region from other sections of the country, including the West, the paper I propose to present will look to queerness in rural spaces of the Midwest. More specifically, by looking at the lives of two queer men – Robert Neal and Edgar Hellum – who made their home together in small-town Wisconsin beginning in the 1930s, this paper will use the intersection of queerness with the rural landscape to suggest that what drives much of Midwestern history, as well as the question of the region’s unique character, is the permeability of its boundaries. For Neal and Hellum, for example, they were able to carve out a space for themselves and their business and preservation efforts in Mineral Point, Wisconsin due to the queer networks they were able to leverage for support. These networks extended throughout Wisconsin, the Midwest, and beyond and actually worked to blur the lines between rural and urban. Similarly, much of the question of what makes the Midwest and its history unique revolves around where precisely to draw the boundaries of the region. The difficulty in answering this question is rooted, this paper suggests, in the region’s permeability. By examining a microcosm of the queer history of the Midwest, then, this paper seeks to extrapolate one of the more defining characteristics of the Midwest and its history.