American Historical Association Blog

May 09, 2008

Grant of the Week: Fellowship for the Study of American Popular Culture

The University Libraries, Northern Illinois University, invite applications for the Horatio Alger Fellowship for the Study of American Popular Culture. Funding is available to scholars who will be using materials from the libraries’ major holdings in American popular culture. These holdings include the Albert Johannsen Collection of more than 50,000 dime novels, and the nation’s preeminent collections related to Horatio Alger, Jr., and Edward Stratemeyer. Many other authors are represented. Topics which could draw on the collections’ strengths might include the plight of urban children, image of the American West in popular literature, widespread use of pseudonyms, and stereotypical portrayals. Preference will be given to applicants who signify an interest in conducting research related to Horatio Alger, Jr. The fellowship award consists of a $2,000 stipend, and may be used between July 1 and December 31, 2008. Deadline: May 31, 2008.

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May 08, 2008

What We’re Reading: May 8, 2008 Edition

This past week we’ve been reading a lot of news, and share it with you now in this week’s What We’re Reading. The news of historian Charles Tilly’s death last Monday has been reported around the blogosphere (and therefore you may have already heard), but we link to a remembrance by Claire B. Potter. Also find links to a joint statement on Iraqi records from two organizations, support for a Senate bill from the American Library Association (ALA), reports that the Smithsonian will maintain control of the Arts and Industries Building, and a symposium honoring Gerhard Weinberg by the German Historical Institute (GHI). Other less newsy topics in this post include a Q & A with David Kyvig, Lisa Spiro’s survey of digital materials, a look how academia views biographies, trial proceedings of Old Bailey, and books by and on Michel de Certeau. Finally, we turn once more to Jonathan Rees’s use of YouTube in class, and how he’s looking for your input on what you use.

Charles Tilly Dies, April 29, 2008
Claire B. Potter, also known as Tenured Radical, remembers Charles Tilly, after finding out about his death on April 29th.

SAA/ACA Joint Statement on Iraqi Records
Society of American Archivists (SAA) and the Association of Canadian Archivists (ACA) recently released a joint statement "on the fate of records captured or otherwise obtained by the U.S., and those removed by private parties, during the first and second Gulf wars."

Library Group Favors Senate Over House Bill on Orphan Works
The Chronicle’s Wired Campus blog reports on the American Library Association’s opinion on a Senate bill on orphan works and copyright.

Smithsonian to keep control of Arts and Industries Building
The Smithsonian has decided to hold onto the Arts and Industries building, “keeping open the possibility that it could one day become a Latino history museum.”

Perspectives on National Socialism, Global War, and the Holocaust: Symposium in Honor of Gerhard L. Weinberg
A recent symposium was held by the German Historical Institute to honor historian and AHA member Gerhard L. Weinberg. See the GHI web site, linked above, for a rundown of the speakers.

New book by prize-winning NIU historian
David Kyvig’s new book on impeachment will be launched next week, but Northern Illinois University offers a brief Q&A preview.

How Many Texts Have Been Digitized?
Lisa Spiro (director of the Digital Media Center at Rice University’s Fondren Library) offers an interesting survey of the availability of digital materials using the bibliography of her 2002 dissertation on 19th-century bachelorhood. She found 83 percent of her primary sources and 37 percent of her secondary sources, and promises a follow-up on qualitative issues. This will be well worth following.

Biography, the Bastard Child of Academe
Steve Weinberg of The Chronicle writes on how “[a]cademe has generally disdained the art and history of biography.”

The Proceedings of Old Bailey (1674 to 1913)
Records of crime and punishment in that green and pleasant land across the Atlantic are all set up now to yield up a treasure trove of people’s history, as trial proceedings of the Old Bailey in London have been posted online for free access. Genealogists, social historians, and the merely curious can dredge through the records of 197,945 trials held from 1674 to 1913 to find all sorts of fascinating bits of evidence about an England and its people in transition.

The Quest of Michel de Certeau
Books by and on Michel de Certeau (1925-1986), the celebrated French intellectual and Jesuit scholar who is best known perhaps for his Practice of Everyday Life, are discussed in a long review article in the New York Review of Books, by Natalie Zemon Davis, president of the AHA for 1987 and the Henry Charles Lea Professor emeritus at Princeton University. She provides in this review essay a lucid and accessible analysis of Certeau’s work, situating it in its intellectual context, and finding, in the process, interesting resonances and intersections with two of Certeau’s exact contemporaries—Michel Foucault, and Joseph Ratzinger, who is now Pope Benedict XVI.

What are the best YouTube clips for classroom use?
Jonathan Rees wants to know which YouTube clips you use in the classroom. Two weeks ago we linked to his post about how to use YouTube when teaching history (also see his article in the May issue of Perspectives on History), but now is your chance to add to the discussion.

Contributors: Elisabeth Grant, Arnita Jones, Pillarisetti Sudhir, and Robert Townsend.

Comment

May 07, 2008

National History Center Revamps Website

By Elisabeth Grant

The National History Center recently spruced up its web site with a sleeker, more streamlined look. A simpler navigation structure now leads visitors easily to information on the center’s programs, staff, founders and contributors, and more. Keep up to date on NHC news and events by signing up for their new RSS feed or e-mail (find links for these on the homepage). Use the added search function to find what you’re looking for, and experience past events through the podcasts of lectures posted on the site.

Speaking of events, next up for the NHC is a congressional briefing on “A History of Radical Islam: Before and After 9/11”, which takes place this Friday, May 9 from 2-3:30 p.m. at the Rayburn building.

Comment [2]

May 06, 2008

An Appetite for History

By Elisabeth Grant

Digitization projects like Google Books are hot topics right now, but some sites have been scanning and displaying books for years. Case in point is the Feeding America site, a project of the Michigan State University Libraries, that has been up and running for nearly a decade. The online collection features 76 cookbooks from the late 18th to early 20th century that have been scanned in, transcribed, described, and made searchable (search by author, title, recipe name, or ingredients). There’s also a page on the site featuring Michigan State University Museum’s “extensive collection of cooking utensils and kitchenware.”

Visit the project page, read the introduction essay by Jan Longone that attempts to treat developments in cookbook publishing as emblematic of larger social cultural developments, or take the video tour to learn more about the featured cookbooks and the digitization process. But the most fun is to be had by flipping through the crisp page images of books like Chocolate and Cocoa Recipes (1909), the Presbyterian Cook Book (1873), or the Swedish English Cookbook (1897). You may find yourself inspired to check out a few featured recipes. Parsnip fritters anyone?

Hat tip to Jonathan Rees who recently mentioned this site on his blog More or Less Bunk.

Comment

May 05, 2008

Opinions Wanted – Perspectives Reader’s Survey

At the beginning of this year Perspectives, the AHA’s newsmagazine, embraced a slightly more specific name, and became Perspectives on History. Now, more changes are afoot (possibly more significant than the name change), and we’d like to hear your opinions.

Let us know what you think about the design, presentation, and content of Perspectives on History by completing this survey. We estimate that it will take five to ten minutes to complete the survey. It contains questions relating to both the print and electronic versions of the AHA newsmagazine.

Those who complete the survey and choose to leave their e-mail address on the final page will be entered in a drawing to receive one of two free memberships that can be used for a one-year renewal for the member or as a gift subscription for a nonmember.

Thanks in advance for completing this survey. Your opinions are important to us.

Comment

May 02, 2008

Grant of the Week: Award for Best Article in Urban History

The Urban History Association is offering an Award for Best Article in Urban History published in a scholarly journal in 2007 (no geographic restriction): The UHA will award a prize of $250. To be considered, please submit three copies of the article, each containing a complete publication citation. All materials must be received by June 16, 2008. For more information and submission details, see the UHA announcements page.

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May 01, 2008

What We’re Reading: May 1, 2008 Edition

On this May Day edition of “What We’re Reading,” we start off with a link to Zachary Schrag’s article on IRBs, which examines “how talking became human subjects research.” Then, we turn to kids these days: how they’re being taught history and how they’re affected by growing up in a digital world. Also included are articles about secret wartime refugees, content versus design in history web sites, an excellent work of nonfiction (that unfortunately turns out to be based on fiction), and a move to open Brazilian archives. Finally, we link to a review essay in the New Yorker on the Greek historian, Herodotus.

Schrag on How Talking Became Human Subjects Research
Zachary Schrag, whose advice and good counsel on issues related to institutional review board policies have been invaluable to us, just had a terrific article accepted for publication by the Journal of Policy History. A draft is available online for review and comment: "How Talking Became Human Subjects Research: The Federal Regulation of the Social Sciences, 1965-1991”.

Kids’ History
Mark Bauerlein, and English professor at Emory and a blogger at the Chronicle of Higher Ed unloads on faddishness and relativism in the teaching of history. But be sure to read Sam Wineburg’s article “Goodbye, Columbus”—a longer version of the USA Today article that Bauerlein refers to in his post.

The Anthropology of Digital Natives
This Library of Congress webcast presents speaker Edith Ackerman examining how youth today, who have grown up in a digital world, “think, learn, and play.”

Historian Exposes Secret Wartime Refugees
Historian Luc Van Dongen talks about his work in assessing Switzerland’s admission of morally dubious refugees during World War II –Nazis, Italian fascists, and Vichy French.

Flash Over Substance: The National Archives Experience
Last week we blogged about the “Best of the Web” awards, and noted a National Archives site that received an award. Larry Cebula at Northwest History takes a closer look at the site and questions whether it sacrifices content over design.

Find of Sun King’s secret diaries sounded almost too good to be true. And it was …
This article from The Guardian examines author Veronica Buckley’s new biography of Louis XIV’s mistress, and the hoops her publisher must jump through now that it’s been revealed her primary source was actually a work of fiction.

Never Forget, Never Forgive: Open the Archives of the Brazilian Military Dictatorship Now
This initiative, reported at the Dissenting Historian blog, aims to open up the archives of the Brazilian military dictatorship. For related issues, see past AHA president Barbara Weinstein’s column in the March 2007 issue of Perspectives on History.

Arms and the Man
In a long but brilliantly lucid and entertainingly instructive review essay in the April 28, 2008, issue of the New Yorker, Daniel Mendelsohn, the Charles Ranlett Flint Professor of the Humanities at Bard College, finds and summarizes for us the vivid resonances for our times in the multivolume study of the Greco-Persian Wars by the Greek historian, Herodotus. Nearly 2,500 years before the present, Herodotus told a story, that in its postmodernist narrative (as Mendelsohn calls it) described, among other things, how absolute power can corrupt and reap catastrophe for even the greatest state. If in the subsequent centuries, people have learned nothing from Herodotus, it is their fault, asserts Mendelsohn.

Contributors: Elisabeth Grant, Pillarisetti Sudhir, and Robert Townsend.

Comment [1]

April 30, 2008

Historians Included in the 2008 Class of Fellows

By Elisabeth Grant

This past Monday the American Academy of Arts and Sciences announced its Class of Fellows for 2008. The Academy, founded by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock, and other forefathers, has been in existence since 1780. Past members have included Benjamin Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Albert Einstein.

This year’s addition of new fellows (190 in all), include a number of scholars drawn from the field of history. See below for a list of these individuals, and visit the academy’s web site for a complete list of fellows.

Janet Browne, Aramont Professor of the History of Science, Harvard University

Nancy F. Cott*, Jonathan Trumbull Professor of American History, Harvard University

Michael E. Geyer*, Samuel N. Harper Professor of German and European History, University of Chicago

Earl Lewis*, Asa Griggs Candler Professor of History and African American Studies, Emory University

Robert Orsi, Grace Craddock Nagle Professor of Catholic Studies, Northwestern University

Louis A. Pérez, Jr., Carlyle Sitterson Professor of History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Theodore M. Porter, Professor of History, University of California, Los Angeles

Daniel Rodgers*, Henry Charles Lea Professor of History, Princeton University

Joan Wallach Scott*, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey

Debora Leah Silverman, Professor of History and Art History, University of California, Los Angeles

Yuri Slezkine, Professor of Russian History, University of California, Berkeley

*Indicates status as AHA Member.

Update: Robert Orsi has been added to this list, since he is a joint professor in the history and religion departments at Northwestern. Thanks to Ralph Luker for this tip.

Comment

April 29, 2008

A Wise Guide, Eh?

By Elisabeth Grant

The Library of Congress’s Wise Guide is a flashy web portal meant to introduce visitors to what the LOC has to offer online. Each month the site highlights about half a dozen online features, presenting a brief article and related links for each. The April 2008 edition of the guide includes posts on the library’s baseball resources, images of Lincoln, and highlights of the new “Library of Congress Experience,” to name a few.

Visit the Wise Guide’s archives to explore past months’ features. For instance, learn about the Conquest of Mexico and the LOC’s “Exploring the Early Americas,” in the January 2008 guide. Check out the November 2007 guide for a feature on Lewis and Clark. Or, find links to a webcast about the history of the American flag from the guide in June of 2007.

Comment

April 28, 2008

Latest News from the National Coalition for History

By Elisabeth Grant

The National Coalition for History has posted quite a number of updates from Washington recently. Visit the NCH news archives for all past posts, and check out the links below for the latest advocacy issues. To keep up to date in the future sign up for the NCH e-mail newsletter, or grab their RSS feed.

Appointments

National Archives and Records Administration

Library of Congress, Smithsonian, NPS, and EPA

Congress and Government News

Comment

April 25, 2008

Grant of the Week: Master’s Thesis Fellowship from the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation

The Marine Corps Heritage Foundation offers a number of Lieutenant Colonel Lily H. Gridley Memorial Master’s Thesis Fellowships each year to memorialize the Marine Corps’ first woman judge advocate. The fellowships are $3,500 each and are awarded to qualified graduate students working on topics pertinent to Marine Corps history. See the fellowships page for more information and instructions on how to apply. Deadline: May 1, 2008.

Comment

April 24, 2008

What We’re Reading: April 24, 2008 Edition

Whether it’s the recent report about the future of the AHA or reoccurring issues at the Job Register, you can be sure there will be reactions and opinions on the blogosphere about it. We start off this week’s “What We’re Reading,” by linking to Jeremy Young at Progressive Historians and Sterling Fluharty at PhdinHistory for their takes (and requests for opinions) on the AHA. Also in this post we cover this year’s college grads and their job prospects, professional histories and history by professionals, teaching with YouTube, and grants for improved student learning. We finish up with links to an interview with Daniel Walker Howe, images from Hitler’s private gallery, a look at social networking and scholarship, and a “pirate problem”.

Opinions on the AHA

The AHA Should Aid Bloggers, Not Control Them
Jeremy Young at Progressive Historians weighs in on the recent final report from the Working Group on the Future of the AHA, mentioned last week on AHA Today, offering a detailed and thoughtful analysis.

Let Your Voices Be Heard: A Survey about the AHA
Sterling Fluharty of PhDinHistory has created an interesting, albeit lengthy, survey to ask how his readers feel about the AHA and its potential reforms. Though some questions replicate some of the more contentious views in the blogosphere about what the AHA does or does not do (i.e. “The AHA is so spineless that it does not want to police plagiarists in the profession”), it’s still a useful starting point for discussion. And with a substantive response, the results could be equally useful.
Please Note: This survey is an independent project and is neither supported nor endorsed by the AHA, so while we will read the results with interest, we still hope you will also send comments to Robert Townsend.

