Friday Highlights at OAH 2025

On Friday of the OAH convention, attendees got here again collectively for ongoing discussions and panels. We loved the continued sunshine Chicago has to supply because the Exhibit Corridor opened for a morning mixer breakfast earlier than the day’s classes started. 

Attendees additionally had the choice of happening certainly one of a number of excursions to discover and be taught extra about Chicago historical past. For these concerned with Chicago’s native artwork, the Pilsen Public Artwork strolling tour supplied attendees an opportunity to discover the colourful and resilient neighborhood of Pilsen, which hosts the Midwest’s highest focus of murals in a single neighborhood. Led by Luis Tubens, the tour mentioned the political and socioeconomic function of murals in the neighborhood and in Chicago at giant. For these within the labor, race, and concrete historical past of Chicago, the Pullman Neighborhood Tour, led by the Illinois Labor Historical past Society, offered the historical past of the realm as an organization city, the positioning of the 1894 strike and nationwide railroad boycott led by Eugene V. Debs, and the function that the Brotherhood of Sleeping Automobile Porters, the primary Black union within the American Federation of Labor, performed within the space. For these within the Indigenous historical past of Chicago, the Indigenous Chicago Strolling Tour used historic locations and public historical past representations to recast Chicago as an Indigenous place and to retell tales of Chicago’s founding, overlaying 5 centuries of historical past. Lastly, for these within the historical past of the North Lawndale neighborhood, the Chicago Mahogany–North Lawndale bus tour introduced attendees to the West aspect of Chicago, exploring the legacies of the Jewish neighborhood in Chicago and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Yesterday, we featured {a photograph} from certainly one of our post-panel podcast recording classes. Our employees continued to report conversations at the moment (and can once more tomorrow), led by our fearless podcast editorial assistant, Marina Mecham. Marina introduced the JAH podcast again after a COVID-19 induced hiatus, and we’re grateful for his or her considerate and regular work. The podcast options interviews with JAH authors, shorter “blogcast” episodes at the side of Course of, and panel debrief episodes every spring from the OAH Convention on American Historical past. Yow will discover new episodes in your favourite podcatcher. 

Marina Mecham (Journal of American Historical past) interviews panelists from “Queer and Trans Histories of the Midwest.” From left to proper: Nic Flores (College of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), Marina Mecham, Marc Ridgell (College of Pennsylvania), René Esparza (Washington College in St. Louis), Steven Louis Brawley (Public Historian), Claire Forstie (College of Minnesota Twin Cities). Picture by Andrew Cooper.

The employees of the JAH got down to carry you extra session summaries and reviews on all that the convention needed to provide on the second day of the convention.

In the course of the first session of the day, John D’Emilio (College of Illinois Chicago, Emeritus) chaired the lightning spherical, “Rising Voices in Queer and Trans* Histories and Histories of Sexuality.” Panelists spoke about their present analysis, all of which pushes the fields of Queer and Trans historical past and the historical past of sexuality in the direction of new geographic and cultural horizons. Justin Salgado (Ohio State College) defined his work exploring connections between experiences within the HIV/AIDS epidemic, migration on the U.S.-Mexico border, and the communities coming collectively to face the thrill and challenges of life. Alex Jin (Princeton College) spoke about his ebook mission on queerness amongst early Chinese language migrants to the U.S., particularly specializing in the social and monetary roles Chinese language males performed in multiethnic communities throughout the West Coast. Paola Cavallari’s (College of Memphis) analysis focuses on the political, social, and cultural historical past of Memphis, Tennessee by analyzing the Othering that occurred in police violence enacted in opposition to Black ladies, Black queer individuals, and Indigenous individuals within the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Austin Svedjan (College of Pennsylvania) mentioned their work partaking with the presuppositions that literature is pro-queer and social sciences like historical past are inherently anti-queer. Amelia Carter (College of Pennsylvania) spoke concerning the Lesbian Feminist Liberation motion’s influence on the American Museum of Pure Historical past in New York. Marcus Lee’s (Princeton College) current work argues that treating Bayard Rustin as an almost misplaced determine has dictated how we’re supposed to recollect him and his legacy, chatting with that which is each present in and obscured by silences in archives and the historic report. Myra Billund-Phibbs (College of Minnesota Twin Cities) mentioned her work in oral historical past and microhistory with the political and every day lives of transwomen within the Twins Cities, Minnesota, within the Seventies and Nineteen Eighties. Sophia DeLeonibus’s (Yale College) analysis on intersex individuals in mid-century America intersects with twentieth- and twenty-first-century discussions about gender and sexuality, particularly within the wake of anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric expounded by many conservative politicians at the moment.

