NEWSLETTER FOR ALUMNI AND FRIENDS, DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY, UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS, FAYETTEVILLE HISTORY NEWSLETTER ISSUE NO. XXXV, 2006-2007 tle, but also came to us since forgiven Dr. Pierce and promises very well fitted to teach to send him to the Ivory Coast just as labor history. Pierce soon as it can. earned his Ph.D. at the With the expertise he has devel- Ohio State University in oped in Arkansas history, Mike Pierce 1999, having written a seems poised to finally make good on dissertation on industrial David Y. Thomas’s call in the very first labor and American issue of the Arkansas Historical Quarterly Populism. That work has (1942) for “research in the history of developed into a meaty labor” in the state. He has already em- manuscript, “The Plow barked on a fascinating project centered and Hammer: Organized on Fort Smith. But even more than Labor, Farmers, and the that, colleagues look forward to Dr. Populist Party in Ohio,” Pierce and Tricia Starks doing the currently under consid- Sonny and Cher thing at department eration by a major schol- meetings. “Babe…..” arly press. He has pub- lished essays in Labor THE NEW TEAM History and Agricultural History, and in History of Dan Sutherland has an elaborate Law in Ohio (2004), ed- baseball analogy for what’s going on in Michael C. Pierce ited by Michael Les the History Department. It measures Benedict and John Winkler. Pierce co- various aspects of our professional lives edited, with Warren Van Tine, Builders of WE LIKE MIKE to the third decimal point, arriving Ohio: A Biographical History (2003), and co- ultimately at such statistics as Esoteric authored, with Van Tine, C.J. Slanicka, and Research Aptitude (ERA). Henry Tsai We’re not sure if the Department Sandra Jordan, In the Workers’ Interest: A His- has raised his own lofty metaphors upon has made an honest man of Michael tory of the Ohio A.F.L.-C.I.O., 1958-1998 Sutherland’s foundation, based upon Pierce or he’s made honest men and (1998). Have we mentioned he’s from the the intrinsic similarities of British histo- women of us. But Dr. Pierce, after Buckeye State? rians and Japanese pitchers. A lot of this some years of toiling in our vineyard, These labors have earned Dr. Pierce an has gone right over the steroid- will fetch his Savile Row suits out of enviable reputation in the field (as well as in beclouded head of the newsletter edi- mothballs and take off down the tenure the foundry.) Last summer, the tony St. tor. But we do know that, as several of track. He fills the Department’s new George Tucker Society invited him to talk to our Hall of Famers head toward the position in U.S. labor history. them about Tom Watson and organized la- locker room (and as David Chappell Since early in the century, Dr. bor. His essay on the subject, ‘The Socialist departs to take the George Steinbrenner Pierce has been our utility infielder, Have Opened Fire on Us’: Tom Watson’s chair of American history at the Univer- teaching sections of Arkansas history Fight against Trade Unionists in the Populist sity of Oklahoma), we have snagged both for history students and education Party,” will appear in the forthcoming vol- some of academe’s most promising majors, and the U.S. history survey. He ume, The Strange Career of Tom Watson: C. rookies. While our team will look a lot has more recently revived the essential Vann Woodward and His Agrarian Rebel, edited different than the one many alumni but long-dormant “America between the by David Moltke-Hansen and Sheldon Hack- knew, we can expect it to perform at Wars, 1917-1941.” Pierce has likewise ney. Pierce has also served as our man in the same championship level. been a stalwart since 2001 in the pro- Bolivia, dispatched there last spring by the Through the good offices of the duction of the Arkansas Historical Quar- U.S. Department of State’s Office of Public African-American Studies Program and terly, being the chief reason that journal Diplomacy to lecture on American populist the hard work of Dr. Charles Robinson, is not the same sort of disgrace that and labor movements. In the course of his the Department has been able to hire a History Newsletter has become. He also visit, Pierce, all aflush with visions of the full-time historian of sub-Saharan Af- served as associate director of the Ar- cooperative commonwealth, managed to rica. Presented with a field of excep- kansas Center for Oral and Visual His- persuade President Evo Morales to national- tional candidates, we selected Andrea tory between 2001 and 2003. ize Bolivia’s natural gas industry. Under- Arrington for the posting. She will fin- Pierce has clearly proved his met- standably miffed, the State Department has ish her PhD this spring at Emory Uni- Page 1 versity, having completed a dissertation grave-Macmillan, will bring out Turning Oscar Fendler Award for the best paper on an entitled “Turning Water