Other Reads

For Class of ‘08, A Scramble for Jobs
Though this Wall Street Journal article from April 8 doesn’t mention historians in the text, it does include them in a handy chart about halfway down the page. The article is about the difficulty this year’s college grads are having with the job market, and it pegs the starting salary for a person graduating this year with a BA in history at $34,257, just below average (though $15,000 less than the top earning field of an engineering graduate).

The Difference Between History Written By Professionals And Professional Histories
An interesting article from Tim Lacy pondering "The Difference Between History Written By Professionals And Professional Histories."

The Teaching Part of Teaching History with YouTube
Jonathan Rees at More or Less Bunk writes about how to use YouTube when teaching history, which is the topic of an upcoming Perspectives on History article he’s written as well. See also his past blog post “Teaching with YouTube” and also check out his excellent collection of YouTube favorites he uses in class.

IU History Faculty Receive Grant to Improve Student Learning
A recent press release from Indiana University announced that “four Indiana University Bloomington faculty members have been awarded an $80,000 foundation grant for a three-year project to document and improve student learning in history… The four created the History Learning Project (HLP) in 2006 to define the kinds of critical thinking required in college history courses.”

An Interview With Daniel Walker Howe
The National Book Critics Circle Board (NBCC) blog, Critical Mass, presents an interview with Daniel Walker Howe about his Pulitzer Prize winning book, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848.

Images of ‘Hitler’s Private Gallery’ Now Online
Matt Raymond at the Library of Congress Blog describes the “Third Reich Collection,” which is now available online.

Strategies for Promoting Social Scholarship
As the popularity of social networking continues to increase, the Digital Scholarship in the Humanities blog considers the development of social scholarship.

The Pirate Problem
Dan Cohen talks up some of the interesting potentials for online materials, but concludes on the rather sweeping note that it somehow threatens the way all historians do their work: "For every time we focus on text mining and pattern recognition, traditionalists can point to the successes of close reading—on the power of a single word. We propose new methods of research when the old ones don’t seem broken."

Contributors: David Darlington, Debbie Ann Doyle, Noralee Frankel, Elisabeth Grant, and Robert Townsend

Comment

April 23, 2008

“Best of the Web” Awards Showcase Museum Web Sites

By Debbie Ann Doyle

Each year the Museums and the Web conference, put on by Archives & Museum Informatics, picks winners for their “Best of the Web” awards, which recognize “the best work in museum web design and development.”

This year there are some fascinating sites among the recipients. See a few highlighted below, and go to the Museum and Web web site for a complete list of the award winners.

A few “Best of the Web” winners:

The National Archives’ Digital Vaults

A photography exhibit by the University of New Mexico Maxwell Museum of Anthropology that includes a tool to produce a short patriotic film using photos taken for the Office of War Information in the 1940s

The Chicago History Museum’s "Great Chicago Stories" site for elementary and high school students, which was developed collaboratively with local educators.

Comment [1]

April 22, 2008

Women’s History Lesson Plans for Middle and High School Teachers

By David Darlington

The National Women’s History Museum, based in Alexandria, Virginia, is now posting some women’s history lesson plans online free-of-charge. These lesson plans, which are targeted to middle and secondary school students, cover subject matter such as voting rights, women reformers in the Progressive area, American women athletes in the Olympics, and women in journalism. In these lesson plans, teachers will discover a clearly defined purpose, classroom objectives, a list of prerequisites and materials needed to complete the lesson, and step-by-step procedures. Each lesson includes an online component which incorporates document and image exhibits elsewhere on the National Women’s History Museum web site. Through these lessons, which can be as short as one or two classroom sessions to as long as the teacher wants, students examine primary sources and learn how to write papers and construct timelines based on their findings. There are currently four lesson plans on the museum web site, with more promised.

