Past Newsletters
Summer 2006

WINTER 2006 COMMENCEMENT
On December 21, 2006, the Department faculty, the Dean of the Graduate School, and family and friends welcomed three new doctoral recipients and eight master of arts conferees to the ranks of History graduate alumni. The Commencement festivities can be viewed online by clicking here.

ADMISSIONS

For the 2006-2007 admissions cycle, the Department received 264 applications, a historic high. Admissions decisions will be announced in late winter 2007.

ALUMNI NEWS

John A. Bernbaum (PhD, 1972; Advisor: George Kent) recently completed his first decade as the Founding President of the Russian-American Christian University (Moscow, Russia).

Mary Beth Corrigan (PhD, 1996, US; Advisor: Ira Berlin) continues to work as a freelance historian/curator. Most recently, she has worked with PNC Bank for the organization and assessment of the archives of the defunct Riggs Bank archives, which are slated for donation to The George Washington University (Washington, DC) and the organization of a museum at the historic Riggs Bank branch at 15th St. and Pennsylvania Ave. NW.

Greg Gagnon (PhD, 1969, British; Advisor: Donald Gordon), Associate Professor of Indian Studies at the University of North Dakota (Grand Forks, ND) recently published the second edition of An Indian Chapbook (2006) and two articles in North Dakota Quarterly . Dr. Gagnon, who is an enrolled member of the Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Chippewa, serves as a consultant for a number of Tribal Colleges in the upper Midwest and Plains States.

John C. Golembe (PhD, 1981; Advisor: Herman Belz) completed a thirty-one-year tenure on the administrative staff of the University of Maryland University College (UMUC). He now resides in Schwetzingen, Germany and teaches at US military installations within commuting distance of Heidelberg and also online through UMUC's distance education program.

David Hostetter (PhD, 2004, US; Advisor: James Gilbert), Director of Programs and Research for the Robert C. Byrd Center for Legislative Studies and Adjunct Professor of History at Shepherd University (Shepherdstown, WV), presented the paper "A Measure of Reality in a Wilderness of Dreams: The Washington Peace Action Center and the Cultivation of Grassroots Peace Activism in the Nation's Capital, 1961-1963," at the Washington, D.C. Historical Studies Conference, held October 27, 2006.

Rene Kollar (PhD, British, 1981; Advisor: Donald Gordon) is serving as Dean of the School of Humanities and Fine Arts at Saint Vincent College (Latrobe, PA).

Matthew Mason (PhD, 2002, US; Advisor: Ira Berlin), an assistant professor at Brigham Young University (Provo, UT), published Slavery and Politics in the Early American Republic (University of North Carolina Press) in October 2006. The monograph, based upon his dissertation, follows the publication of "Slavery, Servitude, and British Representations of Colonial North America," in the summer 2006 edition of The Southern Quarterly .

Donald Miller (PhD, 1972, US; Advisor: James Gilbert), Professor at Lafayette College (Easton, PA) published Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War against Nazi Germany (Simon and Schuster) in October 2006. The book reviewed in the New York Times on its was to becoming a bestseller and was picked up as a main selection by Book of the Month Club, the History Book Club, and the Military History Book Club. It has already been named Book of the Year by World War II Magazine , which published an interview with Dr. Miller in the December 2006 issue.

Christy Regenhardt   (PhD, 2005, US; Advisor: Robyn Muncy) has taken a position of assistant editor on the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, housed at The George Washington University (Washington, DC).

Donald A. Ritchie (PhD, 1975, US; Advisor: H. Samuel Merrill), delivered papers on "American Politics in the Great Depression" before the American history seminars at Clare College, Cambridge University, and the Rothmeir American Studies Centre at Oxford University, and gave the 2006 Richard Hewlett Address to the Society for History in the Federal Government, "Senate Voices: Thirty Years of Oral History on Capitol Hill."

Rennie Scott-Childress (PhD, 2003, US; Advisor: James Glbert), Assistant Professor at SUNY-New Patlz, presented "Fiction into Fact and Back Again," a paper about the use of historical fiction in history classes, at the 2007 meeting of the American Historical Association, held January 5-7 in Atlanta, GA.

Ingo W. Trauschweizer (PhD, 2006, International & Diplomatic; Adviso Jon Sumida), Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of History and Political Science at Norwich University (Northfield, VT), was awarded first place in the 2006 Cold War essay contest at the Virginia Military Institute. The award includes an invitation to submit the essay to the Journal of Military History .

