Historians in the News

This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in each source note. Quotation marks are not used.

Source: Playbill
1-7-12

Mary C. Henderson, Prominent Theatre Historian, Dies at 83

Mary C. Henderson, a leading historian of the American theatre and author of the seminal texts "Theatre in America" and "The City and the Theatre," died Jan. 3 at her home in Congers, NY, after a long struggle with Parkinson's disease, her son Doug Henderson said. She was 83.Is is a rare theatre major or stage professional who hasn't encountered or consulted a work by Ms. Henderson. Her first text, "The City and the Theatre," published in 1973 and revised and updated in 2004, made her reputation, and proved to be one of her most lasting works. In its well-illustrated 300 pages, she tracked the history of every important playhouse in New York history, from the early colonial days of the John Street Theatre and the Park Theatre, to the rowdy 19th-century playhouses of the Bowery to the northward march of the theatrical district from Union Square to Madison Square to Herald Square and, finally, Times Square. The A to Z listing of every Broadway theatre featured a photograph or illustration of the theatre, its address, the architect, opening production, and, if applicable, when the theatre was demolished....

Source: NYT
1-10-12

Who Word-Processed First? Professor’s History Has Writers Staking Their Claims

Matthew Kirschenbaum, the English professor at work on a literary history of word processing, may only be in the beginning stages of his research, but already some early adopters of the technology are chiding him for not doing his homework.In a recent blog post the science fiction writer Jerry Pournelle criticized Mr. Kirschenbaum for failing to award him bragging rights as the first to complete a science fiction novel — and perhaps any kind of novel — on a computer. Not only did he begin writing fiction on a souped-up Z-80 PC named Zeke in the late 1970s, Mr. Pournelle noted, but his old computer is also currently in the collection of the Smithsonian, albeit in storage.

Source: CNN.com
1-10-12

North Carolina task force, including historian, recommends $50,000 for sterilization victims

(CNN) – Living people who were forcibly sterilized as part of a decades-long eugenics program in North Carolina should receive a one-time payment of $50,000, a state task force recommended on Tuesday.North Carolina sterilized an estimated 7,600 people between 1929 and 1974, many of them against their will. The state apologized for the sterilizations in 2002, and Gov. Bev Perdue created the compensation task force last year. Many states once had eugenics programs, and seven have apologized, but North Carolina is the first to consider paying victims.The five-member task force - including a doctor, lawyer, historian, retired judge and retired journalist – met for 10 months and has a February 1 deadline to send a report, including recommendations for compensation, to the governor.

Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
1-10-12

Picture of forgotten WWI vet tells a thousand words for historian

Sporting a fashionable officer’s mustache and gazing serenely off-camera, this Canadian First World War soldier has the bearing of a man older than his 30-some years. An inscription on the wood frame of the black-and-white photograph identifies him as Major Alfred Frank Mantle and gives his date of death – Sept. 26, 1916.Somehow, the image would end up in a biology department storage room at the University of Regina. In the winter of 2010, when staff were cleaning the place out, department head Mark Brigham dropped by and found the picture sitting in a trash heap. He rescued it, cleaned years of stains and watermarks from the glass and set about researching the man in hopes of tracking down his descendents.“I was thinking, ‘Who is this and why is it here?’ ” he said. “I just knew the photo would mean something to someone.”The age-old thirst for knowledge about family history prompts thousands of Canadians each year to trawl databases or travel to Europe to research their genealogy. Prof. Brigham’s motivation, however, is not familial connection or professional duty, but simply a burning curiosity. In addition to his career as a scientist, he’s had a fascination with military history that stretches back to his childhood. His own grandfather fought in the First World War, losing an eye during a battle to take Hill 60 on the Western Front....

