July 01, 2009
What We’re Reading: July 2, 2009 Edition
We start off this week with links to two reviews. The first looks at the play “Arcadia,” while the second analyzes the book The Tragedy of American Diplomacy. Then, we point to a series of articles on FDR in a recent issue of TIME magazine. A number of links this week address history online: take a new look at e-mail lists, read an update on Zotero, learn about iTunes U, get advice on creating digital content, and see photos of Africa from 1860-1960. In recognition of the July 4th holiday this weekend, we bring you two related links. And finally, we wrap up with articles on a new era of historians, Monticello, and Michael Jackson.
- What do we know and what can we prove?
From the Conservative History Journal blog comes a post that offers an interesting reflection on the historian’s craft, prompted by a revival of Tom Stoppard’s play, “Arcadia.” - The Triumph of Williams’s ‘Tragedy’
In the Nation magazine of July 6, 2009, Eric Alterman discusses William Appleman Williams’s The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, "one of those rare works of history that can credibly be said to have changed history itself," in the context of the 50th anniversary of the book’s original appearance in 1959. Alterman also reports on a conference held at Rutgers University to commemorate the event. - What Barack Obama Can Learn from FDR
The latest issue of TIME magazine offers a series of articles on FDR, many of which look to how President Obama may compare in the future. They include - FDR’s Lessons for Obama by David M. Kennedy
- The Relentless Mrs. Roosevelt by Amanda Ripley
- Getting it Right by Bill Clinton
- The First 100 Days by Adam Cohen
- Deal or No Deal? By Amity Shlaes
- The Price of World Peace by Peter Beinart
- The Other War – on Polio by Jeffrey Kluger
History Online
- E-mail Lists White Elephant 2009 or the Original Web 2.0 Application?
E-mail lists are dying, victims of blogs and Twitter. Or are they? A closer examination reveals many lists are still vibrant forums for academic exchange.
- Return of Mark of Zotero
And speaking of innovations, Inside Higher Ed’s Scott McLemee takes a look at WebNotes, Zotero’s newest competitor and some features the Zotero crew might consider for the next version. - Hey U, Tune In: The Library Is Now on iTunes U
The Library of Congress announces its new presence on iTunes U. They explain, “Your nation’s Library has millions of stories to tell, so we’re trying to tell them as many places and to as many people as possible.” - Make It Digital
This nicely laid out and informative web site provides advice on how to create “digital content in New Zealand,” but may be applicable for digital content creation in other countries as well. Hat tip. - Northwestern U. Publishes Rare Photos of East Africa Online
The Chronicle of Higher Ed’s Wired Campus blog reports on newly posted photos, of East Africa in 1860 through 1960, put up by Northwestern University.
July 4th
- Declaration of Independence
For those not able to make it to the National Archives in Washington this 4th of July, peruse the original Declaration of Independence online and celebrate the day. - LIFE: 4th of July
Explore pictures of 4th of July celebrations through the years in LIFE, the magazine that continues to capture American culture through a photographic lens.
What Else We’re Reading
- They’re too cool for school: meet the new history boys and girls
Who says historians are dry, stuffy, and boring! Read about the new era of historians. Not only are they educated, clever, and witty, but they also bring an edgy creativity to their writings that help readers engage with historical content. - Time Wastes Too Fast
Maira Kalman takes a look (through illustrations, images, and facts) at Thomas Jefferson and his home at Monticello. - Rock, Pop Historian John Covach Assesses Michael Jackson’s Impact
Everyone has been weighing in on the life and recent death of Michael Jackson, and some historians are speaking up as well.
Contributors: Elisabeth Grant, Vernon Horn, Jessica Pritchard, Pillarisetti Sudhir, and Robert B. Townsend

June 30, 2009
Government Ventures into Declassification Issues via Web 2.0
By Robert B. Townsend
The federal government is currently seeking information on its declassification policies, and is doing so through a blog—offering a high-level test of the value of Web 2.0. The Declassification Policy Forum was launched as part of the White House’s Open Government blog yesterday. The initiative is being run by the federal Public Interest Declassification Board, as part of an ongoing review of declassification policies by the new administration.
The Declassification Policy Forum will be used to solicit recommendations for revisions to the current policy in four topical areas: Declassification Policy (June 29 – July 1), a National Declassification Center (July 2 – July 4), Classification Policy (July 5 – July 7), and Technology Challenges and Opportunities (July 8 – July 10). The first posting asks if members of the public are satisfied with the governing declassification policy (laid out in Section 3 of Executive Order 12958), and asks for more specific assessments of what has worked, what hasn’t, and how the policy can and should be revised. Once posted, each topic will be available for comments for three days. At the conclusion of the third day, the comment function on the topic will be turned off and the next topic will begin the following day. After each topic closes, a concluding summary will be posted.
Given the importance of the issues involved, and the very short window of opportunity for making comments, members who work with federal records are strongly encouraged to actively engage participate in the blog—demonstrating our community’s concern about these issues, and support for this novel way of involving the general public in the process.

