Jake Blosser has been on the road. In January, the American Historical Association funded a week of research at the Houghton Library at Harvard. In February, Jake was the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and Gilder Lehrman Fellow at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation; in March, grants from the EHS funded two weeks of research in the Washington, D.C. area, and in April, the EHS funded a week at the British Library and the Lambeth Palace Library in London. Jake participated in the seminar “Ballads, Broadsides, and Eighteenth-Century Culture” at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. He also gave papers at meetings of the AHA, the Society of Early Americanists, and the British Association for American Studies at Cambridge University and at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. He was also recently awarded a grant from the Society of Early Americanists.

Tyler Boulware won the Southeastern American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies’ graduate student award for best paper for the second time. He also presented a paper on Indian-African interaction to the American Historical Association. Tyler has accepted a position as Visiting Assistant Professor at Anderson College.

Tom Brown received the Richard A. Rempel Faculty Award, which the student government association presents annually to a faculty member who has shown particular concern for the welfare of undergraduates. Tom is also beginning a term as Director of Graduate Studies.

This spring Dan Carter gave the Fred Harris Lecture at the University of Oklahoma, the Spring Convocation Lecture at Brevard College, and the dedication speech for the Zeigler Room of the new Florence County Public Library, as well as papers commemorating the 100th anniversary of the South Carolina Department of Archives and History and the 75th anniversary of the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Kevin Dawson's essay “Enslaved Swimmers and Divers in the Atlantic World” received the Louis Pelzer Award of the Organization of American Historians and will be published soon in the Journal of American History. Kevin has accepted a position at Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut.

Three Public History students – current preservation students Rebekah Dobrasko and Beth Wiedower and alum John Christiansen – are the winners of the 2005 Student Project Award from the National Council on Public History. The award honors their work on Richmond Railway Station, a plan for the adaptive use of a train station in the north of England. The project was completed under the supervision of Connie Schulz in her “Comparative Public History Field Course” in the United Kingdom last summer. The cash prize enables the students to attend the annual meeting of NCPH in Kansas City. This is the second Student Project Award to go to USC Public History students – no other program has ever won two.

Bobby Donaldson has been awarded a Residential Fellowship for next year at Harvard’s W. E. B. DuBois Institute. His exhibit, “Evidence of Things Not Seen: Civil Rights Collections at USC,” was mounted again in the main gallery at the Thomas Cooper Library, and he was the keynote speaker at a ceremony honoring Georgia historians sponsored by the Lucy Craft Laney Museum in Augusta. Bobby was featured in the 4-part PBS documentary “Slavery and the Making of America,” and he, Dan Littlefield, and Pat Sullivan participated in a roundtable discussion about the film at the South Carolina State Museum. Bobby also moderated a dialogue with filmmaker Stanley Nelson at the Nickelodeon Theatre following a screening of Nelson’s film “Sweet Honey in the Rock”, and he presented “More than a Mere Magazine: J. Max Barber, Booker T. Washington, and The Voice of the Negro” at the OAH. Finally, Bobby writes, “I’M GETTING MARRIED IN MAY in a small riverside ceremony in Savannah, but will be planning a BIG EVENT in Columbia later in the summer.”

Don Doyle presented a paper, “Manifest Destiny, Race, and the Limits of Empire,” to the meeting of the British American Nineteenth Century History Association, and the paper is doing more work for him at the annual meeting of the British Association of American Studies, in Cambridge, and the annual meeting of the Association for the Study of Ethnicity, at the London School of Economics. Don is also participating in a forum sponsored by the Watson-Brown Foundation on the South and imperialism.

Kristina Dunn, who graduates in May from the preservation track of the Public History Program, is the recipient of the Darrick Hart Award for Excellence in Public History for 2005. Her graduate assistantship this last year has been with the South Carolina State Parks Service.

This spring, Walter Edgar offered a series of fifteen lectures on “Colonial South Carolina” for the general public. More than 200 individuals signed up for the series, some from as far away as Aiken, Rock Hill, and St. Matthews. The participants’ registration fees went into the Department's Educational Foundation account. A number of alumni have asked about being able to tune into Walter’s radio show via the internet. Beginning in April, SCETV-Radio started archiving recent shows: go to http://www.myetv.org/radio/programs/ and click on “Walter Edgar’s Journal.”

Lacy Ford edited The Blackwell Companion to Civil War and Reconstruction (Blackwell, 2005). The volume contains twenty-three historiographical essays and an introductory essay by Lacy, which assess the current state of the literature on the origins, conduct, and aftermath of the American Civil War. Contributors include John Larson, James Brewer Stewart, Michael Morrison, Nina Silber, Michael Perman, Heather Richardson, Gaines Foster, and Stephen Woodworth. Lacy also published “Reconsidering the Internal Slave Trade: Paternalism, Markets and the Character of the Old South” in Walter Johnson, ed., The Chattel Principle: Internal Slave Trade in the Americas (Yale University Press, 2004). In the fall, Lacy chaired the Executive Committee.