In the “Educational Resources” section of the National Women’s History Museum web site, teachers will find quizzes, timelines, and famous quotes relating to women’s history, as well as guidelines for teaching classes in women’s history from the elementary to high school levels.

Comment

April 21, 2008

Teaching American History with a Global View

By Jesse Pierce

The U.S Department of Education’s Teaching American History (TAH) grants specify that they are for "traditional American history," however, all history undeniably takes place within a world context. To assess how the TAH grants incorporate the world, AHA staff surveyed the winning grant applications and found the rest of the world appeared in one in five award recipients from 2001 to 2007.

By reviewing the abstracts of grants from 2000 to 2007, one can get a sense of the many different ways TAH grant recipients are approaching the subject of “America and the World”.

Many grant abstracts planned to look at the emergence, establishment, and development of America as a world power, while others had more specific themes. In an application submitted in 2002, West Virginia’s Regional Education Services Agency I intended to look at “America and the world before and after 9/11,” while Louisiana’s Tangipahoa Parish School System was set to examine the “U.S. in a Global, Technological Age,” in 2004. In 2003, the Throp school district of Washington addressed “interactions within our borders and throughout the world (1945-2005).” United States foreign policy and international relations was an often-repeated theme that schools in New York, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Jersey, Texas, California, Florida, Oregon, and Virginia all explored.

As the figure below indicates, the number of applications that include world history fell sharply in the last couple of years.

Comment [17]

April 18, 2008

Grant of the Week: Stella Blum Research Grant from the Costume Society of America

The Costume Society of America awards the Stella Blum Research Grant to an undergraduate or graduate student to support a single project focusing on any aspect of North American costume. The award consists of $2,500 plus a travel component of up to $500 to attend the society’s National Symposium to present their completed research. Applicants must be matriculating in a degree program at an accredited institution and must be members of the society (student membership is $45). Application deadline: May 1, 2008. See the Stella Blum Research Grant page for more information and application details.

Comment

April 17, 2008

What We’re Reading: April 17, 2008 Edition

The Guggenheim Fellowships for 2008 were announced earlier this month, and among the awardees were a number of AHA members. We begin this week’s “What We’re Reading” by recognizing them. Then, we look at the value of history for the public, another interpretation of Google Books, the NARA web capturing debate, and an interview with Thomas Bender on his new book. Finally, our last two selections examine blogging: at the conference and as a habit.

Guggenheim Winners

AHA Members Among Guggenheim Winners
Several members of the AHA were among the winners of the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowships for 2008. Out of more than 2,600 applicants, the Guggenheim Foundation selected 190 winners and awarded $8.2 million in fellowships in the 84th annual competition. Guggenheim Fellows are appointed on the basis of stellar achievement and exceptional promise for continued accomplishment. For more information about the Guggenheim, click here.

Congratulations to the following AHA members:

Margaret Lavinia Anderson, professor of history, University of California;
Brigitte Miriam Bedos-Rezak, professor of history, New York University;
Michael D. Bess, Chancellor’s Professor of History, Vanderbilt University;
Christopher S. Celenza, professor of German and Romance languages, Johns Hopkins University;
Deborah Cohen, associate professor of history, Brown University;
Laurent Dubois, professor of history and Romance Studies, Duke University;
Leon Fink, UIC Distinguished Professor, Department of History, University of Illinois at Chicago;
Rachel Fulton, associate professor of history, University of Chicago;
Allan Greer, professor of history, University of Toronto;
Sumit Guha, professor of history, Rutgers University;
Woody Holton, associate professor of history, University of Richmond;
Daniel Horowitz, Mary Huggins Gamble Professor of American Studies, Smith College;
Joanne Meyerowitz, professor of history and American Studies, Yale University;
Samuel Moyn, professor of history, Columbia University;
Mary Kay Vaughan, professor of history, University of Maryland;
Sarah Watts, professor of history, Wake Forest University;
Kevin A. Yelvington, associate professor of anthropology, University of South Florida.

