The NEHA Fall 2014 Conference was held at Franklin Pierce University in Rindge, New Hampshire, on Saturday, October 18, 2014.

CONFERENCE PROGRAM – last updated 10/2/14

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8:00-8:30 REGISTRATION & CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST: Spagnuolo Hall
(Note: all session rooms are equipped for internet and projection)

First Morning Sessions, 8:30-10:00

8:30 Session 1: European Intellectuals and Observers (Petrocelli 108)
Chair and Comment: Melinda Jette, Franklin Pierce University

“Perceptive English Traveler: Katherine Gertrude Harris in the Russia of Catherine the Great”
Susan Vorderer, Merrimack College
“The Anxiety of Autonomy in German Idealism”
Nicholas Germana, Keene State College
“Rationalist Aesthetics: Emile Durkheim’s Critique of Republican Art”
Michael King, Drew University

8:30 Session 2: Colonial American History (Petrocelli 102)
Chair and Comment: Elizabeth De Wolfe, University of New England

“A Colonial Text for English Eyes: Mourt’s Relation and the Beginnings of English Transatlantic Print Culture”
Sean Delaney, Northeastern University
“Smallpox in Colonial America: ‘The most terrible of all the ministers of death’”
Ann Becker, Empire State College (SUNY)
“’The Work of Nature may at one place please the eye and displease’: Ordering the Eastern County Wilderness during the Invasion of Canada, 1775”
Daniel Soucier, Maine History

8:30 Session 3: The U.S. from 1780 to 1863: Books, Newspapers, and Slavery (Petrocelli 101)
Chair: Tona Hangen, Worcester State University

“’My Designed History of the Present Glorious Contest for Liberty’: Print Culture and the Politics of History in the early American Republic”
Steven Smith, Providence College
“Joel Tiffany’s Half-Hearted Unconstitutionality-of-Slavery Treatise”
Helen Knowles, Skidmore College
“’This war is a war for Civilization’: The Lewiston Daily Evening Journal on the Fate of Slavery, 1861 1863”
Eben Miller, Southern Maine Community College
Comment: Jennifer Mandel, Mount Washington College

8:30 Session 4: American Business History (Petrocelli 117)
Chair and Comment: Doug Ley, Franklin Pierce University

“Staying Afloat: Colonial Connecticut and the Litigated Maritime Economy”
Dominic DeBrincat, Eastern Connecticut State University
“’To the Embarrassment of the Treasury’: Borrowing, War Finance, and the American Government in the War of 1812”
Patrick Callaway, University of Maine
“Benjamin Strong, Jr.: The Common Monetary Thread”
Richard A. Naclerio, Sacred Heart University

8:30 Session 5: Expanding Nineteenth-Century Narratives: Complicating Historical Texts with Interdisciplinary Analysis (Petrocelli 116)
Chair and Comment: Rebecca Noel, Plymouth State University

“Complicating a Victorian Woman’s Life Story: Interdisciplinary Historical Scholarship Using Biography and Religious Studies Theory”
Lisa Howe, Florida International University
“A Spring of Gender Consciousness: Breaking Away from the Binaric Memory of the First Women’s Movement with Social Movement Theory”
Patricia Farless, University of Central Florida
“The Rhetoric of the Amistad: Teaching How Arguments Shape Historical Memory”
Martha Marinara, University of Central Florida

Break for Book Exhibit & Refreshments: 10:00-10:30 Petrocelli 112 & Lobby

Second Morning Sessions, 10:30-12:00

10:30 Session 6: Environmental History and Historical Environments in the U.S. (Petrocelli 108)
Chair and Comment: Marcia Schmidt Blaine, Plymouth State University

“Colonial and American Revolutionary Education and Interpretation: Challenges and Opportunities for Local Historic Organizations—Two Case Studies”
William Marsch, Consultant to Non-Profit Organizations
“Defending the Commons: Fish, Rivers, and Industry in New England, 1801-1812”
Erik Reardon, University of Maine
“The Legacy Ecosystem: Places for People and Nature in the Merrimack River Landscape of the Twenty-First Century”
Timothy Melia, University of New Hampshire

10:30 Session 7: Women and Religion in New England (Petrocelli 102)
Chair and Comment: Melanie Gustafson, University of Vermont

“Captivity and Conversion: Puritan Theology and Expression in Mary Rowlandson’s Narrative”
Wesley Fiorentino, Simmons College
“The Women of Hopedale Sewing Circle”
Linda Hixon, Worcester State University
“Christian Commitment in an Era of Choices: Navigating Religious Options in 19th Century New England”
Beth Salerno, St. Anselm College

10:30 Session 8: U.S. Labor History (Petrocelli 101)
Chair and Comment: Mary Kelly, Franklin Pierce University

