VOLUME 8 | 2013 CENTER WELCOMES JESSICA JOHNSON Journal of the Civil War Era Named One of the Best AS INAUGURAL POSTDOCTORAL FELLOW New Periodicals of 2011 Jessica Johnson joined the Center in August The Library Journal, the largest and most as its inaugural postdoctoral fellow in African respected trade publication for the library American History. She earned her PhD profession, has selected The Journal of the Civil at the University of Maryland under the War Era as one of the ten best new periodicals direction of the noted scholar of slavery, Ira of 2011. In announcing the selection, it Berlin. What drew Jessica to the fellowship, praised the journal for its “meticulous” and which the Center conducts in conjunction “accessible” research articles and its engaging with Penn State’s Africana Research Center “breadth of topics.” The journal earned special (ARC), was the opportunity to further her consideration for publishing articles that professional development under the guidance are aimed at scholars, while also appealing of a “network of senior mentors and advisors to general readers. The Library Journal was who are excited about and supportive of founded in 1876. The Journal of the Civil War my work.” She deferred an offer of a tenure Era quickly has emerged as one of the leading track position in the Department of History scholarly journals in history. It is supported at Michigan State University until 2013 to with funds established by John and Carol take advantage of this unique opportunity. Paulus, George and Anne Miller, Sue and Joe The postdoctoral fellowship strengthens Paterno, George Middlemas and Sherry Petska, the Center and the History department by George and Ann Richards, and the National attracting scholars with expertise and training Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) We in African American history, benefitting the People Challenge Grant, which was achieved our faculty and students alike. Jessica’s through the significant support of the Center’s dissertation explored the lives of free women Board of Visitors. of African descent in the 18th-century French Atlantic. She has been the recipient Richards Prize of numerous awards including a Consortium Anne E. Marshall, Professor of History at Jessica Johnson for Faculty Diversity Fellowship at Bowdoin Mississippi State University, won the inaugural College, a Woodrow Wilson Mellon-Mays Richards Prize for the best article in The Journal Dissertation Grant, and a Gilder Lehrman Institute Research Fellowship. of the Civil War Era in 2011. The prize was awarded for her essay, “The 1906 Uncle Tom’s During the academic year, Jessica will participate in professional development seminars with ARC Cabin Law and the Politics of Race and Memory postdoctoral fellows. This spring, she will take part in a workshop where the Center will bring two in Early Twentieth-Century Kentucky,” which distinguished scholars to campus to critique her dissertation and help her prepare it for publication. She traced how white and black Kentuckians singled out this workshop as a “unique feature” that makes this fellowship stand out from others across grappled over the memory of the Civil War the country. Jessica also is working with Richards Center graduate students to organize a conference in the and Reconstruction through attempts to censor spring of 2013 that will feature cutting-edge scholarship by newly minted PhDs and advanced graduate politically inflammatory plays and movies students working on issues of gender and race in the nineteenth century (see Inaugural Emerging Scholars staged in the state. The prize, named in honor Workshop, back page). One of her mentors, Dr. Daina Ramey-Berry, has enthusiastically accepted our of longtime Center supporters George and Ann offer to present the keynote address at the conference. Dr. Ramey-Berry’s parents both graduated from Richards, is presented to the author of the best Penn State, and this will be her first visit to her parents’ alma mater, one which she eagerly anticipates. article in each volume year of the journal. The Looking ahead to this and other events during the year, Jessica acknowledged, “This is an exciting time winning article is selected by a board of scholars to be at the Richards Center, and I’m thrilled to participate in such a vibrant and generous intellectual based upon its originality, methodological community.” innovation, and contribution to the field. The $1,000 annual prize is supported by funds The postdoctoral fellowship was made possible by the generous support of Dick and Angie Clark, established by George and Ann Richards. Bobby and Bonnie Hammel, Tracy and Ted McCourtney, and Hal and Sandy Rosenberg. The fellowship significantly enhances the Center’s position as a national leader in advancing innovative scholarship in the Civil War era. Focused on African American history, the fellowship promotes research in a traditionally under-studied aspect of the history of this period. GINZBERG WINS GUGGENHEIM Lori