The NEHA Fall 2015 Conference was held at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven, Connecticut, on Friday and Saturday, October 23-24, 2015.

CONFERENCE PROGRAM – last updated 10/28/2015

Download the final program PDF

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23 – NEHA 50th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION

Location:
SCSU’s “Southern on the Green” Conference Center, 900 Chapel Street 10th floor, New Haven, CT

Schedule:
4:30 – 6:00 pm: Reception and cash bar
6:00 – 7:00 pm: Roundtable discussion featuring past presidents of NEHA
7:00 pm on: Dinner on your own, at one of the neighborhood’s many excellent restaurants within walking distance

Recorded Roundtable

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24 – Sessions at 8:30, 10:30 and 1:45, with lunch at 12:15

All sessions in first and second floors of ENGLEMAN HALL (EN)

8:00-8:30 REGISTRATION & CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST: Engleman Hall B121 A&B

(Note: all session rooms are equipped for internet and projection)

First Morning Sessions, 8:30-10:00

8:30 Session 1: Addressing Food and Redressing Assault in Eighteenth-Century New England (EN C113)
Chair and Comment: Robert Imholt, Albertus Magnus College

“Cookbooks in History: Discovering the ‘America’ of Amelia Simmons’s 1796 American Cookery”
Anna Lisa D. Ferrante, Boston University
“The Body of Law: Ajudicating Physical Assaults in Eighteenth-Century New England”
Dominic DeBrincat, Missouri Western State University

8:30 Session 2: Advancing Social Justice in the United States, 1930-1965 (EN C115)
Chair: Tona Hangen, Worcester State University
Comment: Virginia Metaxas, Southern Connecticut State University

“Civil Liberties and Big-City Police in the Era Before Hague v. CIO”
Donald W. Rogers, Central Connecticut State University
“’Into the Teeth of Jim Crow’: Almena Lomax and her Crusade for Racial Integration and Black Power”
Jennifer Mandel, Mount Washington College
“Freedom Songs as Grassroots History: Case Studies from 1961 to 1965”
Cheryl Boots, Boston University

8:30 Session 3: Antebellum Religion, Politics and Ethnicity in the Nineteenth-Century United States (EN C138)
Chair and Comment: David Valone, Quinnipiac University

“’Liberty to Preach: The Strata of Faith on Lynn Common”
Nicole Breault, Lynn Museum and Historical Society
“John Leland, Baptist Affiliation with the Democratic-Republican Party, and Disestablishment in Massachusetts”
Jacob Hicks, Florida State University
“Irish Famine Relief in the South in 1847”
Harvey Strum, Sage College of Albany

8:30 Session 4: Influential United States First Ladies (EN B206)
Chair: Jennifer Tebbe-Grossman, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences University
Comment: Martha May, Western Connecticut State University

“Bric-A-Brac and Silver Ships: First Ladies Producing and Consuming During the Great Depression”
Ann Kordas, Johnson & Wales University
“Jacqueline Kennedy: More Than the First Lady”
Frederick P. Pasquariello, Johnson & Wales University
“Nancy Reagan: Just Say No”
Nelson Guertin, Johnson & Wales University

8:30 Session 5: The Local as National in Politics (EN B208)
Chair and Comment: Clifford Putney, Bentley University

“Horace Greeley for President: The Liberal Republicans of 1872”
Richard Allan Gerber, Southern Connecticut State University
“The Presidential and Congressional Elections of 1944 in Connecticut”
Philip A. Grant, Jr., Pace University
“Lady of Sorrows: The Personal and Political Career of Mary Teresa Norton of New Jersey”
Robert Chiles, University of Maryland

8:30 Session 6: Transformations: From Human to Deity, Embattled to Triumphant, and Natural to Transcendent (EN B210)
Chair and Comment: Steven Judd, Southern Connecticut State University

“Historicizing the Origins of Apotheosis in Ancient Egypt”
Julia Troche, Missouri State University
“The Role of Collective Vocalization in the Roman Triumph”
Bryan Brinkman, Brown University
“The Structure of Bodies: Metaphors of the Natural and Transcendent Body in Late Medieval Castilian Political Discourse”
Darcy Kern, Southern Connecticut State University