June 29, 2009
AHA Membership Grows Modestly, as History of Religion Surpasses Culture
By Robert B. Townsend
Despite the hardships in the economy, membership in the AHA actually increased slightly over the past year. In our annual membership snapshot (taken on March 31 of each year), membership rose to over 15,000 members for the first time in 35 years. While this marks an important milestone, in real terms the 15,055 members marked only a modest increase (just 152 more than last year).
And beneath the changes on the surface, there was a troubling loss in the number of members in many of the higher dues-paying categories, as many faculty members and professional historians felt the effects of the economy. These losses were only offset by significant gains in the number of student members (whose memberships are subsidized by senior members). Students now comprise 28.2 percent of the membership—the highest proportion since 1996, when they accounted for 32.0 percent of the membership.
The most notable change in the profile of our membership is the continuing rise of specialists in religious history. More members selected the history of religion as field of specialization (7.7 percent in all) than any other thematic category. Religion surpassed cultural history (selected by 7.5 percent of the membership), which has been the most popular subject category among members for more than 15 years. (Cultural history eclipsed social history as the field of choice in the mid-1990s.)
Members specializing in the history of religion were working in most of the geographic categories, but the highest proportions seemed to be studying early European or recent U.S. history.
A plurality of the membership (38 percent) specializes in European history (lumping together all the different periods). This is slightly larger than U.S. history, which accounts for another 35.5 percent of the membership. In real terms, the number of specialists in both fields has been growing along with the larger membership, but more slowly than the number of historians identifying with other regions of the world. In 2000, European and U.S. historians comprised approximately 78.3 percent of the membership, where today they account for 73.5 percent.
Specialists in Asian and Latin American history account for the largest areas of interest outside of Europe and the U.S., accounting for just a bit more than 7.6 percent of the membership each. Historians working on the Islamic World and Near East comprise another 3.5 percent of the membership, while specialists on Africa account for another 2.0 percent. The remaining 5.7 percent are specialists in various transnational fields.
Demographically the membership of the Association is more diverse than the profession in academia, but only slightly. At present, women comprise 38.1 percent of the membership, while racial and ethnic minorities account for 14.9 percent. The proportion of women and minorities in the membership has grown modestly faster than their representation among historians in academia over the past decade.
Meanwhile, the membership has become slightly more concentrated at four-year colleges and universities in recent years. In the most recent snapshot, 61 percent of the membership was affiliated at a four-year institution—up from 56 percent in 2000. This is largely due to the growing proportion of students in the membership.
California has the largest number of members (1,593), followed by New York (with 1,461). But in relative terms, members are most concentrated in Washington, D.C., followed by New England, the mid-Atlantic states, and the upper Midwest. Another 6.9 percent of the membership lives outside of the United States—down slightly from a decade ago when 7.2 percent of the membership lived outside the country.
A significant plurality of the membership earned their highest degrees since 2000, reflecting the significant generational change now taking place in the profession. Currently, 43.8 percent of the membership earned their highest degrees in the past decade. In comparison, in 1999 just 35.0 percent of the membership had earned their degree in the previous decade.
Comment [2]

June 28, 2009
Hidden Lives Revealed: Archive of Children in Care 1881-1918
By Elisabeth Grant
The Hidden Lives Revealed site draws from archival materials of the Waifs and Strays’ Society, which took care of “poor and disadvantaged children” from England and Wales from 1881 through WWI. The main concentration of the site is 150 case files, presented as both high-quality scanned images and in transcribed form. Navigate through these files by using the search form or list of keywords. All of the names on the case files have been removed. The case files FAQs section explains that this was done because “[e]ven though these children were in the care of the Waifs and Strays’ Society around a hundred years ago, The Children’s Society, as the Waifs and Stray’s Society successor organisation, still owes them a duty of care.”
Also available on the site are dozens of photographs organized into 12 sections; see children in the Society’s care, children at play, children first taken into care, and much more.
Since its founding around 22,500 children when through the Waifs and Strays’ Society and were housed in about 175 homes. Browse through and learn the histories of these homes, from the “small cottages” to the “industrial homes.”
For teachers interested in using the Hidden Lives site in the classroom there are learning materials (with worksheets and “fact files” that incorporate the sites photos and information), articles with more information on the Society and the children that were in its care, a bibliography of further reading, links to related sites, and even some fun activities.
The Waifs and Strays’ Society is known today as The Children’s Society, and they helped put together this site along with the EnrichUK Lottery Fund, and the Big Lottery Fund. Hat tip."

June 25, 2009
Grant of the Week: ASECS/Folger Institute Fellowship
The Folger Institute, a center for advanced study and research in the humanities, is sponsored by the Folger Shakespeare Library, which houses one of the world’s finest collections of Renaissance books, and by a consortium of universities. In collaboration with the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS), the institute awards an annual ASECS/Folger Institute Fellowship of $2,000 to an ABD graduate student or a postdoctoral scholar conducting research in the period 1660 to 1815. The application deadline for this fellowship falls on the institute’s September application deadline, and applicants must be ASECS members in good standing. Preference is given to scholars concurrently applying to institute programs. For more information and instructions on how to apply see the ASECS/Folger Institute Fellowship page.

June 24, 2009
What We’re Reading: June 25, 2009 Edition
In the news this week, the AHA has sent a letter of concern to Russian Federation president Dmitrii Medvedev, historian Gerhard Weinberg wins an award from the Pritzker Military Library, and the Library of Congress adds its one-millionth page to its Chronicling American project. We also link to an article on the future of university presses, selling dollars to make dollars, and a new collection of four Frederick Douglass speeches. Finally, we link to two bits of fun: more photos in the “Looking Into the Past” series and wise recommendations from the Book Seer.
- American Historical Association Letter to President Dmitrii Medvedev
On June 17, 2009, AHA Executive Director Arnita Jones sent a letter to Russian Federation president Dmitrii Medvedev, expressing concern on behalf of the American Historical Association over the recent creation of a Commission to Counteract Attempts at Falsifying History to Damage the Interests of Russia. See the full text of the letter here (PDF). - Historian Gerhard Weinberg Wins Lifetime Achievement Award
Historian and AHA member Gerhard Weinberg has won a $100,000 Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Pritzker Military Library. The award will be presented on October 24, 2009 at a gala in Chicago. - Read All About It: Magnificent Milestone
Congratulations to the Chronicling America project—a historical newspaper site developed by the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities—which just added its one-millionth page last week. - New Features on Google Books
Google announces some new and improved features to its Book Search. Meanwhile, the library community is still trying to get a handle on the potential ramifications of the proposed Book Search settlement. - Change or Die?
University presses are on the ropes, the monograph may be an endangered species, and students who think phone books are museum pieces are all a clamor for easily accessible electronic resources. Reporting from the Philadelphia meeting of the American Association of University Presses on these sorts of challenges are Scott Jaschik for Inside Higher Ed and Jennifer Howard for the Chronicle of Higher Education. - South Carolina Is Seeing How Far Some Civil War Cash Can Go
Save your Confederate dollars, the South will rise again! Or, at least they will become valuable collector’s items. The New York Times reports that the South Carolina Department of Archives and History has made over $200,000 selling off old money in the last two years. - Smithsonian Folkways African American Legacy series
Smithsonian Folkways is the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian Institution, and in collaboration with the National Museum of African American History and Culture is putting together and reissuing African American music and oral histories. On June 23rd, they released a collection of four Frederick Douglass speeches read by the late actor Ossie Davis.
Comment [1]