Ginzberg won a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship for the 2012-2013 academic year that will support her latest book project, a re- imagining of the grand narrative of American history. Ginzberg was inspired to take on this project when she noticed that typical historical narratives present the sweep of American history “as though women’s history writing had barely happened or, at least, barely mattered.” She wondered why the synthesis Gary Gallagher speaking at the Watson Brown Book Award Dinner of American history has “been so impervious to thirty years of feminist challenge” and resolved to write a book that would incorporate Gallagher Wins 2012 Tom women’s conceptions of American citizenship, Watson Brown Book Award individualism, and the nation into narratives At the 78th annual meeting of the Southern of the country’s history. “I’m tremendously Historical Association in Mobile, Ala., Tad honored that the Guggenheim Foundation Brown, president of the Watson-Brown thought that my proposal had merit, and that Foundation, presented Dr. Gary Gallagher with my previous work makes them confident that Lori Ginzberg the third annual Tom Watson Brown Book Award I’ll be able to address these new issues,” she for The Union War (Harvard University Press, said upon receiving the award. Lori is the second Richards Center faculty member to win this 2011). Responding to a recent spate of books highly competitive award, joining Amy Greenberg, who won a Guggenheim in 2009. Amy’s that argue that emancipation gave the Union war award supported research for her book project on the U.S.-Mexican War. That book, A Wicked effort a moral force that galvanized the North to War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico, was published in November by pursue ultimate victory, Gary counters that the Knopf (see In Print, back page). idea of the Union itself fired northerners with moral ardor from the beginning of the war. His book traces the myriad meanings that the Union held for its citizens and soldiers and explores Richard Blackett’s Brose Lecture Featured on C-SPAN how the potent symbolism of union sustained Richard Blackett, the Andrew Jackson Professor of History at northern faith throughout the war. Gary had been Vanderbilt University, delivered the 12th annual Brose Lectures a professor and head of Penn State’s Department from March 15-17 this past year. Over 200 attendees heard three of History before accepting the John L. Nau III lively and insightful lectures that challenged them to reconsider Professorship in the History of the American popular conceptions of the Underground Railroad. Richard Civil War at the University of Virginia in 1998. argued that many slaves and their accomplices conducted their efforts to escape from bondage out in the open, not in secrecy The $50,000 award, one of the largest book as the Underground Railroad implies. The Richards Center prizes offered in the country, is presented arranged to have C-SPAN broadcast his opening lecture for annually by the Society of Civil War Historians American History TV. The lecture was broadcast three times in to the author of the most outstanding book July and remains available on the C-SPAN website. The lectures on the causes, conduct, or effects of the Civil Richard Blackett will be published by UNC Press in 2013 as part of the Brose War. The award honors the late philanthropist Lectures book series. and communications magnate Tom Watson Brown. He was the son of the late Walter J. In 1998, Steven and Janice Brose established the lecture series with an endowment that Brown, a Georgia journalist and broadcaster supported a single lecture by a distinguished visitor. The Broses added to the endowment who established the Watson-Brown Foundation in 2001, allowing a speaker to deliver three related lectures over three days. The Broses’ in 1970 to provide college scholarships for generosity enabled Penn State and the Richards Civil War Era Center to enter an agreement underprivileged high school students and to with the University of North Carolina Press to publish the lectures in a series of scholarly promote research into the history and culture monographs. Professor Blackett’s lectures will be the seventh title to be published in the of the South. series since 2005. 2 2013 RICHARDS CIVIL WAR ERA CENTer NewSLETTer BROSE LECTURES TO FEATURE GROUNDBREAKING RECONSTRUCTION CONFERENCE The 2013 Brose Lectures will feature a unique format as the Center invites 15 leading scholars to campus for a conference that will reassess Reconstruction and its legacy. Organized by Greg Downs of the City College of New York and Kate Masur of Northwestern University, with assistance from the Richards Center, the conference marks the 150th anniversary of the advent of Reconstruction, which began in 1863 with the admission of West Virginia to the Union. The conference also comes twenty-five years after the publication of Eric Foner’s Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution.