The NEHA Spring 2017 Conference was held at Salem State University in Salem, Massachusetts on Saturday, April 22, 2017

FINAL CONFERENCE PROGRAM – last updated 4/4/17

Download the program as a PDF

All sessions held in the Classroom Building

8:00-8:30 REGISTRATION & CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST: Classroom Building (CB)

First Morning Sessions, 8:30-10:00

8:30 Session 1: Letting the Dead Speak: The Hope Cemetery of Worcester (CB 111)
Chair/Comment: Linda Hixon, Worcester State University

“A Cemetery on the Move: Removals to Hope Cemetery”
Zachary Washburn, Worcester State University
“Clark Chandler: A Tale of Resilience”
Laura Sutter, Trinity College
“Writing Lives: Teaching Graduate Writing through Biography”
Erika Briesacher, Worcester State University

8:30 Session 2: Ethnic Identities and Historical Agency (CB 112)
Chair/Comment: Troy Paddock, Southern Connecticut State University

“Rethinking Cold War Refugees: Vietnamese in America After 1975”
Amanda C. Demmer, University of New Hampshire
“Yampara Identity and Historical Agency: The Tarabuco Pullay and the Jumbate”
Javier F. Marion, Emmanuel College
“Festivals as Declaration of Identity and Resistance”
Violetta Ravagnoli and John Sisinni, Emmanuel College

8:30 Session 3: Working Around the Law (CB 113)
Chair/Comment: Thomas Balcerski, Eastern Connecticut State University

“Proof Without a Principle Person: The Bothnea, the Janstaff and the Triumph of American Due Process”
Edward Martin, Independent Scholar
“The Liberal Republicans of 1872 and the Search for Social Order: Samuel Bowles as a Test Case”
Richard Allan Gerber, Southern CT State University
“The Legal Road Less Travelled–Specific Supreme Court Cases Heard (and Not Heard) During the Vietnam Conflict”
Shawn Driscoll, Worcester State University

8:30 Session 4: Ethnic and Religious Struggles in American History (CB 114)
Chair/Comment: Jessica Parr, Simmons College and University of New Hampshire

“Foes to Oppression: New England Quakers and the Struggle of Antislavery in Providence, Rhode Island, 1769-1789”
Kevin Vrevich, Ohio State University
“Come, Come Ye Saints: Birth, Death and Mourning on the Mormon Trail”
Kaitlyn Benoit, University of Utah
“Beyond Migration: The Removal Debate of 1829 and the Ideological Displacement of Indigenous People from the United States”
Christian Gonzales, University of Rhode Island

8:30 Session 5: The Impact of World War (CB 236)
Chair/Comment: Christopher Mauirello, Salem State University

“Life in the American Ambulance Field Service During World War I: The Writing of Oliver Wolcott”
Nicholas Hardisty, Independent Scholar
“Camp Vernet: Internment, Collaboration and Resistance in World War II France”
Kelsey McNiff, Endicott College
“Communication Barriers: The Effects of Censorship on the Psychological Health of American Soldiers During World War II”
Matthew Esposito, Southern Connecticut State University

Break for Book Exhibit & Refreshments 10:00 – 10:30

Second Morning Sessions, 10:30 – 12:00

10:30 Session 6: Explorations of State Intervention (CB 111)
Chair/Comment: Jennifer Tebbe-Grossman, MCPHS University

“Smallpox in Colonial America: ‘The most terrible of all the ministers of death’”
Ann M. Becker, SUNY Empire State College
“Meager Justice: Twenty-Three Enceinte, Indigent, and Black Female Inmates at Tewskbury Almshouse, 1854-1884”
Shannon Mokoro, Salem State University
“Refrigeration, Rations, and Red Tape: Economists and the Management of Red Meat in World War I”
Ian Kumekawa, Harvard University
“Art Behind Bars: Elma Lewis and the Theatre Arts Program at the Massachusetts Correctional Institute at Norfolk, 1969-1975”
Tess Bundy, Merrimack College

10:30 Session 7: Workshop – Taking Charge of Your Digital Identity, Part I (CB 112)

Creating a Digital Identity
Jessica Parr, Simmons College and University of New Hampshire

10:30 Session 8: Teaching the US History Survey in the 21st Century: A Roundtable Discussion of Perspectives, Pedagogies and Themes (CB 113)
Chair: Dane Morrison, Salem State University

Discussants:
Libby Bischof, University of Southern Maine
Thomas Carty, Springfield College
Shehong Chen, UMass Lowell
Ian Delahunty, Springfield College
Gary Jones, American International College