June 22, 2009
Letters of Introduction: A Valuable Tool when Conducting Overseas Research
By Matthew Keough
It is sometimes difficult to gain access to institutions while doing research abroad. This is why the American Historical Association (AHA) provides Letters of Introduction to assist researchers in gaining access to foreign research facilities, special collections, and government archives. These letters are very effective because the executive director signs them and they are embossed with the official seal of the AHA. The only requirement for obtaining the letters is that one must be an AHA member. If interested, please submit a request to Matthew Keough via e-mail or by mail at
American Historical Association
400 A Street SE
Washington, D.C. 20003
Attn: Matthew Keough
The following information should be included in the request. Please be as brief as possible.
- The address where you will be receiving the Letters of Introduction.
- The name of the research institution(s) that you will be using while conducting your research overseas.
- Your name.
- Your academic/professional status (e.g. PhD candidate, professor).
- Your affiliation.
- Your AHA member number.
- A brief description of your research topic.
- The type of sources/material you will be using.
- The information you hope to gain from researching in these foreign institutions. What is the goal of your research project?

June 21, 2009
National History Day 2009: The Individual in History
By Elisabeth Grant
This year over a half a million students across the country participated in National History Day and explored historical topics centered on the theme of “The Individual in History.”
Last week the finalists in National History Day descended on the University of Maryland for one last round of performances and presentations. Then, last Thursday, the winners were announced. We’ve listed them below, but encourage you to visit the contest winners page on the NHD site for a more complete list (including all medalists, outstanding entry winners, special award recipients, and more).
Group Exhibit
- Junior Division
Marissa Lords and Tyler Stephens
“Fighting For Victory One Stamp at a Time: Buster Hill”
Idaho Falls, ID, Rocky Mountain Middle School - Senior Division
Kristina Bohl and Emily Bohl
“From Sweden to the Secretariat: The Legacy of Dag Hammarskjold”
San Diego, CA, Francis Parker School
Group Documentary
- Junior Division
Matthew Greenberg and Bennett Greenberg
“The Great Depression: Hoover’s Unexpected Foe”
Plainsboro, NJ, Community Middle School - Senior Division
Hannah Powers, Erica Dombro, and Dena Coffman
“Sir Edmund Hillary: Building a Legacy of Education and Sustainable Development”
St. Paul, MN, Highland Park Sr. High School
Individual Documentary
- Junior Division
Robert Coulter
“Senekerim Dohanian: Uncle Sam’s Ace Insect Hunter”
Lander, WY, South Elementary School - Senior Division
Carolyn Lipka
“Legislation By Johnson: Man and Moment”
Plainsboro, NJ, West Windsor-Plainsboro High School North
Individual Exhibit
- Junior Division
Emily Hamlin
“Patsy T. Mink: Rewriting the Rules”
Redmond, WA, Sunrise Elementary School - Senior Division
Sharlyn Nelson
“Lewis Hine: Exposing Child Labor”
Norco, CA, Norco High School
Paper
- Junior Division
Samvit Jain
“Leader and Spokesman for a People in Exile: Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce”
Redmond, WA, Redmond Junior High School - Senior Division
Laura Ball
“Cholera and the Broad Street Pump: The Life and Legacy of John Snow”
Milwaukee, WI, University School Of Milwaukee
Individual Performance
- Junior Division
Simone Prince-Eichner
“Justitia Omnibus: Clarence Earl Gideon and the Right to Counsel for the Poor – Changing History from Behind Bars”
Lummi Island, WA, Prince Home School - Senior Division
Laura Holmes
“By Deeds Not Words: Alice Paul’s Militant Fight for Women’s Suffrage”
Searcy, AR, Riverview High School
Group Performance
- Junior Division
Marissa Manos, Ramie Sahota, Bianca Hinojosa, Calvin Laverty, and Sameen Bramer
“Sylvia Mendez: The Legacy of a Young Girl’s Fight of Equality in Education”
Bakersfield, CA, Fruitvale Junior High School - Senior Division
Lauren Altman, Ankur Mohan, Alexandre Guevara, Randall Tesser, and Cassandra Guevara
“One For All and Wall for One”
West Nyack, NY, Clarkstown South Hs
Web Site
- Junior Division
Osten Anderson
“Alfred Nobel: Inventions of Destruction – Legacy of Peace”
Riverside, CA, Amelia Earhart Middle - Senior Division
Michael Weil, Quinn White, Emily Cass, Yoseph Desta, and Mackenzie Gaura
“A Legacy of Social Justice: Earl Warren’s Rights Revolution”
San Diego, CA, Francis Parker School

June 18, 2009
Grant of the Week: Hodson Trust-John Carter Brown Fellowship
The C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience and the John Carter Brown Library offers the Hodson Trust-John Carter Brown Fellowship to support work by academics, independent scholars, and writers working on significant projects relating to the literature, history, culture, or art of the Americas before 1830. The fellowship is also open to filmmakers, novelists, creative and performing artists, and others working on projects that draw on this period of history. The fellowship award supports two months of research and two months of writing. The stipend is $5,000 per month for a total of $20,000, plus housing and university privileges. The deadline for applications is July 15. See the fellowship page for more information.

