The 2014 NEHA spring conference was held Saturday, April 26, 2014, hosted by Springfield College in Springfield MA.

CONFERENCE PROGRAM – last updated 4/17/2014

REGISTRATION AND CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST 8:00-8:30 a.m. JUDD/STITZER Building

MORNING SESSIONS I: 8:30 – 10:00 a.m.

8:30 Session 1: Bishops Behaving Badly: Law, Custom and Episcopal Power in Medieval Europe (Hickory 201)

Chair and comment: John Roney, Sacred Heart University

“Illegal Miracles in the Norse Bishops’ Sagas”

Joel Anderson, Cornell University

“A Bridge, A Bishop, and a Brawl: Claiming Religious Space in Medieval Avignon”

Christine Axen, Boston University

“Theme & Variations: Canon Law and the Expulsion of the Jews in the Late Middle Ages”

Rowan Dorin, Harvard University

8:30 Session 2: Masculinities in American History (Hickory 202)

Chair and comment: Jennifer Mandel, Mount Washington College

“Yankees, Doodles, Fops and Cuckolds: Farcical Manhood and Egalitarian Subversion in the Revolutionary Period”

Eran Zelnik, University of California, Davis

“Growing Up in an Account Book: Poor Whites, Work, and Manhood in Antebellum Virginia”

John Zaborney, University of Maine at Presque Isle

“’You Had to Forget’: WWII Veterans’ Readjustment to Civilian Life and Masculinity”

Betsy Loren Plumb, University of Buffalo

8:30 Session 3: History and the Pedagogy of Place – A Roundtable Discussion (Hickory 203)

Moderator: Woden Teachout, Union Institute and University

“Walking the Talk and Talking the Walk: Teaching with Walking Tours”

Pleun Clara Bouricius, Mass Humanities

“Learning Local: The Freshman Humanities Capstone – Place-Based Education in St. Johnsbury, Vermont”

Denise Scavitto, St. Johnsbury Academy

“Abenaki History and Mythology in the Humanities Classroom”

Sophie Martin, St. Johnsbury Academy

“Living History: The 1971 March on Concord and Lexington”

Elise Lemire, Purchase College, SUNY

8:30 Session 4: Histories of Higher Education in the United States and Britain (Hickory 204)

Chair and comment: Scott Gelber, Wheaton College

“Universities: ‘Ivory Towers’ as Mirrors of Society”

Marcia G. Synnott, University of South Carolina

“Edwardian Youth Politics: Ideas and Identities of Undergraduate Men at Oxbridge”

Sarah Wiggins, Bridgewater State University

“Obtaining Collegiate Status in Massachusetts After World War II: The Case of the Bentley School”

Clifford Putney, Bentley University

8:30 Session 5: British Imperialism and the Middle East (Hickory 205)

Chair and comment: Erika Briesacher, Worcester State University

“Woodrow Wilson’s Self-Determination and the Arabs: Ideology at Odds”

Daniel J. Cook, Worcester State University*

“The ‘Dawn of Unity’: Pan-Arabism in the Rise and Fall of the United Arab Republic”

Brian Mulhearn, Worcester State University*

“British Imperialism and Counterinsurgency”

J. Alex Inman, Worcester State University*

8:30 Session 6: Slavery and Politics in the United States (Hickory 206)

Chair and comment: Robert E. Weir, Smith College

“Antebellum Empathy for a District of Columbia Slave Trader: James Birch and the Case of United States v. Dorcas Allen, 1837”

Alison Mann, National Park Service

“’This Most Critical of States’: Horace Greeley, Schuyler Colfax, and the 1860 Presidential Campaign in Indiana”

Gregory Peek, Lock Haven University

“’New Jersey’s Mentalite‘: The Reason for Lincoln’s Loss in 1860 and 1864?”

William R. Marsch, Independent Scholar

8:30 Session 7: Eighteenth-Century New England History (Hickory 207)

Chair: Chuck Arning, National Park Service

“Buying into Empire: Indians, Speculators, and the Politics of Property on the Maine Frontier, 1735-1737”

Ian Saxine, Northwestern University

“Life on the Frontier of Western New Hampshire: The Settlement of Westmoreland, 1760-1790”

Richard High, Independent Scholar

“The Experience and Variety of Friendship: The Rev. Ebenezer Parkman (1703-1782) of Westborough, Massachusetts”

Ross W. Beales, Jr., College of the Holy Cross

Comment: Jessica Parr, University of New Hampshire – Manchester

8:30 Session 8: Cultural History (Judd 402)

Chair and comment: Richard Canedo, Lincoln School (RI)

“Framing the Exhibition Experience: The Chinese Display at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876”