8:30 Session 7: War and the Creation of Catholicism (EN B211)
Chair and Comment: Seth Marshall Meehan, Boston College

“Conscription and the Making of Irish-American Catholics in the Civil War”
Ian Delahanty, Springfield College
“’Loyal to Faith and Country’: Irish Catholic Service in Boston During World War I”
Meaghan Dwyer-Ryan, University of South Carolina Aiken
“’Their Conscience is Known to God Alone’: Catholic Conscience Claims in War, 1940-1957”
Peter Cajka, Boston College

Break for Book Exhibit and Refreshments 10:00 – 10:30 (EN B121 A&B)

Second Morning Sessions, 10:30 – 12:00

10:30 Session 8: Educational Missions (EN C113)
Chair and Comment: Thomas Radice, Southern Connecticut State University

“His Home in Hartford: Remembering Yung Wing and the Chinese Educational Mission in Connecticut”
Benjamin Railton, Fitchburg State University
“Historia de Nuestra Patria: Nicaraguan Textbooks from 1889 to the Present”
Christin Cleaton-Ruiz, Westfield State University
“Encouraging Opportunities for Active History Student Learning Outside the Classroom: The History Student Journal at Merrimack College”
Sean Condon, Merrimack College

10:30 Session 9: Formidable Women of the Nineteenth-Century United States (EN C115)
Chair and Comment: Heather Munro Prescott, Central Connecticut State University

“The Sargent House Museum and its Connections to Slavery in Gloucester, Natchez, and Africa”
Lise Breen, Independent Scholar
“Combat versus Care: Gender and Nursing in the Spanish-American War”
Melinda Marchand, Clark University

10:30 Session 10: Lingering Legacies of the Vietnam Conflict (EN C138)
Chair: Michele Thompson, Southern Connecticut State University
Comment: Matthew Masur, Saint Anselm College

“Dividing the United Front: Changes in the Draft Resistance Movement During the Nixon Presidency”
Shawn Driscoll, Worcester State University
“Legalizing the Liberal God: Theological Implications of the Legal Battle over Conscientious Objection During the Vietnam Era”
Isaac May, University of Virginia
“People’s Diplomacy, Gender and the POW Issue During the Vietnam War”
Jessica M. Frazier, University of Rhode Island

10:30 Session 11: Peasants, Warfare and Ethnicity in Europe, 1300-1600 (EN B206)
Chair and Comment: Melanie Murphy, Emmanuel College

“Cultures of Power: Peasants, Texts and Process in Fourteenth-Century England”
Sherri Olson, University of Connecticut
“Medieval Warfare and Early Gunpowder Weapons, ca. 1250-1400 AD”
Robert Holmes, Villanova University

10:30 Session 12: Progressivism’s Remade Personality and Discord versus Solidarity in the two World Wars (EN B208)
Chair: Troy Paddock, Southern Connecticut State University
Comment: Harvey Strum, Sage College of Albany

“Remaking Personality: The Promise and Peril of Psychological Suggestion in Progressive Thought”
Elizabeth Searcy, Brown University
“War Relief, Zionism, and the Struggle of American Jewish Leadership in the First World War, 1914-1918”
Caitlin Carenen, Eastern Connecticut State University
“’Let your songs raise the masses to sacred hatred’: Soviet Theatrical Brigades on the Eastern Front, 1941-1945”
Erina Megowan, Georgetown University

10:30 Session 13: Strategems for Victory in the American Revolution (EN B210)
Chair: Dominic DeBrincat, Missouri Western State University
Comment: Kevin Gutzman, Western Connecticut State University

“Paper Encroachments in the Eighteenth-Century North American Colonies”
Christine Petto, Southern Connecticut State University
“Community Allegiances Among Part-Time Soldiers: The Massachusetts Militia During the American Revolution and Shay’s Rebellion, 1775-1787”
Matthew Vajda, Worcester State University
“The Canadian Campaign: An Army ‘Ruined with Smallpox’”
Ann M. Becker, SUNY Empire State College