June 17, 2009
What We’re Reading: June 18, 2009 Edition
A recent article in the New York Times on “traditional history courses” has created a bit of a stir in the blogosphere. We start off this post by linking to the article and some responses. Then, check out Michele Lamont’s view of the field of history, read about a new college for history only, and listen to a layman’s approach to historic preservation. And finally, see historic newspapers on the Library of Congress Flickr page, read a critique of Google Books, learn seven lesser-known Civil War stories, revisit a two-century-old mystery, and learn about the life of Gypsy Rose Lee.
- Great Caesar’s Ghost! Are Traditional History Courses Vanishing?
The New York Times notes that diplomatic history is disappearing and looks to the history profession’s future. The article has elicited a number of responses; see what Mary L. Dudziak at the Legal History blog has to say and visit the HNN Cliopatria blog for a roundup of more reactions. The AHA study used in the report is still available online here. - Evaluative cultures: History vs. Economics!
While the New York Times focuses on divisions in the field of history, Michele Lamont emphasizes the larger "consensus" in the discipline. Drawing on the research for her new book on How Professors Think, she concludes that when it comes to the way evaluate scholarship in history “the disciplinary center holds.” - A College for History Only
In an effort to “promote the study of history in a way that [is] affordable and might reach new groups of students,” the Massachusetts School of Law is opening the American College of History and Legal Studies, which will “offer only the junior and senior years of instruction” and only offer one major: history. - A Layman Looks at Historic Preservation
Author and New Urbanist social critic James Howard Kunstler riffs on historic preservation in his latest podcast. Kunstler (The Geography of Nowhere and The Long Emergency) discusses issues such as adaptable reuse, preserving building façades, energy consumption, and why "we don’t make ‘em like we used to." - New Flickr Photo Set: Historic Newspapers
The Library of Congress blog announced last week a new historic newspapers “photostream” on their Flickr page. This new photostream “is a series of 52 weekly supplements in the New-York Tribune, beginning 100 years ago in 1909.” The library plans to add more pages each month. - Google Books Mutilates the Printed Past
Ron Musto, co-director of Humanities E-Book and a recipient of the AHA’s Marraro Prize, goes medieval on Google Books in "Google Books Mutilates the Printed Past." - Seven Civil War stories your teacher never told you
Mental Floss, by way of CNN, shares Civil War stories (that you may have never heard) of Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Mark Twain, and more. - A Student Sleuth Haunts the Grounds Where a College Once Burned
For her senior thesis, St. Mary’s College history and anthropology major Bonnie J. McCubbin may have solved a two-century-old mystery as to who burned Cokesbury College in Maryland. - Read ‘Em And Peep
Noralee Frankel, the AHA’s assistant director for women, minorities, and teaching, received a nod in the Style section of the Washington Post this past weekend for her book Stripping Gypsy: The Life of Gypsy Rose Lee.
Contributors: David Darlington, Elisabeth Grant, Vernon Horn, and Robert B. Townsend

June 15, 2009
Government on Twitter
By Elisabeth Grant
First YouTube, then blogging, and now Twitter; it appears that the U.S. government has fully embraced Web 2.0.
By now, most people have heard of Twitter, the “micro-blogging” service that allows users to post 140 (or less) character messages on their profile pages, or send these messages to other users who subscribe to their “tweets.” And now the U.S. Government is getting into the act.
While Twitter is a popular site for the text-happy younger generation who want to stay in touch with friends, it’s also being embraced by organizations and established institutions as a way to communicate news, events, exhibits, and more. And this group includes government agencies.
What parts of the government are on Twitter? Steve Lunceford, blogger and managing director of a PR firm, has created an extensive list of areas of government on Twitter, including “state and local, federal, contractors, reporters, academics, judicial branch and more.” He plans to keep this list up to date, and will announce changes to it in a very appropriate manner: through the Twitter feed GovTwit.
Here are just a handful of Twitter feeds from Steve Lunceford’s GovTwit Directory, along with some of their recent posts.
- The White House
- DTV! “The Transition is in progress…” If you have an analog TV, get a converter or new TV. Converter coupons: http://dtv.gov
- State Dept. Q of the Week: What Will Promote Understanding Between U.S. and Muslim Communities Worldwide? http://bit.ly/5oJ4u
- Welcoming the Steelers: Behind the Scenes: A follow-up video to the Pittsburgh Steelers’ visit last month, get a.. http://tinyurl.com/m8hkdz
- The Library of Congress
- A staff-selected "sampling of flavors" from the Nat’l Photo Company Collection. http://is.gd/Zbt8
- For Posterity … and for You, Too: The Library of Congress has released the 25 recordings selected this yea.. http://snipurl.com/jxmpx
- Webcast of Frank Abagnale of "Catch Me If You Can" fame, about spotting forgeries, is now online. Very entertaining. http://is.gd/Z3jt
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM)
- We are shocked and grieving over the loss of Officer Stephen Johns, who died heroically today in the line of duty. http://bit.ly/uhAgb
- World is Witness> Joseph Kony’s Revenge in Faradje: The pilot dips the plane’s w.. http://tinyurl.com/mrlw4o
- Boston event tom., 6/10, 7pm. Archivist to discuss hist. detective work behind rare album of photos of SS at Auschwitz http://bit.ly/xKwYw
- National Center for Preservation Technology & Training (NCPTT)
- The Application and Preparation of Limewash video has been released on YouTube with closed captioning http://bit.ly/VOOP8
- Care for ornamental cast or wrought iron? Check out this workshop in NOLA on June 18-19: http://snurl.com/dy7yt
- National Park Service Geophysics Training at Los Adaes: David W. Morgan, Chief of Archeology and Collections at .. http://tinyurl.com/n88dn9
- National Park Service – Yosemite National Park
- Surprise Bus Inspections Conducted in Yosemite National Park http://tinyurl.com/ltdj88
- Yosemite National Park Celebrates the 130th Anniversary of the Yosemite Chapel http://tinyurl.com/pyzdpq
- Yosemite National Park Invites the Public to Community Safety Day http://tinyurl.com/ps2p5n
Comment [1]