FELLOWSHIPS , GRANTS, AWARDS, PUBLICATIONS, AND PRIZES

Kate Keane (PhD, US; Advisor: Leslie Rowland) has received an award from the Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library at Emory University (Atlanta, GA) to conduct dissertation research.

Mark Hagerott (PhD, Science & Technology; Advisor: Robert Friedel) received Honorable Mention in the U.S. Naval Institute's 2005 Principles of War Essay Contest for his paper, "The Shift in War from Machine to the Human Domain: Applying the Classic Principles of War in a New Context."

David Hunter (PhD, US: Advisor: Gary Gerstle) received a Moody Grant from the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum (Austin, TX) for archival research in LBJ's pre-presidential papers.

Stephen Johnson (PhD, US; Advisor: James Gilbert) received a Moody Grant from the LBJ Foundation for research in the papers of the Presidential Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, housed at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library and Museum (Austin, TX).

Jonathan White (PhD, US: Advisor: Herman Belz) completed page proofs for an edited book A Philadelphia Perspective: The Civil War Diary of Sidney George Fisher in Fordham University Press' series The North's Civil War. Jonathan also won an ABC-Clio Grant, administered by the Society for Military History, for archival research in court martial records housed at the National Archives.

Glenn F. Williams (PhD, International & Diplomacy; Advisor: Jon Sumida) welcomed the softcover edition of his Year of the Hangman: George Washington's Campaign Against the Iroquois (Westhole Publishing, 2005), winner of the American Round Table's Thomas J. Fleming Award for the Best Book on the American Revolution in 2005.

CONFERENCES, PAPERS, AND PRESENTATIONS

The Student Archivists at Maryland (SAM) organized Americana 2006: Art & Archives, an exploration of the intersection of American art and archives. The event, cosponsored by the University of Maryland Libraries and the Graduate Student Government, was held on Tuesday, September 26, and included remarks by SAM president Brad Houston (HiLS, Modern Europe: Advisor: Donald Sutherland).

The Second Annual History Graduate Student Association Conference will be held February 9, 2007. Maryland paper presenters include Jeremy Best, Thomas Castillo, Erik Christiansen, Shane Dillingham, Paul Gibson, Melissa Kravetz, Brian Phelan, and Robert Peterson.

José Pablo Acuahuitl (PhD, Latin America: Advisor: Mary Kay Vaughan) presented "Dangerous Liaisons: The Creations of a 'Mexican Culture' in the Diplomatic Arena, 1946-1948" at the XII Conference of Mexican, United States, and Canadian Historians, held in Vancouver, Canada, October 4-8, 2006.

Leandro Benmergui (PhD, Latin America; Advisor: Daryle Williams) presented "The Production of Knowledge about Urban Poverty in Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires, 1948-1968" at the Urban History Association Third Biennial Conference, held October 19-22, 2006, at Arizona State University (Tempe, AZ).

Robert Chase (PhD, US; Advisor: Gary Gerstle) organized the panel, "Prisoner Rights as Civil Rights," and presented "Invisible Economy Under Chained Hands: The Internal Prison Economy and the Struggle for Prisoner Rights in Texas, 1962-1990" at the 2006 Western History Association conference, held October 11-14, 2006, in St. Louis, MO.

Susanne Eienegel (PhD, Latin America: Advisor: Mary Kay Vaughan) presented "Revolutionary Promises and Urban Realities for Mexico City's Middle Class, 1915-1929" at the XII Conference of Mexican, United States, and Canadian Historians, held in Vancouver, Canada, October 4-8, 2006.

Angela Ruocco (PhD, International & Diplomatic; Advisor: Shu Guang Zhang) presented "Conspicuous Absence: The Allied Governments' Free Pass to the Italian Fascist War Criminals During the Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935-1936" at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial and Its Policy Consequences Today: Interdisciplinary Conference sponsored by Bowling Green State University (Bowling Green, OH) and the University of Toledo College of Law (Toledo, OH), held October 5-7, 2006.

Angela Tudico (PhD, US; Advisor: Robyn Muncy) will present "Women Without Race: Japanese War Brides in the Postwar United States" at the 2007 Graduate Symposium on Women's and Gender History, to be held at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, March 8-10, 2007.

Kim Welch (PhD, Women & Gender: Advisor: Robyn Muncy) will present "Race and Ethnicity in the 19th Century" at the Nineteenth Century Studies Association conference, to be held March 8-10 at Susquehanna University (Selinsgrove, PA) and at the James A. Barnes Club Conference, to be held April 14   at Temple University (Philadelphia, PA).