Source: Guardian (UK)
1-5-12

Churchill, Henry V and Napoleon? Overrated, says BBC History magazine

They may be among the most famous figures from history, but the likes of Winston Churchill, Henry V and Napoleon Bonaparte don't hack it so far as some British historians are concerned. Poor old Charles Darwin doesn't figure any better either.All are included in a list of the most overrated people in history chosen by the populist BBC History magazine to stir debate and publicity in its latest issue. Others chosen include Spartacus, Mary Queen of Scots, John Locke, William Wilberforce, Lord Baden-Powell and Malcolm X – quite enough for an eclectic fantasy dinner party guest list, or at least a row at one.Churchill was chosen by the historian and former BBC journalist Christopher Lee, not on the basis of a wartime record which has already seen him chosen as Britain's most celebrated hero, but because of his ministerial and political failings much earlier in his career....

Source: The Nation
1-5-12

Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers: What Went Wrong? Jon Wiener interviews Frank Bardacke

Jon Wiener teaches history at UC Irvine and writes for The Nation. The United Farm Workers was once a mighty force on the California landscape, with 50,000 members at the end of the 1970s; today the membership is around 6,000. What happened? And to what extent was the UFW responsible for its own demise? Frank Bardacke has been thinking about that for a long time—he was active in the student and anti-war movements in Berkeley in the 1960s. He moved to California's Central Coast in 1970, worked for six seasons in the Salinas Valley fields and then taught English as a Second Language at the Watsonville Adult School for twenty-five years. Verso has just published his book Trampling Out the Vintage: Cesar Chavez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Workers—it's a masterpiece of sorts, on the order of Parting the Waters by Taylor Branch. I spoke with Frank Bardacke recently on KPFK 90.7FM in Los Angeles.You worked in the fields in Salinas, picking celery. What was that like?

Source: Daily Mail (UK)
1-9-12

Henry VIII had a secret daughter who should have taken English throne before Elizabeth I, historian claims

King Henry VIII had a secret daughter who should have taken the throne before Elizabeth I, new research has revealed.Elizabeth Tailboys was the Tudor monarch's illegitimate lovechild who would have changed the course of English history had the King acknowledged her as his at the time.By rights she should have taken the throne on the death of Queen Mary in 1558, making her the true Elizabeth I and not Elizabeth, the daughter of Anne Boleyn.The decision would have had far reaching consequences for English history and the succession of every monarch since.The revelation has been unearthed by historian Elizabeth Norton who has re-examined royal records as part of an investigation into the life of Henry VIII's famous mistress Bessie Blount.Mrs Norton discovered Elizabeth Tailboy's was not the daughter of Bessie's future husband Gilbert Tailboys as previously thought, but the secret lovechild of the King....Mrs Norton, an author and historian who studied at Cambridge and Oxford universities, said: 'If Henry had acknowledged her, it could have changed the whole course of British history....

Source: Chicago Tribune
1-3-12

Passions for the past — and jobs — come alive at Chicago history convention

Crossing the lobby of the Chicago Marriott Downtown hotel later this week, you might hear enigmatic snatches of conversation, like:"I'm intrigued by 'Constructive Aspects of Mass Violence.' And you?""I'm off to 'Pirates, State Actors and Hegemonic Systems in the pre-Modern Mediterranean.'"Those would be the voices of historians choosing from among the 257 sessions of their annual gathering. Upward of 1,500 scholars are expected to attend the convention of the American Historical Association, which meets in Chicago every half-dozen years or so....

Source: Telegraph (UK)
1-2-12

Professor Katrina Honeyman dies at 61

“It remains an inconvenient truth,” she observed in 2010, “that most working-class children (and therefore most children) in 18th- and 19th-century Britain did not enjoy the freedom to develop physically and mentally through play and education. From an early age they laboured, contributing crucially to the fragile family budget and to wider manufacturing expansion.”However, in Child Workers in England, 1780-1820: Parish Apprentices and the Making of the Early Industrial Labour Force (2007), Katrina Honeyman showed that the life of the child labourer was not uniformly bleak. Many of them were able to use the skills and opportunities they acquired to advance themselves in adult life. Indeed, by early adolescence, most apprentices enjoyed greater earning capacity than their mothers and were jostling with their fathers for the position of main breadwinner.