What Else We’re Reading

The Value of History
Two articles explore the value of history to the public sphere. See: David Bell’s review of John Burrow’s A History of Histories and Tony Judt’s “What Have We Learned, If Anything?” at the New York Review of Books.

How Google Books is Changing Academic History
An interesting, though slightly overwrought reading of the value of Google Books. This article can be best summed up by the observation that, "in the last six months, while academic history has meandered in its habituated paths of grinding research, the possibilities of scholarship have been utterly transformed."

NARA and Capturing Web Sites – A view from both sides
The blogosphere has been energized by a great deal of agitation about the National Archives and Records Administration’s decision not to do a harvest of public web sites at the end of the Bush Administration’s term. For different points of view, see .govwatch’s "The National Archives Is Quietly Destroying Millions of Documents," ArchivesNext’s more nuanced reading at "NARA and the web harvest: a discussion of the issues," and the NARA staff’s own explanation.

‘American Higher Education Transformed, 1940-2005′
An interview by Scott Jaschik of Inside Higher Ed with Thomas Bender, professor of history at New York University, about his new book American Higher Education Transformed, 1940-2005, co-authored with Wilson Smith. Hat tip.

Blogging the National Council on Public History Conference
Check out the National Council on Public History’s blog that covered its April conference in Kentucky. Then see Mary Stevens’ post on the problems with conference blogging.

Reading Blogs Can Become Habitual, Like Smoking (but Safer)
The Chronicle’s Wired Campus blog explains why you need your daily fix of AHA Today.

Contributors: David Darlington, Elisabeth Grant, and Robert Townsend

Comment [2]

April 16, 2008

Remembering April 16th

By Elisabeth Grant

One year ago today, 32 Virginia Tech students and faculty lost their lives in the worst school shooting in our nation’s history. Tech will be honoring the victims of this tragedy today with special events and webcasts. And a dedicated web site will continue the remembrance in the future.

Shortly after the events of a year ago, the Center for Digital Discourse and Culture at Virginia Tech along with the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University created the April 16 Archive to be used for “collecting and preserving the stories of the Virginia Tech tragedy.”

Over the past year the archive has grown into a diverse collection of over 1,600 items: op-eds and articles (in English, Romanian, Spanish, German, Korean, Chinese, and more), blog posts, poetry and artwork, screenshots from Second Life, audio, original/official university e-mails, and more. The archive has also expanded to cover related events, like the memorial dedication, concert for VT, the Hokies Thank the World project , NIU vigil, and the Yankees game at Tech.

The archive will be undergoing more changes soon as it upgrades to the newest version of Omeka web platform*, created by CHNM at George Mason. The new format will offer new features, allow for easier uploads to the site, and allow for add-ons like “commenting and ranking features that make the site more interactive and community-driven.”

Even though the site continues to evolve, the spirit behind the project remains the same. Brent Jesiek, manager of the Center for Digital Discourse and Culture, explains that “As originally envisioned, the site was framed as contributing ‘to a collective process of healing.’ I don’t think this mission will ever go away, but over time the archive will naturally become more of a resource for researchers.”

Today, on the anniversary of the April 16 tragedy the archive staff will collect materials related to the remembrances taking place today, like news stories, blog posts, and photos from campus.

Visitors to the site are still encouraged to submit files to the archive, both items that have to do with April 16, 2007, and also events that have taken place since. Jesiek wants to emphasize that “The archive isn’t just by and for people in Blacksburg – it is by and for the people of the world.” For more information, or if you need assistance with a large collection you’d like to contribute, please contact the archive staff at admin@april16archive.org.

See our past blog post on the April 16 Archive here: “Archiving Tragedy, Promoting Healing.”

