Newsnotes

Fall 2004
No. 13

Change in the AHRS program continues. As of summer 2004, I accepted an appointment as the Director of the AHRS program, and will remain so for three years. At the end of three years, I hope to pass the program on to another faculty member, so the joys and frustrations of program leadership will be more equally shared within the department. I am looking forward to a time of great change and development.

The History Department, and the AHRS program, welcomes four new members. Sara Gregg (PhD, Columbia) joined the faculty as its new environmental historian. See the most recent edition of Agricultural History (Fall 2004) for an Everett award winning article by Sara Gregg, "Uncovering the Subsistence Economy in the Twentieth-Century South: Blue Ridge Mountain Farms." After a year on leave, Leonard Sadosky (PhD, Virginia) became the department's historian of early America. Michael Bailey (PhD, Northwestern), who also spent last year on leave, has become the department's medievalist. Matthew Stanley (Ph.D., Harvard) joins in the history of the physical sciences. This year, the department hopes to hire a specialist in African American history, with research interests that coincide with the AHRS program.

The program faculty of AHRS has changed somewhat in the last year. As of this summer, it now has two categories of membership: core and participating. Core faculty include Hamilton Cravens, Christopher Curtis, Sara Gregg, David Hollander and Pamela Riney-Kehrberg. Participating faculty include Michael Bailey, Patrick Barr-Melej, Amy Bix, Jerry Garcia, Paul Griffiths, Xiaoyuan Liu, John Monroe, Andrejs Plakans, Leonard Sadosky and Matthew Stanley. Any faculty member who wishes to participate in the program is free to do so. A working group of the core and participating faculty is cur-rently revising the AHRS program guidelines. The group hopes to bring more uniformity and clarity to program requirements, but more importantly, to prepare AHRS students more carefully for the competitive job market.

In the spirit of these revisions, the History Department hosted a conference in the spring, "New Directions in Rural History." Invited speakers included Marc Becker (Truman State University), David Blanke (Texas A & M - Corpus Christi), Brian Q. Cannon (Brigham Young University), Reeve Huston (now at Duke University), Roy Loewen (University of Winnipeg), Bonnie Lynn-Sherow, Kansas State University), and Dionicio Valdes (Michigan State). Topics explored included the rural family, social con-flict, consumerism in the countryside, environmental history, and immigration, migration, and ethnicity. Three graduate students, Joe Anderson, Alexandra Kindell and Derek Oden presented their dissertation research. Joe Anderson, Jenny Barker-Devine, Knut Øyangen, and Matthew Voz commented on sessions. The conference sparked lively dis-cussion, and is intended to lead to the publication of a volume on "New Directions in Rural History." The History Department and AHRS program extend warm thanks to Dean Michael Whiteford and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences for making the conference possible.
  
Pamela Riney-Kehrberg
Director,
Doctoral Program in Agricultural History and Rural Studies
 
New Student

The AHRS program welcomes Robert Welch, who joins the program from the University of Northern Iowa.
 
Continuing Student News

EXCITING NEWS!! In the last twelve months, AHRS students have secured outside research and travel funding amounting to nearly $20,000! Many congratulations to them.

Ginette Aley is currently visiting assistant professor of 19th century U.S. history at Drake University in Des Moines. She has a forthcoming article in Ohio Valley History, "Grist, Grain, and Rural Society in the Midwest: Insight Gleaned from Grain" She also has a forthcoming book chapter, "Dwelling Within the Place Worth Seeking: Constructing Regional Identities through Internal Histories," in Timothy Mahoney's Regionalism and the Humanities (University of Nebraska Press). She's written three book reviews, completed two extensive reviews of textbooks for publishers, and an encyclopedia article on land policies for the Encyclopedia of the American Nation. She continues as an abstractor for both the Journal of the American Republic and the Journal of Southern History. She also continues to assist Doug Hurt with his research on the rural Irish. She is working on her dissertation, a history of the early American Midwest, examining the ways in which boundaries - racial and spatial - mattered in the development of a commercial agricultural region.
 
Ginette has accepted a tenure track position at the University of Southern Indiana as their Early America historian.