“The Black Pacific Rim: Black Californian Laborers, Merchants, & Ship Workers, and the Rise of Pacific Commerce”
Eunsun Han, Brown University
“A Church of Two Steeples: French-Canadian Immigration, Labor, and Catholicism in New England, 1869-1890”
Patrick Lacroix, University of New Hampshire
“A Generation of Hope, Pain, and Heartbreak: The Worcester Molders’ Union, 1904-1921”
Bruce Cohen, Worcester State University

10:30 Session 9: International Perspectives on Black and Hispanic History (Petrocelli 114)
Chair and Comment: Nicholas Germana, Keene State College

“Hard Scrabble and Snow Town Race Riots: The Vestiges of Slavery in Providence, Rhode Island”
Christopher Martin, U-Mass, Boston
“Steve Biko: The Intellectual Roots of South African Black Consciousness”*
Alex Habibi, Keene State College
“Bilingual Journalism and Anglo-Hispanic Relations: The Role and Impact of El Sol, Houston’s first Spanish/English Newspaper”
Chrystel Pit, U-Mass, Lowell
“Nunca Olvide: Reframing Historical Discourse on Cuban Exile Terrorism”*
Miles Wilkerson, Eastern Connecticut State University

10:30 Session 10: Public History and Students (Petrocelli 116)
Chair and Comment: Troy Paddock, Southern Connecticut State University

“Hometown Histories and Oral History in Maine”
Allison Hepler, University of Maine at Farmington
“Site Visits, Blogs, Field Trips: Bringing Local Public History into the Classroom”
Libby Bischof, University of Southern Maine
“From Primary Source to Online Interpretation: Maine Memory Network and Public History”
Candace Kanes, Maine Historical Society
“Town-Gown Collaborations, Student-Curators and Museum Exhibits: Taking the Classroom to Local History”
Elizabeth De Wolfe, University of New England; and Camille Smalley, Saco Museum

12:15 – 1:30 LUNCHEON & BUSINESS MEETING – Spagnuolo Hall
(The NEHA Book Award Will Be Presented at Lunch)

1:30-2:10 Keynote Address
“What Would Frank Pierce and John Hale Do? A Historian in the New Hampshire House”
Doug Ley, Franklin Pierce University

Afternoon Sessions, 2:20-3:50

2:20 Session 11: Military History: The Roman Navy, WWI, and the Korean War (Petrocelli 108)
Chair and Comment: Martin Menke, Rivier University

“Mare Nostrum No More: The Roman Navy in Late Antiquity”
Robert Holmes, Independent Scholar
“The Importance of the Zuber Thesis on the Historiography of Germany and the Great War”
Troy Paddock, Southern Connecticut State University
“A Catholic Comic Book, Communists, and the Korean War”
Dennis Gildea, Springfield College

2:20 Session 12: U.S. Women’s History: Reformers and Traditionalists (Petrocelli 102)
Chair and Comment: Kristen Petersen, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences

“Anti-Suffragists on Campus: The Progressive Era Campaign against the Nineteenth Amendment at American Colleges and Universities”
Kelly Marino, Binghamton University
“Frances Parkinson Keyes Writes from the Nation’s Capital to American Women: Good Housekeeping’s ‘Letters from a Senator’s Wife’ Column in the 1920s”
Melanie Gustafson, University of Vermont
“’Is a nation a country or a people?’ Transnational State-building and Citizenship between the World Wars”
Erika Cornelius Smith, Nichols College

2:20 Session 13: The Upper South: Manumission, Tenant Farmers, and Black Baltimorians (Petrocelli 101)
Chair and Comment: John Lund, Franklin Pierce University

“’Wave the law and obey the commands of duty’: Manumission in the Upper South, 1831-1861”
John “Sean” Condon, Merrimack College
“Antebellum Southern Farm Tenants Reconsidered: The Case of Virginia”
John Zaborney, University of Maine at Presque Isle
“An Imperfect Pluralism: The Baltimore Afro-American and the ‘Revolution of ‘28’”
Robert Chiles, University of Maryland

2:20 Session 14: Gilded Age/Progressive Era History: Hypnosis, Sports, and Masculinity (Petrocelli 117)
Chair and Comment: Peter Holloran, Worcester State University

“The Hypnotic Criminal and the Liberal Subject in Turn-of-the-Century America”
Elizabeth Searcy, Brown University
“Physical Education at Springfield College: The Historical and Philosophical Origins of Gulick’s Triangle”
Herbert Zettl, Springfield College
“The Masculine Sphere: A Look at Victorian Masculinity in the 19th Century Adventure Literature”
Michael Baker, Worcester State University

2:20 Session 15: Roundtable on Teaching History: The Methods, Writing-Intensive, and Capstone Sequence (Petrocelli 116)
Moderator: Dane Morrison, Salem State University

Panelists
Rebecca Noel, Plymouth State University
Marcia Schmidt Blaine, Plymouth State University
Students, Plymouth State University

Comment: The Audience

*Indicates undergraduate paper