*This sentence has been revised. The April 16 Archive has been using an earlier version of the software that was later renamed Omeka, so it is incorrect to say the archive is “converting to Omeka”. We regret our error.

Comment

April 15, 2008

Historian Edward Ayers Inaugurated as University of Richmond President

By Noralee Frankel

On a sunny April 11, historian Edward L. Ayers was inaugurated as the ninth president of the University of Richmond in Virginia. A historian of the American South, Ayers has written such works as The Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction and What Caused the Civil War?: Reflections on the South and Southern History.

The day before, a roundtable on “New Perspectives on the American Civil War” was held on campus, featuring Ayers, Harvard University president and history professor Drew Gilpin Faust, and University of Virginia professor Gary W. Gallagher.

At the inauguration, representatives from the alumni, staff, students and faculty spoke, and all stressed Ayers enthusiasm and inclusiveness. One speaker mentioned that Ayers had helped students unpack when they arrived on campus. Mayor of Richmond Douglas Wilder and Thomas R. Morris, Virginia’s Secretary of Education also spoke. Drew Gilpin Faust introduced Ayers and he received the University of Richmond’s mace and chain of Office. Ayers, in his inaugural address, briefly reviewed the history of the college and discussed the goals in the new strategic plan including diversity and affordability, stating, "Now we need to open the doors of opportunity even wider.” He also mentioned the importance of the campus environmentally conscious policies (see this Richmond Times-Dispatch article). The event was followed by a picnic with a bluegrass band, and a dance with the theme of "Fifty Years of Rock, Jazz, Soul, and Rhythm & Blues."

Comment [1]

April 15, 2008

Talking about the Future of the AHA

By Robert B. Townsend

We hope members—and everyone in the profession with an interest in the future of our disciplinary society—will take a little time to read the report of the Working Group on the Future of the AHA, which can be found in both the print and online versions of the April issue of Perspectives on History. After a year surveying the issue, the committee made the following recommendations:

(a) To secure its future, the AHA must reach out to a broader membership and become more diverse and inclusive while preserving its core constituency of history PhDs who teach at research universities and liberal arts colleges. Specifically, it should adopt policies designed to recruit AP high school teachers, community college instructors, and the broad category of practitioners often labeled "public" historians. Some of these policies will involve special dues packages and additional staffing, while others will involve further reforms to the annual meeting.

(b) The AHA needs to improve its use of the internet to provide member services, including blogs, chat rooms among subdivisions of the Association, and special instructional sessions at the annual meeting on how better to incorporate information technology into our teaching mission.

(c) The AHA should refine its advocacy efforts on behalf of historians to become more proactive rather than reactive, and should consider greater collaboration with peer organizations like the OAH on a variety of outreach activities.

(d) The AHA should pursue the development plan espoused by incoming president Gabrielle Spiegel, refining that plan in consultation with outside consultants to make personnel costs affordable, and to determine what the most effective means is (such as a new building or a leased structure) to achieve greater space.

(e) The AHA should revisit the structure of its relationship with the National History Center, focusing on the fiduciary responsibilities of the AHA and the desirability of the NHC becoming a "support corporation" of the AHA.

The report goes into the specifics of their recommendations in greater detail, but the AHA Council will need to take the next step to turn ideas into action. To make sure this happens, AHA President Gabrielle Spiegel appointed a subcommittee of the Council, which will be chaired by President-elect Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, and comprised of Elise Lipkowitz, Frank Malaret, Trudy Peterson, and Larry Wolff. Arnita A. Jones, AHA’s executive director, and Robert A. Schneider, editor of the American Historical Review, will serve as ex officio members of the committee.

We hope all members of the Association will review the Working Group’s recommendations, and submit their comments and suggestions to me or post comment here on AHA Today by the end of April. Mills Kelly at edwired and Sterling Fluharty at PhDinHistory have already weighed in with their thoughts about the report, and I encourage you to do the same, so again please comment here or email me.

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