Within the Colorado room, Timothy Stewart-Winter (Rutgers College-Newark) chaired and commented on the panel, “Prisons, Bars, and Enterprise: The Battle over Homosexual Id and Its Areas in 20th Century California,” with Vic Overdorf (Rice College) and Haleigh Marcello (College of California, Irvine) presenting papers. Mari Reithmayr (Rothermere American Institute, College of Oxford), whereas not current, additionally contributed a paper that was learn by Steward-Winter. Overdorf described the sexual psychopathy analysis of Lewis Terman and Catherine Miles on gay prisoners in Alcatraz in the course of the early twentieth century. Within the presentation, Overdorf defined how researchers tried to check the masculinity and femininity of prisoners as a gauge for sexuality. This follow of medically defining homosexuality amongst prisoners was additionally an effort to outline homosexuality as inherently legal and related to psychological instability. Overdorf argued that this examine, amongst others, was important to the specification of binary definitions of sexuality in addition to an impetus for utilizing this medical analysis to justify homosexual imprisonment. Marcello shifted the dialogue to her dissertation chapter concerning the rise and fall of the traditionally homosexual neighborhood in Backyard Grove, California. Marcello argued that the neighborhood ran counter to Orange County’s white center class residents’ heterosexual conception of suburbanization. Moreover, the mission studied how homophobic residents organized vice squads alongside police and wrote new native municipal ordinances to focus on homosexual institutions and largely expel homosexual individuals from the neighborhood by the Nineteen Eighties. Lastly, Reithmayr’s mission makes use of the efficiency archive of Jose Sarria to grasp how operas carried out on the Black Cat Bar impressed activism in opposition to homosexual communities. By analyzing recordings of Sarria’s performances, Reithmayr sees public speeches, collective singing, and even public shaming as widespread practices utilized by Sarria to encourage individuals to determine as homosexual. Total, whereas all these initiatives reaffirmed California’s central place in mid-century homosexual historical past, additionally they analyzed an array of latest areas—Alcatraz, Backyard Metropolis, and Black Cat Operas—and engaged with themes of each queer flourishing and repression.

Elsewhere attendees gathered for an additional lightning spherical titled “Stemming the Anti-Historical past Tide: Pedagogy and Public Engagement in Reactionary Instances.” The panelists shared their experiences and techniques in resisting assaults in opposition to the educating of historical past in any respect ranges, and engaged in a generative dialogue with attendees about concrete steps educators can take shifting ahead. Dawson Barrett (Del Mar Faculty) mentioned his expertise educating at a neighborhood school in Texas, describing the sorts of assignments he makes use of to get his college students engaged in native histories of oppression and resistance. He famous that some neighborhood faculties retain extra room for maneuvering than Okay-12 lecturers, who typically are the first targets of anti-history laws. Carolyn Edwards (Historical past Not Informed) mirrored on the necessity to critically consider historic narratives, and mentioned her work constructing a digital repository of historic main sources. Nathan Rives (Weber State College) shared his experiences managing the twin enrollment historical past program at his college, pointing to the risk posed by payments at present proposed within the Utah state legislature. He highlighted our “ethical and mental accountability” to supply “truthful historical past” to our college students, even within the face of such threats. Hayley McCulloch (Florida Gulf Coast College) mentioned her work as a public highschool trainer in Florida, and praised educators for his or her means to search out “higher and extra intellectually rigorous methods to show” in mild of assaults on historical past educating, emphasizing the necessity to withstand self-censorship. She harassed the significance of countering billionaire-backed conservative curricula from teams like PragerU, discussing her efforts to assist construct alternate lesson plans for lecturers. Louis Mercer (College of Illinois Chicago) shared his experiences as a highschool historical past trainer and college board member, reminding the viewers of the significance of native faculty and library boards for impacting native politics. Beth Robinson (Texas A&M–Corpus Christi) located the present anti-history tide in an extended historical past of battle, providing the instance of a 1998 Smithsonian exhibit about sweatshops that ignited a swift conservative backlash. Joseph Walzer (College of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) closed the lightning spherical by underlining the significance of neighborhood partnerships and archiving initiatives. In the course of the subsequent Q&A session, attendees and panelists mentioned numerous methods for resisting anti-history assaults, together with working with district curriculum specialists to disseminate alternate curricular sources, using native archivists and repositories, and fascinating neighborhood members in native historical past initiatives.