10:30 Session 9: This American Gendered Life (CB 236)
Chair/Comment: Matthew Esposito, Southern Connecticut State University

“Bachelors Triumphant: The Love Stories of James Buchanan and William Rufus King”
Thomas Balcerski, Eastern Connecticut State University
“Solicited: Gendered Performance of Vice and Reform, 1880-1920”
Shannon Cardinal, University of New England
“Every Man’s Smoke: The Making of the Masculine Cigarette, 1870-1920”
Andrew A. Towne, Plymouth State University
“Who’s That Cooking Dinner? The Gendering of Cooking and the Home Cook’s Identity in Mid-Twentieth Century America”
Jill Silverberg, Independent Scholar

10:30 Session 10: Thinking About Boston (CB 237)
Chair/Comment: Cheryl Boots, Boston University

“’We are obliged to be out very often to still noises:’ Sound in Boston’s Night Watch Reports”
Nicole Breault, University of Connecticut
“A Tale of Two Houses: Jamaica Plain, Digital Public Humanities, and the Great Historic House Museum Debate”
Christopher Gleason, Wentworth Institute of Technology
Jody M. Gordon, Wentworth Institute of Technology
“Kip Tiernan’s Work in Service of Boston’s Homeless Women”
Ella Howard, Wentworth Institute of Technology

10:30 Session 11: Historical Questioning: Witches, Natives, Courtesans (CB 114)
Chair/Comment: Tricia Peone, Independent Scholar

“Uncovering the Identity of Alice Young, America’s First Witch-Hanging Victim in the American Colonies and Exploring the Influence of Her Case”
Beth M. Caruso, Independent Scholar
“Finding the Onepennies Among the Wongunk”
Katherine Hermes and Alexandra Maravel, Central Connecticut State University
“’What’s Love Got to Do With It?’ The Politics Behind Courtly Love”
Courtney Smith, Plymouth State University

12:15 – 1:35 Lunch and Business Meeting (Classroom Building)

Afternoon Session, 1:45 – 3:15

1:45 Session 12: Guns, Portraits, and Failure: The Fates of New England Societies (CB 112)
Chair/Comment: Gayle Fischer, Salem State University

“’Productive of Unnecessary Experience’: The Value of the Farmington Canal Company’s Failure”
Bill Heiden, Trinity College
“For Posterity and Prosperity: Folk Portraits and Class in Early New England”
Patrick Cumpstone, Trinity College
“Lock, Stock and Barrel: A Historical Dissection of Pistols Belonging to General Artemis Ward in the Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society”
Sean Palmatier, Northeastern University

1:45 Session 13: Workship: Taking Charge of Your Digital Identity, Part II (CB 113)

Networking With Social Media
Jessica Parr, Simmons College and University of New Hampshire

1:45 Session 14: New Military Approaches to the U.S. Civil War (CB 236)
Chair/Comment: Cliff Putney, Bentley University

“Excavating Glory: Researching and Teaching the Archaeology of the Civil War Camp at Readville, Massachusetts”
Jody M. Gordon, Wentworth Institute of Technology
“’Making Treason Respectable’: Louisville’s Cave Hill Cemetery and the Performance of Confederate Identity”
Joy M. Giguere, Penn State York
“Field Artillery Effectiveness During the Civil War: Did Field Artillery Decide the Civil War?”
Sean T. Brophy, Plymouth State University

1:45 Session 15: Twentieth Century Trysts: (CB 237)
Chair/Comment: Erika Smith, Nichols College

“A Gentlewoman Abroad: Virginia Haggard, Photographer and Writer”
Philip Mosley, Penn State University
“Fraternizing with the Enemy: The American-Soviet Friendship Project, 1945-60”
Alexis Peri, Boston University
“New World Order, Same Old Judgments? American Perceptions of the Unified Team at the 1992 Olympics”
Erin Redihan, Boston University

1:45 Session 16: Notes from the British Isles (CB 238)
Chair/Comment: R. Malcom Smuts, University of Massachusetts Boston

“Jewish Conversion in Medieval London: The Special Interest of Henry III”
Lauren Fogle, UMass Lowell
“Queen Elizabeth I and Scandinavian Relations (1559-1603)”
Katherine Gilligan, UMass Lowell
“Everyday Empire: the Verse Letter in Irish and English”
Brendan Kane, University of Connecticut

1:45 New England Regional Department Chairs’ Meeting (CB 111)
Moderator: Troy Paddock, Southern Connecticut State University