into Gold: Points of the Irish Revolution: The British Govern- Arkansas or Southern history topic: Jessica Power, Culture, and Colonial Develop- ment, Intelligence, and the Cost of Indifference, Rogers; George W. Ray Memorial Award for ment around Victoria Falls, Zambia 1880 1912-1921, based on the dissertation Grob- the study of western civilization: Anna -1930.” Arrington comes to the Univer- Fitzgibbon completed at Duke last year. He Pfeifler; Robert E. Reeser Award for Classical sity of Arkansas laden with honors and has also published essays on intelligence and Studies: Kris Paul McNeely; J. Margaret experience. She has taught at Emory, terrorism in assorted journals and collec- Roberts Award awarded to an outstanding Clark Atlanta University, Reinhardt Col- tions. Over the past year, Dr. Grob- senior history major: Andrew Williams. lege, and Georgia State University, and Fitzgibbon has been a visiting assistant profes- The following senior history majors currently holds both a Mellon Teaching sor at Duke and has also taught at North received Certificates of Academic Excel- Fellowship and a Fulbright Research Carolina State University in Raleigh. lence for maintaining stratospheric grade Fellowship. We don’t know if she has as Each of our rookies will get the full back point averages: Kathryn Allen, Laura many pith helmets as Joel Gordon has -of-the-baseball-card treatment in next year’s Beall, Melanie Cawthorn, Clark Donat, fezzes, but her research has taken her History Newsletter. In the meantime, play ball! Valerie Farris, Haley Grogan, Cody to Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, a Hackett, Lana Hass, Douglas Herbert, number of West African nations, and Aric Kirk, Jennifer Koenig, Sophia 36TH ANNUAL AWARDS England. She speaks both Shona and Lafferty-Hess, Adam Lentz, Constance Tonga, so has no problem hailing cabs in AND INITIATION BANQUET Mash, Kris McNeely, Tristan Myers, New York City. David Powell, David Prater, Jessica Department members are still Given our sharp tongues and flirtatious Rogers, Grantland Rollins, Sarah Row- chuckling over our good fortune in being ways, it was altogether appropriate that the ley, Virginia Thompson, William Wat- able to recruit Calvin White before New Department assembled at Fayetteville’s Tart son, Heather Whelan, Carolyn Wise, York or Boston teams did. White earned House on May 4, 2006 for the 36th annual Robert Wubbena. a doctorate this spring at the University Phi Alpha Theta banquet. Yet faculty and Joining the fun was Phi Alpha of Mississippi but has already won con- friends were in a gentle (if exuberant) mood Theta’s distinguished lecturer for 2006, siderable recognition for his pioneering as we celebrated History’s best students and Dr. Pete Sigal of Duke University. Sigal, work on the Church of God in Christ, a gave David Sloan an affectionate heave-ho. the author from From Moon Goddesses to large and influential, but woefully under- Though Alpha chapter president Col. Virgins: The Colonization of Yucatecan Maya studied, Pentecostal denomination. His Derek Everett used the occasion to blatantly Sexual Desire (2000) and editor of Infa- dissertation, “They Danced and Shouted electioneer for a second term, Phi Alpha mous Desire: Male Homosexuality in Colonial into Obscurity: A History of the Church Theta faculty advisors Beth Schweiger and Latin America (2003), had delivered an of God in Christ and its International Kathy Sloan managed nevertheless to initiate address earlier in the day titled Impact upon People of African Descent,” the following accomplished students into the “Tezcatlipoca: A Queer Aztec God?” addresses “the extent to which class, order: Clark A. Donat, Valerie Farris, Mi- Hipsters thought it was swell, while posi- respectability, and efforts of racial uplift chael D. Hammond, Suzanna Hicks, Aaron tivist troglodytes were just as impressed intersected in the development of African Moulton, Zachary N. Pharr, Zachary Wag- by Professor Sigal’s shoes, which Tom Americans’ religious traditions and racial ner, and Heather Whelan. Wolfe, some forty years ago, would have identity after emancipation.” A native of David Sloan, the lame-duck chair of the described as being of the “winkle-picker Arkansas, White earned his BA and MA Graduate Studies Committee and his worthy genre.” at the University of Central Arkansas, successor, Richard Sonn, presented the fol- Of all the things there were to cele- and has taught at UCA, Ol’ Miss, and lowing awards to graduate students: Gordon brate that evening, the assembled throng Pulaski Technical College, where he won McNeil Award for best graduate paper: Brandon proved most intent on celebrating David teaching awards both from the college Marshall; George Billingsley Award for the best Sloan upon his retirement. Spontaneous and the Arkansas Association of Two paper on a Middle Eastern or Asian topic: Ross cheering and toasts erupted throughout Year Colleges.