Leqi Yu, Williams College

“Ned Washington’s Lyrical Career in the Great American Songbook”

Philip Mosley, Pennsylvania State University – Worthington Scranton

“Norman Rockwell Reconsidered”

Michael Carter, Wentworth Institute of Technology

“Defining Teenage Consumption in the French Fifth Republic: The Era of the Blousons Noirs, 1958-1962”

Drew M. Fedorka, University of Central Florida

Comment: Audience

8:30 Session 9: Sport and History (Judd 403)

Chair: Dennis Gildea, Springfield College

“The YMCA and the Growth of Boxing in Cuba, 1904-1931”

Anju Reejhsinghani, University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point

“Male Sporting Bodies: The Construction of Gender in Print Media of Male Sport Celebrities, 1920-1960”

Ella Gibson, University of Central Florida

“’Major League City’: Atlanta, Professional Sports, and its Quest for Civil Society, 1965-1976”

Clayton Trutor, Boston College

Comment: Julian Madison, Southern Connecticut State University

8:30 Session 10: The Art of Wartime Propaganda: Government Messages to the American Home Front During World War I (Judd 2nd floor – YMCA Club Conference Room)

Chair and comment: Matthew Dunne, MCPHS University

“Justifying Policy: Robert Lansing and the Law of Neutrality”

Tasnin Chowdhury, University of Massachusetts – Boston

“The 1918 True Name Law: Protecting Soldiers and Sailors, Persecuting Prostitutes and Passing Women”

Joan Ilacqua, University of Massachusetts – Boston

“’Work! Save!! Win!!!’: Decentralized Unification and the Sale of Liberty Bonds”

Matthew Wilding, University of Massachusetts – Boston

Break for Book Exhibit and Refreshments: 10:00 – 10:30 am (Harold Smith Room)

MORNING SESSIONS II: 10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

10:30 Session 11: Sustaining Public History in a Changing Climate – A State of the Field Roundtable Discussion (Hickory 201)

Moderator: Chuck Arning, National Park Service

Panelists:

Leah S. Glasner, Central Connecticut State University

David Glassberg, University of Massachusetts

Cathy Stanton, National Council on Public History & Tufts University

10:30 Session 12: Labor History (Hickory 202)

Chair and comment: Bruce Cohen, Worcester State University

“Farm Labor Organizing During the Great Depression”

Marguerite Rosenthal, Salem State University

“Dark Chocolate: The 1937 Hershey Sit-Down Strike”

Robert E. Weir, Smith College

“The Norma Rae Phenomenon: Textile Workers as Raw Material for a Pop Icon”

Aimee Loiselle, Holyoke Community College

10:30 Session 13: Histories of Diplomacy and Humanitarianism (Hickory 203)

Chair: Martin Menke, Rivier University

“The Dutch Crisis of 1787, American Foreign Relations, and the Constitution”

Robert W. Smith, Worcester State University

“British Diplomatic Missions in Qajar, Iran, in the First Quarter of the Nineteenth Century”

Nigar Gozalova, Institute of History, Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences

“Commemorating the 90th Anniversary of the May, 1924 Establishment of the U.S. Foreign Service: The Contributions of the New England States and New England Statesmen and Diplomats to American Diplomatic History and to the Advancement of the U.S. Foreign Service”

Dna. Maria St. Catherine McConnell, The Franklin-Rogers Public Commission on American Diplomacy and the U.S. Foreign Service

“Crossing Hearts: Switzerland’s Humanitarianism in the American Century”

Thomas Carty, Springfield College

Comment: Audience

10:30 Session 14: Ethnic Imperatives: Sustaining Transatlantic Bonds Between Irish-America and Ireland (Hickory 204)

Chair and comment: Kristen Petersen, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences

“Previewing the Fenian Blueprint, Re-contemplating the Invasion of Canada”

David Doolin, MCPHS University

“American Efforts in Support of a United Ireland from 1947-1952”

Suzanne Buckley, Independent Scholar

“Long Threatening Comes At Last: The Famine’s Irish-American Legacy”

Mary C. Kelly, Franklin Pierce University

10:30 Session 15: Culture and Consciousness during the American Revolutionary Era (Hickory 205)

Chair: Dane Morrison, Salem State University

“In a ‘State of Nature’: ‘Self-Preservation’ and ‘Civil War’ in Massachusetts, 1774-1775”

James F. Hrdlicka, University of Virginia

“Personal Revolutions: Everyday Experience and Political Change in British-Occupied Newport, Rhode Island, 1776-1779”

Donald F. Johnson, Northwestern University

“Revolutionary War Music: A Melding of Musical Genres and the Making of a Wartime Culture”