June 14, 2009
In Memoriam: Ernest R. May
By David Darlington
Ernest R. May, Charles Warren Professor of American History at Harvard University and a consultant to numerous government agencies, passed away on June 1, 2009, following complications from cancer surgery. He was a 50 year member of the AHA.
Ernest May was born in Fort Worth, Texas, on November 19, 1928. He received his PhD from the University of California at Los Angeles (1951). He joined the Harvard University faculty in 1954, after serving in the Navy Reserve during the Korean War and working as a historian for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, achieved full professorship in 1963, and was named Charles Warren professor in 1981. In additional to teaching in the history department, May served at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, where he taught courses on reasoning from history and assessing other governments, and directed a program studying the relationship between intelligence analysis and policymaking. He also served as dean of Harvard College, 1969–71, and chair of the department of history, 1976–79.
May was an authority on international relations, particularly on how history influences political decision making. His first book, The World War and American Isolation: 1914–17 (Harvard Univ. Press) won the AHA’s George Louis Beer Prize in 1959 for the best work on European international history. He also won the AHA’s Award for Scholarly Distinction in 2001 He authored or co-authored 14 books in all, covering diverse subjects such as the U.S. entry intro World War I, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Monroe Doctrine, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and, most recently, the fall of France in 1940 (Strange Victory: Hitler’s Conquest of France, 2000). With Richard Neustadt he wrote Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision-Makers (Free Press, 1986), based on their work at the Kennedy School, which sought to uncover better ways historical knowledge could be used to make decisions—what to ask of history, how to ask it, and how to draw meaningful historical comparisons. Robert Wampler, senior fellow at the National Security Archive, said of The Uses of History (the course on which the book was based), “The overarching theme—that history properly interrogated and analyzed can provide useful information for those engaged in the task of understanding and solving policy problems—left its mark on my subsequent work, as on many others in academia and government.”
In 2003–04, May served as a senior advisor to the 9/11 Commission, recruited by Executive Director Philip D. Zelikow, a frequent collaborator of his. He had a hand in writing the commission’s 600-page final report, which was finalist for a National Book Award. His job was to “help produce the historical narrative,” he said in a memoir of the experience for the New Republic (reprinted here at HNN). He added: “[T]he report was dedicated to the idea that a genuine concern for communicating an accurate picture of our reality to future generations may allow us to transcend the passions of the moment. For this reason, I hope that this official report will not be the last government document of its kind. In these perilous times, there will surely be other events that will require the principles of historiography allied to the resources of government, so that urgency will sometimes become the friend of truth.”
Ernest R. May is survived by his second wife, Susan Wood, a son and two daughters, and three grandchildren. A fuller treatment of his career will appear in a fall issue of Perspectives on History.

June 11, 2009
Grant of the Week: National Humanities Center Residential Fellowships
The National Humanities Center offers 40 residential fellowships for advanced study in the humanities during the academic year, September 2010 through May 2011. Applicants must hold doctorate or equivalent scholarly credentials. Fellowships are individually determined, the amount depending upon the needs of the fellow and the center’s ability to meet them. The center seeks to provide at least half salary and also covers travel expenses to and from North Carolina for fellows and their dependents. For more information, see the NHC’s fellowships page. Deadline for applications is October 15.

June 10, 2009
What We’re Reading: June 11, 2009 Edition
After protest, investigation, and a report, the State Department’s Office of the Historian has a new chief. See a collection of articles on the current situation and how it all began. Then, read about the NHPRC recommending $5.9 million in grants for documentary editing and archives, the dismissal of the case against Zotero, the death of Ernest May, and the history of crayon packaging.
- After Critical Report, State Department Finds New Leadership for Historian’s Office
The Chronicle reports on the new chief at the State Department’s Office of the Historian. See also, the National Coalition for History’s coverage of this news, as well as on the report of the inspector general that recommended this change. The first public evidence of issues in the Office of the Historian came in December of 2008, when Wm. Roger Louis resigned from the chairmanship of the U.S. State Department’s Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation in protest of “mismanagement.” We reported again on the situation in February of 2009 and Wm. Roger Louis wrote an article with his perspective in the April issue of Perspectives on History. - Commission Recommends $5.9 Million in Grants for Documentary Editing and Archival Projects
A recent press release from the National Archives announces that the “National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) has recommended to the Acting Archivist of the United States 82 grants of $5.9 million for projects in 39 states and the District of Columbia.” The grants were specifically recommended for archival and documentary editing projects. - Judge Dismisses Software-Licensing Case Against George Mason University
The Chronicle’s Wired Blog reports on the dismissal of a case against George Mason University and its Zotero software. - Ernest May, International Relations Expert, Dies at 80
The New York Times notes the recent death of Ernest R. May, historian of international relations. - Brand Spotlight: Crayola
Just for fun, check out the evolution of Crayola Crayons packaging. Contributors: David Darlington, Elisabeth Grant, and Vernon Horn