Joe Anderson continues to make progress on his dissertation on the adoption of new farm technology on Iowa's post-WWII farms. He is also lecturing in survey courses in U.S. history at ISU this year. He received a dissertation research grant from the State Historical Society, Inc., as well as a travel grant from the Society for the History of Technology and the International Committee for the History of Technology. He presented papers at the International Committee for the History of Technology's 31st Symposium, Bochum, Germany, the , and the Northern Great Plains History Conference's Annual Meeting. He also was chair and discussant for a panel at the Social Science History Association's Annual Meeting. Additionally, he reviewed three books. He participated in ISU's New Direction's conference as a panel commentator, and by presenting his dissertation research. He is serving on the State Nominations Review Committee of the National Register of Historic Places.

Sue Atkinson completed her exams in the spring, and is beginning work on her dissertation, a study of the interaction of ethnicity and religion in voting behavior (by township) in Iowa for the late 1800s up to 1920.

Jenny Barker-Devine passed her qualifying exams in the fall, and will take her preliminary examinations this spring. Her current research interests include rural civil defense, rural women, agricultural reform, baseball and college fraternities. Her centennial history of the Iowa State ch apter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) fraternity will be published in June 2005. She participated in the New Directions conference as a panel commentator.

Alexandra Kindell is this fall's recipient of the Garst Fellowship. Currently she is in California at the Huntington and Bancroft Libraries, researching her dissertation "Settling the Sunset Land: California, Agriculture, and Farm Families, 1850-1890."

She also recently received the 2004 Phi Alpha Theta Doctoral Scholarship from the national honor society to continue her dissertation research. In March, she presented a paper based on her dissertation titled "Women Reeling Reform: Silk Culture in 1880s California" at the Southwestern Social Science Association meeting in Corpus Christie, Texas. She presented her dissertation research at ISU's New Directions conference. She is co-editing the Encyclopedia of Immigration and Migration into the American West.

Derek Oden continues work on his dissertation on farm safety in the twentieth century. He presented "Selling Safety: The Emergence of the Farm Safety Movement" at Iowa State's New Directions conference. He wrote an encyclopedia article, and is working on a book review. His article "From Cob to Can: The Development of Iowa's Canning Industry during the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries," will soon be published in the Annals of Iowa. This semester, he is teaching the U.S. history survey at Iowa State. In the spring, he will teach American History and World History courses at William Penn University.

Derek is the Agricultural History Society's Everett Edwards Award winner for the best student article submitted to the journal for his work "Selling Safety: The Farm Safety Movement's Emergence and Evolution from 1940-1975."

Knut Oyangen is finishing his exams, and beginning work on his dissertation, tentatively titled "The World Immigrants Made: Europeans and the Rural Midwest." Last summer, he taught Western Civilization for the History Department at ISU. He also completed a number of encyclopedia articles, and submitted an article for consideration to North Dakota History. He acted as a panel commentator for ISU's New Directions conference. In the spring, he will be a Rural and Regional Fellow of the Center for Rural and Regional Studies at Southwest Minnesota State University, Marshall, Minnesota.

Cameron Saffell is Curator of Agriculture and director of the Oral History Program at the New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum in Las Cruces. He also serves as an adjunct professor of history at New Mexico State University. In the spring, he passed his preliminary examinations, and began serious work on his dissertation, a history of cotton farming in the American west. He published a book review, as well as an article, "Enhancing the Interpretation of the `Greater Southwest" in the Spring 2004 issue of Agricultural History. He was re-elected to the board of directors for the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro Trail Association (CARTA), and served on the editorial board for the Southern New Mexico Historical Review.

Matthew Voz participated in the New Directions conference as a panel commentator. He also submitted an article to the Columbia Journal of Historiography. In the spring he will defend his master's paper, "Politicizing Paint: Russian Easel Painting across the Revolutionary Divide."

Rick Woten continues work on his master's thesis, a history of the Des Moines River Improvement land grant and 19th century American internal improvements.
 
News from Our Graduates

Randal Beeman, PhD 1995, is professor of history and archives director at Bakersfield College.