Laura M. Asson, Framingham State University

Comment: Jacqueline Carr, University of Vermont

10:30 Session 16: Mid-Twentieth Century American Popular and Literary Culture (Hickory 206)

Chair and comment: Tona Hangen, Worcester State University

“’Illusion Wrapped in Superficiality’: The Civil Rights Movement in Worcester, Massachusetts”

Kaitlyn Benoit, Worcester State University*

“Women of the Beat Movement”

Laura Sutter, Worcester State University*

“Les Paul: Inventor, Musician and Cultural Icon”

Brad Harlow, Worcester State University*

10:30 Session 17: The Power and Politics of Place (Hickory 207)

Chair: Jennifer Tebbe-Grossman, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences

“The Decorative and Socio-political Functions of Muslim Gardens: A Historical and Archaeological Study of the Fãtimids, Cairo”

Sher Rahmat Khan, Independent Scholar

“Marlin’s Opera House: The Birth, Flourishing, Demise, and Rebirth of an Appalachian Performance Icon”

David L. Taylor, Taylor and Taylor Associates, Inc.

“EPIC Pedagogy and Virtual Curation at the James Michael Curley House, Boston”

Christopher Gleason, Wentworth Institute of Technology & Jody M. Gordon, Wentworth Institute of Technology

“Compliance and Complaints: Contested Places in the Shifting Landscape of the Merrimack River”

Timothy F. Melia, University of New Hampshire

Comment: The Audience

10:30 Session 18: Intellectual Histories and Reinterpretations of Leaders in Early American History (Judd 402)

Chair: Cheryl Boots, Boston University

“Metacomet: Monster or Martyr?”

Jerome Palliser, University of York

“Prophet of Decline: The Political Vision of Fisher Ames”

Jonathan M. Paquette, University of St. Andrews

“The Prospects of Timothy Dwight: America, The World, and the Future”

Robert M. Imholt, Albertus Magnus College

Comment: Marcia Schmidt Blaine, Plymouth State University

10:30 Session 19: Legacies of Britain’s Colonization of India (Judd 403)

Chair: Jessica Parr, University of New Hampshire – Manchester

“Birth of a ‘Folk’ Practice: A Case from Colonial Bengal”

Aniket De, Tufts University*

“At Empire’s End: Memories of Transition in British India, 1937-1950”

Sharmishtha Roy Chowdhury, Emerson College

“Genesis of the Kashmir Conflict: The Two Rival Versions”

Debidatta Aurobinda Mahapatra, University of Massachusetts – Boston

Comment: Priyanka Srivastava, University of Massachusetts Amherst

10:30 Session 20: New Approaches to the Study of European and World History (Judd 2nd floor – YMCA Club Conference Room)

Chair: Fernando Gonzalez de Leon, Springfield College

“Demons Among the Thistles: The Political and Personal Motivations Behind the Arrests and Trials of the Upper Echelons during the Scottish Witch-Hunts”

Amanda Prouty, Salem State University

“Men of the North Wind: The Norman Knight in the 11th Century Mediterranean”

Robert Holmes, Independent Scholar

“Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti and the Napoleonic Invasion of Egypt”

Dzavid Dzanic, Harvard University

Comment: Luci Fortunato, Bridgewater State University

12:15 – 1:30 LUNCHEON and BUSINESS MEETING (Harold Smith Room)

1:30 – 2:15 Keynote Address: “Ever So Close to Silence: The Perilous Journey of Martin Luther King, Jr. to Springfield College in 1964,” Marty Dobrow, Springfield College   (Union West)

AFTERNOON SESSIONS: 2:15 – 3:45 p.m.

2:15 Session 21: Struggles for Women’s Rights in the United States (Hickory 201)

Chair: Stephanie Kermes, Endicott College

“Creating a Spring of Gendered Consciousness in an Unorganized Movement: Property Rights and Suffrage for Women, 1840s-1870s”

Patricia L. Farless, University of Central Florida and University of Florida

“Southern New England and the Nineteenth (Woman Suffrage) Amendment to the Constitution of the United States”

Philip A. Grant, Jr., Pace University

“Ruth Bryan Owen and Derivative Citizenship of Women”

Jill E. Martin, Quinnipiac University

Comment: Charlotte Haller, Worcester State University

2:15 Session 22: Ukraine: European Borderland or a New Bloodland? – A Roundtable Discussion (Hickory 202)

Moderator: Melanie Murphy, Emmanuel College

Panelists:

Patricia Herlihy, Brown University

Martin Menke, Rivier University

Susan Vorderer, Merrimack College

2:15 Session 23: Revisiting Local History: Is “The Little Old Lady in Tennis Shoes” Still Relevant? (Hickory 203)