June 09, 2009
Jobs and Careers in History: Interview with Tim Grove – Part 2
By Jessica Pritchard
In part two of this interview with Tim Grove, acting chief of education at the National Air and Space Museum, learn about misconceptions in the history profession, advice for those with history degrees, and his thoughts on digital history.
In part one of this interview, which appeared on the blog yesterday, Grove spoke about the responsibilities of his current job, his background, and how he got into history.
Q: It seems history can be a tough thing to sell sometimes. There are a lot of misperceptions around it. What misperceptions do you see within the discipline?
A: It’s boring! Everyone thinks it’s boring because they were forced to memorize dates and names. The other challenge is that history museums traditionally have been places where you can’t touch anything and have to read labels. If you know how people learn, there are various types of learners that want to touch and don’t like to read, so those people right away don’t want to step foot inside a history museum. The neat thing is that history museums are changing; I think we’ve found a way to have hands-on and still maintain conservation and preservation. That’s really my job and my goal—to make history accessible to everyone.
Q: What advice would you give to students coming out with a history degree, especially if they don’t want to stay in the academy?
A: There are many places to find public history jobs. Certainly archives, libraries, historic preservation, cultural heritage, and museums. Persistence is the absolute key. You have to want the job very badly. I went through a period where I was working part-time jobs for several years after graduate school. I worked at the Portrait Gallery for about three years part-time, so persistence. Internships are extremely valuable and informational interviews. Go talk to someone—people love to talk about what they do! Have lunch with them and ask them questions. This is a field where networking is pretty valuable.
Q: What is some of the best advice you’ve gotten that has carried with you in your career?
A: I guess persistence, again. You have to want the job. My thinking was always in looking around [for jobs], if someone has a job that I want, they got the job somehow, so why can’t I? If there are people doing the jobs I want to do, then they’re out there. I think along the way people have told me that networking is important and keeping in touch with your contacts because you never know when someone will start a project that you might want to be part of. They’ll think of you, and it’ll be a great partnership. Also, always look for opportunities to gain experience in a variety of formats.
Q: You’ve been to a lot of places; I’m sure you’ve met some colorful people. Do you have one story (or two or three!) that really stands out? A fun story that sort reminds you why you love what you do?
A: One is actually written up on our web site. During the America by Air research phase, we decided that we wanted to do an interactive [exhibit] about “contact flying” and what that is. Basically, it’s navigating using landmarks. We found this great map from the National Archives of part of the Transcontinental Mail Route over the mountains of Pennsylvania, near State College. It was hand drawn by an airmail pilot in his 20s in about 1921 or so. The way we developed the interactive was that visitors would follow along the map, and we would have photographs of the various landmarks that they would have to put … in correct order, as if they were flying along. I was combing archives in Pennsylvania trying to see if there were any aerial photographs of these landmarks, and I could not find any. We resorted to going up in a helicopter, bringing a Smithsonian photographer, and following the Transcontinental airmail route, just like the airmail pilot did. [We] used his map, our primary source, and looked for the landmarks that were on the map; quite a few were still around today because most were natural landmarks. [It] was a wonderful, fascinating experience, which was a unique opportunity to, in some ways, replicate history—have the experience that the person that made the primary source [had].
Another fun story—for Lewis and Clark, the grizzly bear obviously plays a role in the story. One of my tasks, for some reason, was to find a good grizzly bear that we could use in the exhibit. We had a tactile component where visitors could feel different fur swatches from the five animals that Lewis and Clark identified first for science. Grizzly was one of them, and so we had a quote about the grizzly and a bear print that they could feel how huge the print was. But finding the fur was very hard because they’re endangered, and so one of our researchers finally tracked down this fur from the state government in Alaska. They said they would send us one, so we didn’t know exactly what was coming. One day, this big box comes addressed to me. We’re all excited because we know it’s the bear, so we open it up and fall back in this stench that emanated from the box. We thought they would send us a tanned hide, but it was pretty fresh; it had not been to a taxidermist, it was not tanned, and it stunk to high heaven! I had to find a taxidermist in St. Louis, and you can imagine the fun that was because they don’t see grizzlies that often since they’re endangered.
There are many fun moments in this job where you think, I can’t believe I’m doing this. Such as the America by Air exhibit—there’s a section that looks at the different ways that air travel affects everyone, even if you don’t fly. One of the areas is the food we eat. We wanted to show that someone in Kansas could eat fresh lobster because it’s flown in, so I was calling lobster companies in Maine finding out how they shipped their lobsters live. I never thought I’d be doing that! We also talked about how transplanted organs are shipped out. We contacted a company that ships kidneys, and they showed us exactly how they packaged the organs. We had to recreate an organ, obviously, but I had to research that. I never know what I’m going to research!
[On Digital History]
I was fortunate to be in American History Museum when the web was brand new, so we were all trying to figure out this new medium and what it would mean for learning and for museums. We recognized that it was a big change, but everyone was in the same boat, trying to figure out what it meant. Because I was manager of the Hands-On History Room, we decided to experiment to see if we could adapt hands-on to the web format, which was a really fun learning process. That’s kind of what got me into the web world. That and I worked the Within these Walls exhibit, [where] we did an online exhibit for that, which was also a great learning experience.
I have feet in different worlds. I’m on the web team here [at the National Air and Space museum], and we’re experimenting with social media. Smithsonian itself is really trying to figure out what Web 2.0 is—how we address that and meet the needs of people that want to engage with our collections in a way that we might not anticipate. The other aspect of the web is that when you work on an exhibit now, it’s no longer the physical exhibit only; it has the extension to the web, so you have the virtual exhibit. Ideally the same people work on both. It’s really understanding that media, which is very different. It’s not the same as a physical exhibit, and getting historians to think that way is hard. Many historical organizations are moving to digitization projects, which is good! They should be, but the next step, I think, is working with educators and the people that will translate that raw content. Researchers know how to use it, but other people don’t. You really need to help them understand how to analyze historical sources or provide a context for them to do that. I think that’s a really important role for museum educators, or historians who are educators.