10:30 Session 14: Waterway, Environment, and History in New England (EN B211)
Chair: Erik Jensen, Salem State University
Comment: Steve Ammerman, Southern Connecticut State University

“’In the days of our forefathers’: Pre-Contact Native American River Traditions and the European Invasion”
Erik Reardon, University of Maine
“’The Merrimack: Playground or Sewer?’ Clean Water and the Shifting Landscape of the Merrimack River, 1965-1972”
Timothy Melia, University of New Hampshire

LUNCHEON 12:15 – 1:35 (EN Rooms B121 A-B)

Afternoon Sessions, 1:45 – 3:15

1:45 Session 15: Cold War Representatives Abroad and Representations at Home (EN C113)
Chair and Comment: Mark Herlihy, Endicott College

“It Ain’t Easy Being Intervened: Americans in Revolutionary Cuba, 1959-1961”
Michael E. Neagle, Nichols College
“Yankee Brutalism: Decoding New England’s 1960s Concrete Architecture”
Brian M. Sirman, Wentworth Institute of Technology
“Representing the Welfare State”
Daniel M. Abramson, Tufts University

1:45 Session 16: Evolving Historical Masculinities EN (C115)
Chair and Comment: Melanie Gustafson, University of Vermont

“Shooting for Manhood: Poor White Boys and Guns in Antebellum Virginia”
John Zaborney, University of Maine at Presque Isle
“Gender Negotiations: Family Support and the Terms of Manhood in the 1930s”
Martha May, Western Connecticut State University

1:45 Session 17: The Modern Age, A Century Before NEHA (EN C138)
Chair and Comment: James P. Hanlan, Worcester Polytechnic Institute

“The American Civil War’s Forgotten War: Connecticut’s Assault on South Carolina, 1861-1863”
Michael Baker, Worcester State University
“The Rise and Fall of the Knights of St. Crispin, 1867-1878”
Bruce Cohen, Worcester State University
“The Dark Line: A ‘Colored’ Soldier’s Widow and Her Fight for Pension Rights”
Linda Hixon, Worcester State University

1:45 Session 18: Profit, Politics, and Labor in Eighteenth-Century Great Britain and Canada (EN B206)
Chair: Polly Beals, Southern Connecticut State University
Comment: Sean Perrone, Saint Anselm College

“Eighteenth-Century British Privateering in the Press”
Jessica Dooling, Southern Connecticut State University
“’To Be Ordered Upon Corvées’: French Canadian Laborers in the Lieutenant General John Burgoyne’s Army and the Early Modern Fiscal Military State, 1774-1778”
Richard H. Tomczak, Stony Brook University

1:45 Session 19: Providence: Its Story from 1636 to the Present as Told Through Public History Initiatives (EN B208)
Chair and Comment: Chuck Arning, National Park Service

“The Old Meeting House and its Visitors”
Joanne Schneider, Rhode Island College
“Providence’s Legacy: The Independence Trail”
Whitney Gordon Blankenship, Rhode Island College
“The North Burial Ground Project: Modern Technology Connects with the Past”
Michelle Valletta, Rhode Island College

1:45 Session 20: Shifts in 1960s Sports, Music and Culture (EN B210)
Chair and Comment: Cheryl Boots, Boston University

“Champagne Music and the Ocean State: New England, Clay Hart, and The Lawrence Welk Show”
Brian Peterson, Shasta College
“The Art of Dropping Out: Diane di Prima, Millbrook Commune, and Building Utopia”
Danielle Dumaine, University of Connecticut

1:45 Session 21: United States Political Ideals, Religion and Foreign Policy Under the Presidency of JFK (EN B211)
Chair and Comment: Troy Rondinone, Southern Connecticut State University

“President Kennedy and the ‘Common Ideals of Human Rights’, March-September, 1963”
Jeff Roquen, Lehigh University
“John F. Kennedy’s Uncertain Commitment to Liberalism”
Joseph Delaney, Johnson & Wales University
“Spiritual Errands: Catholicism and American Foreign Policy, 1961-1963”
Patrick Lacroix, University of New Hampshire