Chair and comment: Jill Mudgett, Independent Scholar and Vermont Public Radio Commentator

“Why Community Studies Still Matter: A Case Study from the Early Nineteenth-Century Vermont Frontier”

Jacqueline Carr, University of Vermont

“’We’re Going Where?’: Experiential Learning and Local History”

Susan Ouellette, Saint Michael’s College

“Experiencing History Where it Happened”

Dan O’Neil, Ethan Allen Homestead Museum

2:15 Session 24: New Perspectives on the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements (Hickory 204)

Chair: Mark Herlihy, Endicott College

“Race, Class and Civil Rights Activism in Pittsburgh, 1929-1939”

Adam Cilli, University of Maine

“The Georgia of the North: Black Professionals and the Civil Rights Movement in New Jersey”

Hettie V. Williams, Drew University

“Secular Humanism and the Black Power Movement”

Christopher Cameron, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

“Confronting Racism, Police Brutality, and Poverty: The Black Panther Party of Connecticut”

Jamie J. Wilson, Salem State University

Comment: The Audience

2:15 Session 25: Anti-Fascism on Both Sides of the Atlantic, 1922-1945: Commemorating the 75th Anniversary of the Mazzini Society (Northampton 1939) (Hickory 205)

Chair and comment: Roland Sarti, University of Massachusetts at Amherst

“Anti-Fascism in New England: Heroes, Villains, and the Struggle for Freedom”

Charles Killinger, University of Central Florida

“Echoes of the Risorgimento in the Political Battles of the Mazzini Society”

Mario Di Napoli, University of Rome La Sapienza and Giuliana Limiti, University of Rome Tre

“Anti-Fascist Exiles Debate Italy’s Risorgimento”

Guiseppe Monsagrati, University of Rome La Sapienza

2:15 Session 26: Twentieth-Century Political and Policy History (Hickory 206)

Chair: Richard Gerber, Southern Connecticut State University

“In-Group Formation and Cultural Identity: A 1920s German Case Study”

Erika L. Briesacher, Worcester State University

“Selling the Poor: Competing Professions and Paradigms of Poverty and Aid in the 1920s”

Margaret Orelup, Keene State College

“Historia También es un Derecho!: Youthful Reckonings with Human Rights and Popular Memory in the Wake of the Rios-Montt Verdict”

Heather Vrana, Southern Connecticut State University

“The Ultraconservative Republicans of Dallas, Texas”

Edward H. Miller, Independent Scholar

Comment: The Audience

2:15 Session 27: Commerce and Culture in New England (Hickory 207)

Chair: Peter Holloran, Worcester State University

“Damnation of Ale: The History of Brewing in Vermont, 1789-1989”

Adam Krakowski, Independent Scholar

“Reflections on Firm and Family: Augustine Heard & Company and the Nineteenth-Century Opium Trade”

Anne M. Page, Salem State University

Comment: Chuck Arning, National Park Service

2:15 Session 28: Teaching History Online: Experiences from the Field (Judd 402)

Chair and comment: Elizabeth Sharpe, University of Massachusetts Amherst

“Pedagogy, Perseverance and Persistence: Experiences in Teaching History Online”

Kimberly R. Sebold, University of Maine at Presque Isle

“Hands-On History in an Online Format: Lessons and Reflections from Union Institute and University”

Woden Teachout, Union Institute and University

“Keystrokes and the Quest for Knowledge: The Reality of Being an Online Student”

Julie Ruel, Union Institute and University

2:15 Session 29: British and American Religious History (Judd 403)

Chair: Clifford Putney, Bentley University

“Using Spatial Theory to Examine Quaker Women Preachers’ Itinerant Empire and Their Demonization by ‘Orthodox’ Protestants in the Seventeenth-Century British Atlantic World”

Jacob Hicks, Florida State University

“Preternatural Phenomena in Early New England”

Tricia Peone, University of New Hampshire

“’Puritan Indoctrination’: The Politics of Publication in Mary Rowlandson’s and John Williams’ Captivity Narratives”

Chloe Koscheva-Scissons, Bowling Green State University

“Religious Biography in Antebellum America: The Writings of William B. Sprague”

William C. Barnhart, Caldwell College

Comment: The Audience

2:15 Session 30: Punishing Sex Crimes in 18th-Century New England (Judd 2nd floor – YMCA Club Conference Room)

Chair and comment: Alan Rogers, Boston College

Panelists:

Richard Brown, University of Connecticut and Doron S. Ben-Atar, Fordham University, co-authors of Taming Lust: Crimes Against Nature in the Early Republic (2014)

*Denotes undergraduate presenter