June 08, 2009
Status Update on Paper of Record Materials
By Robert B. Townsend
The staff at Google have now posted information about the status of the newspapers obtained from the Paper of Record. As we reported last month, a number of members were deeply distressed after these materials were taken off line and they could not find out about their status.
According to a member of the Google staff, 4.91 million articles from 522 titles obtained from Paper of Record are now live on Google News Archive search (though he adds the caveat that “all articles from these titles may not be comprehensively available, but will otherwise be made available in browse-only mode within 3 months.”)
Another half million additional pages from 381 titles are projected to be available in “browse-only mode within 3 months.” These materials “were of low quality, and we were therefore unable to get quality text after following the OCR process. We are working to put up content from these titles so that they can be browsed.”
They report that materials from additional ten titles will not be available for the foreseeable future, because they could not obtain the rights from the original rights holders.
The materials are currently searchable by a number of search criteria—though searching by particular titles and particular ranges of years can be rather difficult. Staff at Google say they are working to improve the interface and allow improved browsing, which will be critical for newspapers with poor-quality OCR.
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June 07, 2009
Jobs and Careers in History: Interview with Tim Grove – Part 1
By Jessica Pritchard
One of the fun things about studying history is it isn’t restricted solely to historical eras you read in textbooks; you can find history in everything from cars, to McDonalds’ Happy Meal toys, to the Appalachian Trail.
Tim Grove knows the variety of history topics out there. He has held both conventional historical jobs at places such as the National Portrait Gallery and the National Museum of American History, and somewhat unconventional ones, like his current position as the acting chief of education at the National Air and Space Museum. Not only has Tim made a fulfilling career working at three Smithsonian museums (a historian’s dream!), but he has countless stories in the field that exemplify the unpredictability of historical research and the infinite learning opportunities pervasive in the field.
In this interview, Tim shares his experiences working as a historian and educator at Smithsonian museums; explains the challenges of creating permanent museum exhibits; discusses quirky research assignments he never anticipated conducting; and much more!
Q: What exactly do you do here?
A: My exact role is acting chief of education for the National Mall Unit.
Q: What are your responsibilities?
A: The jobs that are under me are responsible for public programs and our docent program. We have an early childhood program, which is relatively new. We have a How Things Fly gallery, the museum’s main interactive gallery, which is ten years old and has its own staff. I do a lot of work with exhibit development.
Q: What are the details on those exhibits?
A: One exhibit is a redo on our Pioneers of Flight gallery, which is bringing it back to the 1920s and 30s, when the original gallery was. Over time, they [the museum staff] put other things in, so it went beyond its intended time period, but now we’re bringing it back to the 20s and 30s and [adding] space history into that too. Normally we do exhibits that are either air or space; this time we’re trying to combine them. The most recent permanent exhibit, which I worked on, was called America by Air: The History of Commercial Flight. That exhibit targeted five-year-olds and above, and this time we’re targeting about three and above [for Pioneers of Flight], which is the biggest challenge yet. That age is really hard, as you can imagine, especially for history because kids don’t have an understanding of past, present, future until around age eight.
The other exhibit is Moving Beyond Earth, which is about the shuttle era and the international space station. There are several challenges: one, how do you convey the scale of the space program/the shuttle program in a 5,000-6,000 square foot black box? The second challenge: it’s barely history. It’s the 1980s, which any good historian is only starting to think of as history, but it goes to today and beyond. NASA is currently trying to figure out exactly what it’s going to do, what the beyond means. The challenge with this topic is often how you keep it current. With air transportation and commercial aviation, who knows what’s going to happen with air travel in the next year. That particular gallery is a permanent exhibition, so it could be there 20 years, which is scary when you’re working on an exhibit to think of how many people will see that.
Q: How did you get involved here at the museum?
A: I’d been at the Smithsonian before. This is my third Smithsonian.
Q: What were the other two?
A: National Portrait Gallery and the National Museum of American History. I left the National Museum of American History to take a job working on the National Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Exhibition in St. Louis. It was a three-year project, so when that ended I had to look for another job and decided that I really wanted to come back to Washington. I really missed the stimulating environment of the Smithsonian. There weren’t any jobs in American history, but a job opened up here. So here I am.
Q: What’s your educational background?
A: I have a graduate degree in American history from George Mason. I was in the Applied History track, so I had to fulfill a six-credit graduate internship. I spent a summer at Colonial Williamsburg, which was fascinating experience because I’d always wanted to see the behind the scenes there.
My Portrait Gallery job was in education. I didn’t even know museums had education departments! I didn’t really have a goal in mind when I started the graduate program, but a friend recommended I go for an informational interview with the curator of education at the Portrait Gallery. The curator was this very dynamic, energetic guy…. I could see that my personality fits into the education role. I love research, but I don’t think I would be happy if I was doing research behind the scenes all the time. I really like applying the research, interacting with people, and seeing them learn. I’ve ended up as a museum educator, which is not how I like to label myself. It’s a label I seem to have because I’ve sat in the education department in the museums I’ve worked, but I really call myself a historian because my degree’s in history. I do research; I just don’t get to do it all the time. I love to do research—I love to go to the Library of Congress, the National Archives, just like every historian does!
Q: What did you do while you were at the American history museum?
A: I worked on exhibit teams [and] managed the popular Hands-On History room, which was made of 35 different activities. Each activity related to an exhibit somewhere in the building—you could gin cotton, ride a high-wheel bicycle, put together a Chippendale chair, look at the carving on an 18th-century-style Chippendale chair, make rope, try your hand at Morse code. It was a really fun learning environment for all ages. It was also an international model, the first of its kind. We had people from all around the world coming from museums to talk about it.
I did several really fun projects at the American History Museum. One was Within These Walls, a house brought down from Massachusetts. The exhibit looks at five families who lived in a house over time.
And then the Star Spangled Banner Project went on for ten or more years, conserving the actual flag. I worked on researching a map-based activity for the Hands-On History room about the Star Spangled Banner; that’s where I really got to do a lot of research. We based it on this map of Baltimore from 1814; it was a military map from the National Archives.
Q: How did you get into studying history?
A: I’ve always loved history. I grew up in Pennsylvania—my parents took me to Philadelphia, Boston, New York, Williamsburg, Gettysburg, Washington. Somehow something sparked an interest in me as a child. I think maybe because I visited the sites I could imagine it as I was learning about it.
Q: Did you have any favorite places you visited as a child that really stand out?
A: Williamsburg, certainly, is a great place because it’s such an immersive environment.
Q: What do you love most about your job here?
A: I like the variety—every day is different. The variety of subject material also keeps it interesting. And the continual learning. The neat thing about what we’re doing here now is taking a hard look at our exhibition program and thinking about how we can make it stronger in the future.
Q: Do you have a favorite historical era you enjoy studying?
A: That’s always a hard question to answer! I like the Revolutionary War. I love the Civil War. I kind of like the decade before the Civil War. The truthful answer is that I can get excited about any time period in history.
Q: With the Revolutionary War, the Civil War—what is it about those eras that fascinate you or hook you?
A: Just the conflict that caused people to make really hard decisions in. Lewis and Clark was a great project too. I was sick of Lewis and Clark by the end! When I look back on that project, it really was fun because it expanded my knowledge of Native American history and opened up cultural landscapes that I never had experience with before.
Q: Is there anything you miss here at the National Air and Space Museum? Activities? Responsibilities? Subject matter?
A: I miss the cultural history. I really like social history and cultural history. We are making much more of an effort in recent exhibits to include social history. For example, for America by Air, we talk about who flew because different types of people were flying in different periods. During the 1930s, the Hollywood stars had a clause in their contract that said they weren’t allowed to fly, so that tells you that the studios thought it was dangerous because the studios owned them, basically. Around 1935, we found an article in the LA Times that said Studios are allowing stars to fly now because stars wanted to fly; they almost couldn’t stop them. We added that part about stars flying because people like celebrities, so we have all of those great shots of stars leaving the airplane and how it was promotion for the airlines. [These photographs] also made the interpretive point we wanted to make: by this time period, there’s a general perception that flying is safer.
One more example—we were talking about African Americans and flying. The topic of segregation came up, and everyone said, Well you think of trains and buses; you don’t think of planes. Was there segregation with flying? We did some research and found that not a lot of research has been done on that, so we added a whole panel that talks about segregation and flying.
Q: And was there [segregation]?
A: The answer is that the airports were segregated, so the lounges, the restroom facilities, and the restaurants in southern airports, even National Airport. The flights weren’t segregated, probably because they couldn’t figure out a way to do that. If you’re flying from the north and halfway through you cross into southern air, you can’t all change seats. There was a big campaign to integrate the airports because a lot of federal money was supporting the airports, so it was a big deal; you just don’t hear about it. That’s an example of how we want our visitors to see themselves in the exhibits, hear their stories.
Visit AHA Today again soon for part two of this interview, where Tim Grove will talk about misconceptions in the history profession, give advice to those with history degrees, and provide his thoughts on digital history.