The exhibit corridor has hosted a wide range of occasions in the course of the convention together with a ebook honest, ebook talks, and the opening evening reception, featured right here. Picture by Andrew Cooper.

In the course of the 3:30 PM session, Rosalyn LaPier (College of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) chaired the roundtable, “Chicago as an Indigenous Metropolis: Seeing Chicago as a Native House and Place from Time Immemorial to the Current,” the place Zada Ballew (College of Wisconsin–Madison), David Beck (College of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), John William Nelson (Texas Tech College), and Kabl Wilkerson (Harvard College) shared their insights on Chicago’s deep historical past, earlier than and after U.S. settler colonists arrived within the space. After opening remarks from Ballew, LaPier opened the dialogue by asking the panelists why they selected to jot down on Chicago of all areas. Beck spoke concerning the significance of Chicago as the foremost heart of Native American activism outdoors Native communities and reservations. Wilkerson talked about their household’s connection to Chicago and resisting destabilization and detribalization via citizenship within the wake of pressured migrations within the 1800s. LaPier then opened the ground to the panelists to speak about how one can inform the story of Indigenous Chicago, fascinated by sources and histories. Nelson spoke about native mobility earlier than the Algonquin pushed into the area, making use of Chicago’s waterways as a historic supply. Ballew targeted on the perceived risk of imminent indigenous extinction, drawing on Native removing narratives to inform the story of nineteenth-century Chicago. LaPier posed her ultimate ready query about who ought to write indigenous historical past. Beck spoke to the significance of Native company in histories about Native individuals and the accountability of historians to do the very best job potential for every neighborhood whose historical past they’re writing. Ballew spoke to the significance of working with different Native students and communities, pushing again in opposition to the normal single-author monograph mannequin that’s so prevalent in trendy historical past. Wilkerson echoed Beck’s feedback about accountable historical past writing, emphasizing the function non-Natives can and do play in advocating for Native communities and the necessity to think about the consequence of scholarship on the communities in query. Nelson invited non-Native students of indigenous historical past, particularly these in positions of privilege like tenured professors, to uplift these voices, particularly native voices, who won’t in any other case attain educational circles to which they’re privy. In the course of the Q&A portion, LaPier and others spoke concerning the inherent political nature of indigenous historical past, particularly when native persons are actually born into political factions and conditions with out selecting to be there.

Two flooring up, attendees convened for the panel “‘Historians and the Carceral State’: A Reflection on the tenth Anniversary of the Particular Problem,” which introduced collectively contributors to the June 2015 JAH particular concern on the carceral state. These included Robert Chase (Stony Brook College), Torrie Hester (Saint Louis College), Elizabeth Hinton (Yale College), Matthew Lassiter (College of Michigan), Alex Lichtenstein (Indiana College Bloomington), Khalil Muhammad (Harvard Kennedy College), Donna Murch (Rutgers College–New Brunswick), Timothy Stewart-Winter (Rutgers College–Newark), Heather Ann Thompson (College of Michigan), and Stephen Andrews (Group of American Historians). Chair Carl Suddler (Emory College) described the particular concern as being transformative for carceral research, and requested the panelists to mirror on the manufacturing of the difficulty. All the attendees emphasised the collaborative nature of the particular concern, characterizing it as a neighborhood mission and praising it as an area for feminine and Black students, indebted to insights from Black Research. Suddler additionally requested the panelists to contemplate new instructions within the area of carceral research and the methods the sphere is evolving. Robert Chase responded by highlighting the distinction between “carceral state” and “carceral states,” emphasizing that incarceration isn’t just federal and top-down, but additionally entails the native enforcement and policing energy of states. Alex Lichtenstein argued that students must suppose extra concerning the “capillaries of the carceral as they stream out of prisons” and “infect” different areas of U.S. society, alongside the internationalization of the carceral state. Elizabeth Hinton, Donna Murch, and Matthew Lassiter all harassed the significance of being activist students, calling historians who examine mass incarceration to prepare with and carry up straight impacted individuals, particularly previously incarcerated individuals and their households.

2025 Louis Pelzer Memorial Prize winner, Johnny Fulfer (Indiana College Bloomington) and OAH President David Blight (Yale College). Picture by Ryan Cooper.

The night’s occasions started with the OAH awards ceremony. Amongst different awards introduced was the JAH’s Louis Pelzer Memorial Prize, awarded to a graduate scholar for an excellent essay in historical past. The 2025 prize was awarded to Johnny Fulfer (Indiana College Bloomington). After the awards ceremony, there have been a wide range of receptions, together with one for neighborhood school educators and one for ALANA students.