Karl Gerth presented “The Allure of ‘the West’: Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism in Republican Era Advertising” at “Studying the Daily Medium: Newspapers as Subject and Source in Republican-era China” at Harvard University, “Modern Indian and Chinese History in Comparative Perspective” at Benares Hindu University, Varanasi, India, and “Situating Consumerism in Non-Western Contexts” at the Institute of Chinese Studies, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, India.

Larry Glickman published “Make Lisle the Style: Fashion as Politics in the Japanese Silk Boycott, 1937-1940,” in the Journal of Social History. A version of his article on the abolitionist origins of consumer activism was published as “‘Acheter par Amour de l'esclave:’ L'abolitionisme et les origines du militantisme consumériste américain,” in Au nom du consommateur, Alain Chatriot, Marie-Emmanuelle Chessel, Matthew Hilton, eds. (Paris, La Découverte). Larry also won this year’s Michael J. Mungo Graduate Teaching Award.

Aaron Haberman organized a panel and presented a paper on “The Politics of Morality: School Prayer and the Transformation of the Christian Right” for the American Historical Association meeting in Seattle.

Carol Harrison published “The Bourgeois After the Bourgeois Revolution: Recent Approaches to the Middle Class in European Cities” in the Journal of Urban History.

As a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians, Wanda Hendricks presented “African American Women, Race Consciousness, and Political Activism” at Park University in Parkville, Missouri. Wanda also spoke on “Black Women in Civic and Political Engagement: an Historical Overview” at Clafin University. The three-volume Black Women in America, for which Wanda was senior editor, appeared with Oxford University Press. After four years as Graduate Director in the Women's Studies Program, Wanda is stepping down to return to full time faculty status.

Paul Johnson writes from “the Summer Palace in Onancock, Virginia” where he is “studying Virginia gentlemen, thoroughbred racing, and outboard engine repair.”

Mary Alice King will soon be leaving the department, to the general dismay of her friends and colleagues. She and Eddie have purchased a house at the coast and plan to move there soon.

Tom Lekan published “Globalizing American Environmental History” in Environmental History’s thirtieth anniversary forum, “What's Next for Environmental History?” He also chaired the American Society for Environmental History’s Alice Hamilton Prize Committee for the Best Article in the field published outside the journal Environmental History. The McKissick Museum hosted a screening of the documentary short films from Tom’s undergraduate, research-based learning project Tales of the Tidelands: Oral History, Documentary Production, and Environmental Values in the South Carolina Lowcountry. Check out the article on the project in the April issue of the Carolinian Magazine. One of the films from this project, “Uprooted,” by Amy Lopez, a recently graduated history major, Rukiya Hite and Dennis Nichols from Media Arts, and Anne Cooper Ellefson, chemistry, will be broadcast on SC Educational Television's Southern Lens series in the fall. Tom’s hard work on the Tales of the Tidelands was recognized with the Golden Key Faculty Award for Creative Integration of Research and Undergraduate Teaching. Tom also gave a paper on “Consuming Nature – Building Nations” in Austin, and he was named a finalist for the Ada B. Thompson Outstanding Faculty and Staff Advisor of the Year.

Dan Littlefield published “On the Issue of Africanisms in American Culture” in John Lowe, ed., Bridging Southern Cultures: An Interdisciplinary Approach, John Lowe, ed. (LSU Press, 2005) and a “New Introduction” to J.H. Easterby, ed., The South Carolina Rice Plantation as Revealed in the Letters of Robert F.W. Allston (USC Press, 2004). Dan presented “R.F.W. Allston and the Limits of States Rights and Planter Paternalism” at the annual meeting of the British American Nineteenth Century Historians in Edgefield. Dan also appeared in the PBS film “Africans in the Making of America,” and the SCETV production of “Francis Marion.”

Val Littlefield was selected for an NEH Summer Institute for College and University Instructors, on “The Redemptive West: Nationhood and Healing in the Post-Civil War American West,” at the Huntington Library for five weeks.

Aaron Marrs spent two weeks in February as Mellon fellow at the Virginia Historical Society. He also completed research at the Wisconsin Historical Society and Virginia Tech. While in Columbia, he has served as Assistant Managing Editor of the South Carolina Encyclopedia, to be published by the University of South Carolina Press later this year. Page Putnam Miller gave the keynote address to a national conference on women's history landmarks at Arizona State University. She is also speaking at an American Historical Association Wingspread Conference in Wisconsin on “Competencies and Credentials in the Training of History Professionals” and participating in a panel discussion at the National Archives during the celebration of its 20th anniversary as an independent agency.

Christopher Scott presented “‘Right in from the hills and full o' shine’: The Significance of Humor in Country Music Entertainment,” at the 22nd Annual International Country Music Conference in Nashville.