June 04, 2009
In Memoriam: Philip D. Curtin, 1922–2009
By Pillarisetti Sudhir

“This is no ordinary book,” wrote Geoffrey Parker in the American Historical Review of December 1985, reviewing Cross-cultural Trade in World History, published by Cambridge University Press in 1984. This was no ordinary historian, one might write with equal justification, of the book’s author, long-time member and president (in 1983) of the AHA, Philip D. Curtin, who died yesterday, June 4, 2009, in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, at the age of 87.
Born in Philadelphia in 1922, Philip Curtin grew up in West Virginia. He received his early collegiate education at Swarthmore College, graduating with a degree in history in 1948, after three years of service in the Merchant Marine. He had already fallen in love with history and decided to make it a lifelong commitment, it seems, since he joined the AHA the same year, even before he went on to Harvard University for his PhD, which he received in 1953 for his dissertation, “Revolution and Decline in Jamaica, 1830–1865.”
Curtin started his long teaching career as an assistant professor back at Swarthmore College. He then moved to the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Here he teamed up with colleague Jan Vansina to help launch and develop the hitherto neglected field of African history, and started a department of African languages and literature (the first such department in the United States). With a series of pathbreaking publications such as The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census, which raised new questions even as it set new standards for accurate cliometrics of a complex past, The World and the West: The European Challenge and the Overseas Response in the Age of Empire, The Rise and Fall of the Plantation Complex: Essays in Atlantic History, and The Image of Africa: British Ideas and Action, 1780–1850 (which received the AHA’s Schuyler Prize), Curtin made himself a name as a brilliant historian who broke away from the dominant Eurocentric models of historiography of other continents to create a critical and pioneering body of scholarship on Africa, the Atlantic world, the British empire, and comparative history. As if responding to the tug of the Atlantic (and perhaps a love of the sea rooted in his tenure with the Merchant Marines) reflected in his works, Curtin moved to the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in 1975, where he became the Herbert Baxter Adams Professor of History.
Curtin, it has been said, wore his scholarly distinctions—the Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellowships, the fellowship of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences, among others—and the sheer magnitude of his scholarship, lightly and unostentatiously. Yet he insisted that his numerous graduate students meet the same high standards that he set for himself.
“The discipline of history has broadened enormously in the postwar decades, but historians have not,” Philip Curtin declared in his presidential address to the AHA, lamenting the increasingly narrow specializations of too many historians who thus remained ignorant of developments in fields outside their own. He himself was an exception, almost singlehandedly (but along with his many students, surely) defying the trend toward ever-narrowing subspecializations for more than 50 years. From intellectual history to the history of pandemics, from imperialism in India to the ecological history of the Chesapeake Bay, Curtin roamed across space, time, and specializations in a time-machine of his own invention.
It is telling that he begins his recently published autobiographical work, On the Fringes of History: A Memoir (Ohio University Press, 2005), “Being a West Virginian is a little different from being a Californian or a New Yorker,” and then, unable to repress the cliometrician in him, adds, “Part of the difference is quantitative.”
This report is based on material drawn from the Johns Hopkins University’s Gazette Online of May 4, 1998, an unsigned biography of Philip Curtin distributed at the December 1983 annual meeting, and the AHA’s membership records.

June 04, 2009
Grant of the Week: Postdoctoral Bursaries from the University of Edinburgh
The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh is offering postdoctoral bursaries (residential fellowships) for candidates in any area of the humanities and social sciences, whose work falls within the scope of one of the Institute for Advanced Studies’ current research themes or across disciplinary boundaries in the humanities. The bursaries are tenable for fellowships of three to nine months, in the period of September 1, 2009 to August 31, 2010. Awards will be up to a maximum of £10,000. The deadline for applications is July 10, 2009. See the postdoctoral bursaries page for more information.

June 03, 2009
Jim Leach Nominated for NEH Chair
On June 3, 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Jim Leach, former Republican congressman from Iowa, as chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. President Obama has been quoted as saying, "I am confident that with Jim as its head, the National Endowment for the Humanities will continue on its vital mission of supporting the humanities and giving the American public access to the rich resources of our culture. Jim is a valued and dedicated public servant and I look forward to working with him in the months and years ahead."
See more on this at:
- The Washington Post – President Obama Nominates Jim Leach to Head NEH
- The Chronicle – Jim Leach, Former GOP Congressman, Is Nominated to Lead Humanities Endowment
- National Humanities Alliance – Statement on the Nomination of Jim Leach for NEH Chair
- National Coalition for History – President Obama Names Former GOP Congressman Jim Leach to NEH Chair

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