The Department of History announced the Zane L. Miller prizes for this year’s best graduate papers at the spring awards ceremony.  First Prize, which comes with a $500 award, went to first-year doctoral student Alyssa McClanahan.  Her paper, “‘Take the Toys from the Boys!’ Anti-Nuclear Feminism and the Women’s Liberation Movement,” offers a fascinating glimpse into the struggles among feminist groups.  Taking the anti-nuclear feminists as her lens, McClanahan concludes, “Movements like anti-nuclear feminism were the main heirs to women’s liberation of the late 1960s and 1970s.”  While her careful analysis lays bare how the diverse feminist presuppositions and agendas got in the way of a unified movement, her  insightful conclusion suggests that lack of homogeneity does not equal dysfunctionality, but rather connotes a vibrant, stimulating, and ongoing feminist discourse.

Second Prize, with a $250 award, went to first-year doctoral student Nathan McGee.  His “‘Renfro Valley Is Your Community Too’: A Modern Vision of the Past at Renfro Valley, 1937-1950” offers an intriguing examination of the rich material on the emerging radio culture and radio host John Lair.  McGee shows the powerful draw of Lair’s juxtaposition of the fleetingness of the city with the timelessness of the country. But McGee also demonstrates the tensions underlying Lair’s broadcast of “good, old, American values” associated with hardworking American farmers through a thoroughly modern medium, the radio.

Third Prize, and its $125 award, went to David Weyhe, who earned his Master’s degree this spring. His beautifully written paper, “‘Wasnatürlichist, kannnichtunmoralischsein’: Magnus Hirschfeld, Cosmopolitan Right, and the World League for Sexual Reform 1921-1935,” takes us into the world of the interwar period and its initiatives regarding sexual reforms.  Weyhe’s careful study of sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld and the series of international congresses on sexual reform demonstrates the extent to which Hirschfeld’s scientific, cosmopolitan, pan-humanist ideas shaped the contents and conduct of the congresses. 

At the end of Spring semester 2013, the Department of History presented History PhD candidate Matthew Stanley with the inaugural John K. Alexander Graduate Teaching Award.  Stanley, who defended his dissertation in April, taught two courses for the department in 2012-2013: an undergraduate research seminar focused on race in America and a freshman seminar on the Civil War in American memory.  In nominating Stanley for the award, his doctoral adviser, Professor Christopher Phillips, praised Stanley as a wonderfully effective teacher, noting in particular his impressive talent for “asking thoughtful questions that evoke good responses.”

PhD Candidate Matthew Stanley

This new teaching award honors the distinguished career of John K. Alexander, who joined the Department of History in 1969 and taught UC students for 43 years before retiring as Professor Emeritus in 2012.  Over his long career, Dr. Alexander was an extraordinarily devoted and gifted teacher whose American history lectures inspired literally thousands of undergraduates, while also offering graduate seminars that guided dozens of Masters and PhD students toward their own successful teaching careers. 

The Graduate Studies Committee identified Stanley as an especially suitable recipient of the award because of his dedication to teaching and to the pedagogical mission of the department, which very much mirrors that showed by Dr. Alexander during his many years of teaching in our halls.  Going forward, the department plans to make this award on an annual basis.  Those interested in supporting this new award honoring Dr. Alexander’s commitment to excellence in history education can contact Chris Eden at the A&S Office of Development(513.556.0912 or Christopher.Eden@uc.edu).

In 2011, Willard Sunderland, head of the UC History Department, and Herb Reisenfeld, owner of Provident Travel and a UC alumnus, developed an initiative that would enlist history faculty to lead groups of interested alumni on a series of tours to historical sites, providing insights from trained experts on the events and issues covered throughout the various trips. 

In 2012, coincident to the 150^th anniversary of the American Civil War, Christopher Phillips, a professor and published specialist, led more than 25 members on the inaugural, weeklong tour, The Civil War Revisited.  This exciting historical journey offered exposure to the most bitter struggle in American history, where disputes over Union, states’ rights, slavery, and the meaning of freedom pitted countrymen against each other and resulted in more than 620,000 American lives.

The group visited a number of prominent and lesser known Civil War and Lincoln sites from the eastern campaigns lying within two hours of Washington, D.C., including Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg National Military Parks, Harper’s Ferry and Lincoln Cottage National Historical Parks, as well as Ford’s Theater, the Petersen House, and the home of Dr. Samuel Mudd, key sites associated with the Lincoln assassination.

The event proved so successful that on June 1-8, 2013, Phillips will lead The Civil War Revisited II, visiting numerous historical Civil War sites associated with the western campaigns and relating especially to noted Ohio-born Union commanders Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman.  Highlights will include visits to the Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Vicksburg, Stones River, and Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Parks in Tennessee and Mississippi, the Confederate White House and the original Confederate capital in Montgomery, Alabama, the Cyclorama depicting the Battle of Atlanta, a laser show at Stone Mountain featuring the carving of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Jefferson Davis, and the birthplace sites in Kentucky of both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis.  In Memphis, the tour will also enjoy a different era of history in an evening of food and entertainment in the famous Beale Street music district.

Please join the History Department at UC for “Becoming Lincoln: Steep Falls and Cunning Comebacks On An Epic Journey,” a lecture by William W. Freehling, Singletary Professor of the Humanities Emeritus at the University of Kentucky and Fellow at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, Emeritus.  Professor Freehling, who previously taught at the University of Michigan, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Buffalo, is one of the foremost historians of 19^th-Century America and the Civil War era.  His books include Prelude to the Civil War (winner of the Bancroft Prize and the Allan Nevins Prize), The Road to Disunion (a 2-volume work on the coming of the Civil War), and The South v. the South, standard reading on dissent within the slave states and Confederacy during the Civil War.  His lecture, drawn from his current book project, will focus on how Abraham Lincoln, famous for becoming arguably our most successful president, experienced our most extended series of failures on the way toward presidential triumph.  Professor Freehling explores the largely untold history of Lincoln’s journey from seeming inconsequence to unparalleled success.

Speaker: Professor William W. Freehling (History, University of Kentucky Emeritus)
Lecture: Becoming Lincoln: Steep Falls and Cunning Comebacks on an Epic Journey
Date/Time: Thursday, April 18^th, 12:30-1:45 PM  (Brownbag lunches welcome!)
Location: Electronic Auditorium in The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives at Hebrew Union College, Clifton Avenue.

This lecture has been made possible thanks to the generous support of Hebrew Union College, the McMicken College of Arts and Sciences and the Department of History of the University of Cincinnati.

Looking forward to seeing you!

Molly did this work as part of an internship with the Archives and Rare Books Library. The project also earned her a credit toward her BA in History. Her work demonstrates the  exciting internship opportunities available to undergraduates at UC. History majors and minors interested in internships for this summer or next fall can contact Professor Charles F. Casey-Leininger at caseylcf@ucmail.uc.edu.

UC History graduate student, Rachel Powell, is employed at the Woman’s City Club in Cincinnati this semester after the club received a $10,000 grant from the Wilder Foundation for Rachel’s work on the club’s history. Rachel began work on the project this semester, which merges with her research on the WCC in Professor Sigrun Haude’s research seminar. This summer she will begin working full time on the project.

The award of this grant reflects the high quality of Rachel’s work last semester in the Public History Practicum offered by Professor Charles F. Casey-Leininger. The WCC is expected to raise additional funds for Rachel’s work during 2014 with the goal of having a book published in time for the club’s centennial celebration in 2015.