Friday’s Plenary Session, “The US Structure, Previous, Current, Future: A Dialog with Jeffrey Rosen,” featured moderators David Blight (Yale College) and Annette Gordon-Reed (Harvard College) and presenter Jeffrey Rosen (Nationwide Structure Middle). Blight and Gordon-Reed interviewed Rosen about his newest ebook, The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Advantage Impressed the Lives of the Founders and Outlined America, which examines how Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton conceived of and thought concerning the pursuit of happiness in their very own lives. In his ebook, Rosen connects the legacy Greco-Roman ethical philosophy left to the founders led to their very own quest for long-lasting pleasure, which they sought via virtuous habits like temperance and sincerity.

In the course of the plenary, Rosen started by speaking concerning the alternative that COVID-19 lockdown gave him to dive into the Greco-Roman works that impressed Jefferson, together with Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations, which targeted on the virtues essential to happiness. He then mirrored on different elements of Jefferson’s studying record, which spanned literature, politics, science, ethical philosophy, poetry, and ethics and Jefferson’s every day schedule, which was equally rigorous. These readings remodeled Rosen’s understanding of what it meant to try for happiness with this logical mindset—a spotlight for the founders, who feared potential monarchs arising in the US.

Then, attending to the guts of the connection between his newest ebook and his upcoming ebook on Hamilton and Jefferson, Rosen asserted, “Regardless of all of the divisions and polarization and fears of constitutional subversion, it’s historical past and the structure that may maintain us collectively.” He urged attendees to learn typically and browse deeply to proceed striving in the direction of the virtues the founding fathers held so dearly.

Blight subsequent posed the query, “Why virtues?” to his fellow audio system, itemizing Jefferson’s 13 virtues for all to listen to. His query bought on the coronary heart of ethical philosophy’s function within the lives of the founders and the lives of individuals within the twenty-first century. Rosen started his reply by speaking about impulse management, referencing the Nicomachean Ethics’ objective of the golden steadiness between excessive—and thus unproductive—feelings. This excellent steadiness, he defined, requires self-discipline and impulse management, which is commonly on the core of various colleges of thought in ethical philosophy. These timeless targets, he mentioned, can information us if we’re prepared to allow them to.

Shifting on from the founders’ dedication to classical virtues, Blight requested concerning the Structure: “What are the best constitutional points we face proper now?” Gordon-Reed emphasised the structural problems with the Structure, which she described as not becoming the present second, but additionally cited the worry and division in the US that stops People from coming collectively to amend or regulate the Structure. She additionally addressed conflicts of interpretation, citing the founders’ fears of a monarch however acknowledging that maybe some People aren’t fairly as afraid of that within the twenty-first century. “Folks should resolve what sort of society that we need to dwell in,” she mentioned, asserting that we’re already in the course of a constitutional disaster, given the willingness of some members of Congress to provide away the powers assigned to them within the Structure. Rosen—citing the Structure Middle’s dedication to non-partisan dialogue and pointing again to different historic moments that might have resulted in a Constitutional disaster—argued that we can not but say whether or not or not there’s a constitutional disaster. He emphasised the necessity to perceive the small print of the Structure when making calls about crises of this kind.

Blight continued this line of considering, asking whether or not the judicial department may trigger a constitutional disaster with a call, such because the immunity choice launched in 2024. Gordon-Reed furthered this query, emphasizing the necessity to think about the context of such a chance: “Ought to the courtroom take into consideration what is going on presently as an alternative of simply fascinated by the slim concern?… Do you suppose they weren’t fascinated by who they had been coping with—who doubtlessly they might be coping with once they rendered the choice?” Rosen identified that it’s slightly tough to resolve whether or not selections are proper or flawed within the second and that solely time will inform, regardless of the massive stakes of the present scenario.

OAH Accounting and Monetary Assist Specialist Karen Barker. Picture by Andrew Cooper.

Returning to the significance of historical past on the finish of the plenary, Rosen concluded the night with an exhortation from John Quincy Adams: “The one factor that may save the Union is that if we examine historical past and train historical past to our kids.”

Friday’s occasions got here to an in depth with the top of the plenary. The JAH employees is trying ahead to the final day of the convention, although the Chicago assembly would be the final OAH convention for Karen Barker, the OAH Accounting and Monetary Assist Specialist. Karen has been on the OAH and its conferences for the previous fifteen years, and we have now all significantly benefited from her work and her heat smile. Should you see her on Saturday, please make sure to want her properly as she strikes on to a brand new chapter in her life. Thanks, Karen!