Source: LA Times
1-3-12

Historian casts a skeptical eye on the emerging Egypt

Wrapped in a shawl on a cold morning, Gamal Banna shuffled over a dusty carpet amid fraying books on old civilizations. He knows well the intricacies of Arab history, but is far less certain where the upheavals of the last year will lead.Like the balustrade winding to his library door, the known ways are crumbling. Moments of wonder are giving way to months of bewilderment. These days, he said, are likely to prove as seminal as those after World War I, when Western powers drew the borders that shaped the Middle East for nearly a century. Islamists, who have endured decades of oppression, appear to have their chance to redefine the region's politics."One era has ended," said Banna, one of Islam's leading liberal thinkers. "But of the new era, we don't know exactly what is taking shape."...

Source: Inside Higher Ed
1-3-12

Reprieve for Boston College oral history collection

A last-minute stay from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has blocked efforts by British authorities to obtain documents from an oral history project at Boston College. While the college was prepared to turn over the documents, as ordered by a lower court, a stay was obtained on behalf of those involved in the oral history project.The stay -- issued Friday -- followed two December rulings by a district court judge, William G. Young. First, he refused a request by Boston College to have subpoenas for the documents quashed, instead saying that he could conduct a private review of the papers. In the ruling, Judge Young said he would weigh a variety of factors, including U.S. treaty obligations to Britain, and the impact of turning over confidential oral history documents on future academic research. Then last week, in a follow-up ruling, Judge Young ordered the release of documents related to interviews with Dolours Price, a woman in Northern Ireland who backed efforts by the Irish Republican Army to gain independence from Britain.

Source: Forward
1-1-12

Bernard Bellush, Historian and Activist, Dies at 94

Bernard Bellush, a labor historian and activist, has died of natural causes at age 94.Bernard Bellush, who was an editor of the the Forverts’s English supplement and served on the Forward Association’s board, died Friday night at a hospital, his wife, Jewel Bellush, wrote in a message to friends.Bernard Bellush was raised in the Bronx, attended public schools and graduated from City College in 1941. Although raised as a pacifist, he served in the army during World War II, taking part in the landing on Omaha Beach.He earned a master’s degree in history at Columbia University, with a thesis on Eugene V. Debs, and a Ph.D., with a dissertation on Franklin D. Roosevelt as governor of New York....

Source: WaPo
12-28-11

Valerie French, history professor at American University, dies at 70

Valerie French, 70, a professor emerita of history at American University, died Dec. 8 at her home in the District.She had a heart ailment, her husband, Robert Beisner, said.Dr. French joined the faculty at American University in 1969. She taught history courses on ancient Greece and Rome and specialized in women, midwives, childhood and parenting in the ancient Mediterranean. From 2001 to 2003, she chaired the history department and was also associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. She retired in 2005....

Source: Inside Higher Ed
1-3-12

Number of history jobs shows upward trend in 2010-2011

The history job market is on the mend, albeit in a very small way, according to a report released Monday by the American Historical Association.The number of jobs listed with the association in the 2010-11 academic year increased by 10.2 percent over the prior year, from 569 to 627. The gain doesn't suggest a healthy job market, however, because the figures from the previous academic year represented a historic low. And just three years ago, the number of positions listed with the history association was 1,064, the highest it has ever been. (While not all history jobs are listed with the association, the AHA data are considered a reliable measure of the market.)History continues to lag behind other disciplines when it comes to improvements in the academic job market, according to the report. Adding to the woes in this discipline is the high number of Ph.D. recipients, which was more than a 1,000 last year.The report, released the same week the American Historical Association holds its annual conference in Chicago, is sure to renew controversy over whether history departments let too many students into their doctoral programs, and the role of professors in failing to encourage graduate students to consider nonacademic careers....

Source: NY Daily News
1-2-12

Historians turn to ordinary folks for info on slavery

Emory University researchers have embarked on an admirable historical project: to learn more about the names of some 9,500 Africans carried on slave ships on the Atlantic, so they can better knit together the broader history of the millions of men, women and children who were abducted and sold into captivity.The names are an accident of history.In the first half of the 19th century, the British and others intercepted many slave ships and freed the prisoners — first, making detailed registries of their identities.The result is a rare list of the original African names of thousands of would-be slaves (the name Obama, for example, appears twice)....