Stephanie Carpenter, PhD 1997, has been granted tenure and promoted to associate professor in the History Department at Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky. She is currently working on two book manuscripts, one is a second edition of the Dictionary of Agricultural Organizations; the second is a study of rural life in West Kentucky/Tenessee, specifically in the Land Between the Lakes (TVA) region.  This will be based on oral interviews of former residents in the Lakes region who were removed by the federal government in the period from the late 1930s to the 1960s.  She also serves as Phi Alpha Theta Advisor, and has been busy taking students to conferences across the South.  In January she attended the biennial Phi Alpha Theta Conference in New Orleans where she was on a panel of faculty discussing regional conferences and she chaired/ commented on studentsessions.  She also traveled to University of Louisville in April and chaired/commented on more student sessions.  She just returned from Memphis, Tennessee and the Southern Historical Association meeting where several MSU students gave papers and she chaired one student session.

Jean Choate, PhD 1992, has been promoted to full professor at Coastal Georgia Community College. She finished her book on Eliza Johnson for Nova Press. It will be a part of the press's presidential wives series. In May, she traveled with a group of Georgia professors to Hungary.

Francis Danquah, PhD 1991, was promoted to the rank of professor at Southern University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He presented a paper on "Gold and Slavery in Asante, 1650-1874" at the Southern Conference of African American Studies at Nashville, Tennessee, February 2004. He also was the recipient of the Yvonne Ochillo Award for the best article published in the Griot for 2003 for his paper titled "The Physical and Psychological Context of Slave Diseases: From the Senegambia to Southern Louisiana, 1812-1860." It is available online under the International Index to Black Periodicals.

Anne Effland, PhD, 1991, continues to work in the Economic Research Service of the United States Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C.

Valerie Grim, PhD, 1990, is associate professor of Afro-American Studies at Indiana University. She is now the interim chair of the Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies, Indiana University. She has been appointed to the Patterson Research Institute and is serving on the PEW Committee/PREEL (Pew Rural Early Education initiative) for research concerning early education for rural African American children. She has also been selected as a fellow to participate in the CIC Academic Leadership Training Program for this academic year. She is anticipating several publications. One will appear with Jossey Bass Press in a book entitled, Decoding the Discipline: Using Evidence in the Teaching of History. She also published a chapter in Doug Hurt's recent book, African American Life in the Rural South, 1900-1950, titled, "African American Rural Culture, 1900-1950." She continues to work on her book manuscript, Life at Brooks Farm.

Kevin Hill, PhD 2002, continues as the ISU History Department's undergraduate advisor, and to teach as an adjunct instructor.

Peter Hoehnle, PhD 2003, successfully defended his dissertation, "Common Labor, Common Lives: The Social Construction of Work in Four Communal Societies, 1774-1932," in the fall of 2003. In the last year, he has presented seven talks, including the plenary address at the International Communal Studies Association meeting in Amana, Iowa. He is working on a book manuscript on Amana folk arts and crafts, which will be published in the spring. He is also working on an edited edition of David Lamson's classic work, "Two Years Experience Among the Shakers." He serves on the Historic Preservation Commission and Translation and Publication Committee in Amana, as well as the Amana Arts Guild Board and the Amana Sesquicentennial Steering Committee. As of this fall, he is running the Amana print shop.

Bruce Homann, PhD 2002, is an instructor at the Coon Rapids campus of the Anoka Ramsey Community College in Minnesota.

Joel Orth, PhD 2004 defended his dissertation, "The Conservation Landscape: Trees and Nature on the Great Plains," in the spring of 2004. He is currently revising his dissertation, teaching History 322 (Modern America) for Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and History 7A + 7B (History Survey) for Cuesta College, and looking for a full time teaching position. Joel was the Agricultural History Society's Gilbert Fite Award winner for the best dissertation in agricultural history.

Lisa Ossian, PhD 1998, teaches at Southwestern Community College, Creston, Iowa.

Claire Strom, PhD 1998, is assistant professor of history at North Dakota State University. She continues as the editor of Agricultural History. She says "the journal is still coming out, and on time, which sometimes seems like a monumental accomplishment!" She encourages all current and former students of the AHRS program to submit their work to the journal. For more information, contact Claire.Strom@ndsu.nodak.edu.