From Genoa, where she is the Fulbright Senior Lecturer in American History, Connie Schulz writes that she has given lectures in the American Studies Programs at the University of Catania, (Ragusa Branch) in Sicily, and the University of Leipzig in Germany. She went to the Italian Alps to see the site of the 2006 Olympics and to Rome at the time of the funeral of Pope John Paul II. In preparation for her trip to Italy, she organized a series of guest lecturers, including Val Littlefield and Tom Terrill. She assures us (unnecessarily) that she “is having a wonderful time!”

Lauren Sklaroff joined the history faculty in January, moving to Columbia with her husband, Jim Lamey, and their son, Jack Samuel, born 18 October 2004. Her article “Variety for the Servicemen: The Jubilee Show and the Paradox of Racializing Radio During World War II” appeared in American Quarterly.

Mark Smith published “On Eugenics, Economics, and Certainty” in the American Journal of Economics and Sociology and an entry on the “Stono Rebellion” in Americans at War: Society, Culture, and the Homefront. He also presented “One Nation, Under Time? Standardizing Time in the United States, 1752 and 1883,” at a conference in Beijing on “Calendars of Nation-States: Studies of Traditional Festivals and National Holidays” sponsored by China Folklore Society and the Beijing Folklore Museum.

Marjorie Spruill was invited by the OAH to join its Distinguished Lecturers Program. She delivered a paper entitled “‘No Grandmother Clause’: Gender and Generations in 1970s America” to the British Association for American Studies Fiftieth Anniversary Conference in Cambridge. She lectured on “Women’s Rights and Family Values: The 1977 IWY Conferences and the Polarization of American Women” at a symposium celebrating the re-opening of the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard, and on “Feminist and Antifeminist Strategies in Collision, 1977” at the Robert Penn Warren Center at Vanderbilt.

Stephanie Stewart was awarded the Rick Chase Foundation Scholarship from the Association of Moving Image Archivists

Pat Sullivan presented a paper on “The Civil Rights Movement and Beyond: The South since 1954” at the Southern Sources Symposium, celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina, and lectured on “Struggle without End: Virginia Durr and the Civil Rights Movement” at Mercer College. She joined Pat Maney for a program on “Remembering the Roosevelts” at the Deep South Regional Humanities Center at Tulane; her topic was Eleanor Roosevelt and the South. Locally, Pat participated in a panel discussion at the State Museum, which accompanied a preview of the PBS series, “Slavery and the Making of America” and in a program at the State Museum on “The NAACP: Then and Now.” At USC Pat lectured on “Profiles in Activism: Women and the NAACP” as part of the Women’s Studies Research Series and spoke with the History Club on Women and the Civil Rights Movement. Two books were published this spring in the series Pat co-edits with Waldo Martin for the University of North Carolina Press: Heather Williams, Self Taught: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom and James Smethurst, The Black Arts Movement: Literary Nationalism in the 1960s and 1970s.

Marcia Synnott published “The Evolving Diversity Rationale in University Admissions: From Regents v. Bakke to the University of Michigan Cases," in the Cornell Law Review, Symposium issue on "Revisiting Brown v. Board of Education: Fifty Years of Legal and Social Debate” and essays on “Civil Rights Organizations” in Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, Darlene Clark Hine, ed., and “Numerus Clausus in American Universities“ in Encyclopedia of Antisemitism, anti-Jewish Prejudice and Persecution, Richard Levy, ed.. She presented a paper entitled “Reading Race and Gender in Statues and Monuments at the South Carolina State House and The Matthew J. Perry, Jr. United States Court House,” at a session on “Race and Southern History” at the USC Women’s Studies Program Annual Conference.

Melissa Jane Taylor received a grant from the Holocaust Educational Foundation, which will allow her to spend the summer writing her dissertation.

Kelli Walsh participated in the Teaching American History project in conjunction with Fayetteville State University and Cumberland County Schools. She lectured on the role of women in the military during World War II and on civil-military relations in the United States. She was also part of a round table discussion on Gender in the Academy at the Mid-Atlantic Conference on Diversity. Kelli is presently on a one-year appointment at Fayetteville State University.

As usual, Micky Ward reports record-breaking numbers from the Undergraduate Student Services office: 471 majors! That includes 445 with history as a first major, 24 with history as a second major, and two with history as a second degree. This year’s Coolidge Award winners are Tyler Cook, Maria Jones, Bailey Pettit, Catherine Plein, Rebecca Spencer, and Allison Whitehouse. Debra Franklin is the winner of the Hampton Rogers Award, and Samuel Johnson, Maria Jones, and David Weatherly are winners of the Phi Alpha Theta Award. Maria Jones is also the recipient of the College of Arts and Sciences History Rising Senior Award. Parker Ainsworth and Mary Elizabeth Kinard will be next year’s Warwick exchange students.

Clyde Wilson received the John Randolph Club’s first annual Prize for Lifetime Acheivement. For the occasion in San Antonio, Clyde spoke on “Scratching for Fleas: American Historians and Their History.” Clyde was also awarded the Medal of Distinguished Service by the Sons of Confederate Veterans. This spring he has been interviewed by the New York Times, Newsweek, Salon, CNN-Atlanta, and an EU reporter from Brussels.