Source: Today's Zaman
12-26-11

Switzerland urges historians to deal with Armenian genocide allegations

Swiss foreign minister has urged Turkish and Armenian historians to investigate events earlier last century that have been primary cause of tensions between the two nations for decades.Micheline Calmy-Rey, who is also the president of the Swiss Confederation, told Turkish ambassadors in her keynote speech at Ambassadors Conference in Ankara on Monday that historians from both sides should investigate the Armenian genocide allegations. “The historians would then contribute to discussions with their findings,” Calmy-Rey. Calmy-Rey stressed that there is not any law in her country that acknowledges a certain incident as genocide, like in France. Armenia, backed by some historians and parliaments, says about 1.5 million Armenians were killed in what is now eastern Turkey during World War One in a deliberate policy of genocide ordered by the Ottoman government....

Source: The Nation
12-21-11

Jon Wiener picks his five worst political books of 2011

...George F. Kennan by John Lewis Gaddis Yes this massive authorized bio landed on many year-end “best” lists, but most reviewers didn’t know much about Kennan beyond his authorship of the containment doctrine at the dawn of the Cold War. The problem with this book: it minimizes Kennan’s 40 years of criticism of the Cold War. “Containment,” he said, should have focused on economic and political competition with the Soviets, rather than on a military arms race. Gaddis portrays the older Kennan as morose and self-absorbed, but barely mentions Kennan’s opposition to the Vietnam War, his endorsement of Gene McCarthy for president in 1968, and his last political statement, in 2002, at age 98, criticizing George W. Bush’s plans for a war with Iraq. Perhaps relevant in explaining these gaps: George W. Bush awarded Gaddis the National Humanities Medal in 2005 in a ceremony at the White House. For a critique of the book, see Frank Costigliola in the New York Review, here.   Area 51 by Annie Jacobsen

Source: FactCheck.org
12-20-11

A Historian’s Perspective on Gingrich & Lincoln

Newt Gingrich wrongly claimed the Dred Scott decision “ruled that slavery extended to the whole country.” It did not. The ruling stated that Congress had no authority to ban slavery in new territories, but it stopped short of applying the ruling to all states. Gingrich also claimed that President Lincoln “explicitly instructed his administration to not enforce Dred Scott.” But the research historian at the Lincoln presidential library knows of no such directive or any reason to issue one.

Source: Claire Potter for The Chronicle of Higher Ed
12-18-11

Why Anthony Grafton Is a Rock Star

Claire Potter is a blogger and history professor at Wesleyan University.Have you followed American Historical Association president Anthony Grafton’s serial meditation on how graduate schools might respond to a bad academic job market? A market that has, since the the 1970s, been either stagnant or getting worse? A market with whose effects the blogosphere is obsessed?If you haven’t, you need to catch up.  For “No More Plan B” (October 2011) and “Plan C” (November 2011), both co-written with Jim Grossman for the AHA newsletter Perspectives, go here and here. For an article about “Plan B” by Scott Jaschik of Inside Higher Ed (October 3 2011) go here; and for a response by graduate student Dan Alloso (UMass-Amherst) go here.

Source: NYT
12-18-11

Paula E. Hyman, Who Sought Rights for Women in Judaism, Dies at 65

Paula E. Hyman, a social historian who pioneered the study of women in Jewish life and became an influential advocate for women’s equality in Jewish religious practice, including their ordination as rabbis, died on Thursday at her home in New Haven. She was 65.The cause was breast cancer, said her husband, Dr. Stanley Rosenbaum.Dr. Hyman, a professor of modern Jewish history at Yale University, wrote 10 books about the Jewish experience in Europe and the United States, many of them focused on women’s roles in various communities before and after the immense Jewish migrations of the 19th and 20th centuries.She spotlighted the special stresses confronting married Jewish women from Eastern Europe when they arrived in the United States, for instance: although they were used to working outside the home, even as primary breadwinners in some ultrareligious families, they were initially housebound in America, where custom placed married women in the home....