Louis Tremante, PhD 2000, is a Senior Adviser in the College of the University of Chicago.

Cherilyn Walley, Ph.D. 2002, is currently working as a historian for the U.S. Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg (NC). Her office is tasked with gathering and documenting the history of Army special operations. Since that history only goes back to World War II, most of her work is current history. As a part of her job, she has traveled all over the U.S. and to Korea, conducting interviews and collecting photos and papers from veterans. Because of the Army's involvement in recent conflicts, she is also spreading the word about Army special operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. As she says, "That work is an interesting blend of `soldier stories' and reportage. I came in only on the tail end of our first book, Weapon of Choice: ARSOF in Afghanistan, but am now starting the edit process on our second opus, All Roads Lead to Baghdad: ARSOF in Iraq."

Douglas Wertsch, PhD 1992, is professor of history at Athens State University in Athens, Alabama.
 
Research and Travel Support

Iowa State University graduate students may apply to the Graduate College for one travel and one research grant each fiscal year. The applications require a brief budget. The forms are available on the Graduate College web site.

Iowa State University's Department of History offers the prestigious Garst Dissertation Fellowship each year to a graduate student in the advanced stages of dissertation research and writing. Students intending to apply must submit a formal letter of application and a current vita to the program director by 1 March 2005. Each semester, Phi Alpha Theta, Kappa Iota Chapter, sponsors a travel grant for active members in good standing who present their work at academic conferences. Students can receive up to $200 for travel expenses or conference registration fees. For more information on membership, as well as application forms, please visit the PAT website, www.stuorg.iastate.edu/pat. Further questions may be addressed to the Chapter Advisor, Dr. David Hollander, at dbh8@iastate.edu.  

Graduate Fellowships

CENTER FOR RURAL AND REGIONAL STUDIES
SOUTHWEST MINNESOTA STATE UNIVERSITY

The Center for Rural and Regional Studies at Southwestern Minnesota State University will be hosting its second AHRS student as a Rural and Regional Fellow this spring. John Davis was at the Center in 2003, and Knut Oyangen will be there in the spring of 2004. The Center chooses new fellows biannually. Those interested in this program at Southwest Minnesota State University, Marshall, Minnesota, should consult the Center's web site: http://www.southwestmsu.edu/regional/fellows/Fellows.html.

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM
Graduate students and graduates of the AHRS program may find opportunities to pursue their interests through the Smithsonian Institution's fellowship program.
Graduate Student Fellowships - These fellowships allow students to conduct research for ten-week periods in association with Smithsonian research staff members. Applicants must be formally enrolled in a graduate program of study, must have completed at least one semester, and must not yet have been advanced to candidacy in a doctoral program.

Predoctoral Fellowships - These fellowships allow students to conduct research for periods of three to twelve months. Applicants must have completed coursework and preliminary examinations for the doctoral degree, and must be engaged in dissertation research. In addition, candidates must have the approval of their universities to conduct their doctoral research at the Smithsonian.

Postdoctoral and Senior Fellowships - Postdoctoral Fellowships of three to twelve months are available for scholars who have held the doctoral degree or equivalent for fewer than seven years as of the application deadline. Senior Fellowships of three to twelve months are available for scholars who have held the doctoral degree or equivalent for more than seven years as of the application deadline.

Deadline: January 15th (postmark) for awards to begin on or after June 1st For further information, go to http://www.si.edu/ofg/fell.htm
 
Web Sites of Interest

For more information about agricultural history and rural studies, as well as funding opportunities, search the following websites.

Agricultural History and Rural Studies ( http://www.history.iastate.edu/aghistory.shtml)
Agricultural History Society ( http://agriculturalhistory.ualr.edu/)
H-Net Humanities & Social Sciences Online (http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~rural/)
Phi Alpha Theta ( http://www.phialphatheta.org)
Rural Women's Studies Association (http://www.uncp.edu/rwsa/)
State Historical Society of Iowa (http://www.iowahistory.org/)