2024 Election Information and Candidate DetailsClick on the candidate to view their information and personal statement. Voting opens at 8am on Tuesday, January 16, and closes at 11:59pm on Tuesday, February 13. Vote here. PresidentPresident-electVice PresidentExecutive Board - One candidate is chosen from each pairPair One
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Nominating Board - One candidate is chosen from each pairPair One
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PresidentDavid W. Blight, Sterling Professor of American History and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, Yale University Education PhD, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1985; MA, Michigan State University, 1976; BA, Michigan State University, 1971. Grants, Fellowships, Honors, and Awards Pulitzer Prize in History, 2019; Bancroft Prize in History, 2002, 2019; Elected to American Philosophical Society, 2021. Professional Affiliations OAH: Executive Board, 2011–2015; JAH Editorial Board, 1997–2000; OAH Lecturer, 1995–present; American Historical Association: AHA Council, 2001–2004, many advisory committees, candidate for President, 2016; Society of American Historians: President, 2013–2014. Publications, Museum Exhibits, and Other Projects Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom (Simon & Schuster, 2018), winner of Pulitzer Prize, Bancroft, Lincoln, and five other book awards; Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (Harvard University Press, 2001), winner of eight book awards, including four from the OAH; American Oracle: The Civil War in the Civil Rights Era (Harvard University Press, 2012), winner of three book awards, including the Annisfield-Wolf Prize for best nonfiction book on racism. Personal Statement Three primary commitments have animated my entire career: teaching; scholarship and writing; and public history. I try to balance them all with ever-unsatisfying results. I have taught at many levels—high school, small liberal arts college, and research universities. I consider myself a teacher first in all its forms. Since the massacre at the Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015, and well before, historians in my fields have been drawn into public debates and activism unlike any time in my experience. Our profession is under scrutiny, and sometimes attack, now from political forces determined to undermine how we teach and write about race and slavery, as well as the story of America more generally. The history wars are not new, only different and perhaps more lethal. As OAH President (in 2024), I pledge to be a voice in the public realm on behalf of the best traditions of our craft. We must defend the rights of teachers, explore forthrightly all the most difficult aspects of the American past, and write with clarity, verve, and style that our grandmothers could read.
President-ElectAnnette Gordon-Reed, Carl M. Loeb University Professor, Harvard University Education JD, Harvard Law School, 1984: Dartmouth College, 1981. Grants, Fellowships, Honors, and Awards Pulitzer Prize for History, 2009; Guggenheim Fellowship 2010; MacArthur Fellowship, 2010. Professional Affiliations Society for Historians of the Early American Republic: President, 2018; Society of American Historians: Current President 2022–2023; Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture: Board of Directors. Publications, Museum Exhibits, and Other Projects Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy (University of Virginia Press, 1997); The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (W. W. Norton & Company, 2008); On Juneteenth (Liveright Publishing Corporation, W.W. Norton & Company, 2021). Personal Statement I have served in leadership capacities in other scholarly organizations for many years, and I raised significant funds for SHEAR, in particular. My goal will be to bring more people into the OAH and stand firmly for the importance of history teaching and scholarship in the face of attempts to limit the dissemination of historical knowledge. Vice PresidentMarc Stein, Jamie and Phyllis Pasker Professor of U.S. History and Constitutional Law, San Francisco State University Education Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 1994; B.A. (Phi Beta Kappa), Wesleyan University, 1985. Grants, Fellowships, Honors, and Awards Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Grants, 2001–2005, 2014–16; Faculty of Graduate Studies Teaching Award, York University, 2010; Audre Lorde Prize, Committee on Lesbian and Gay History, 2006. Professional Affiliations Director, OutHistory (2023–); Coeditor, Queer Pasts (ProQuest, 2020–); Member, GLBT Historical Society Board of Directors (2016–2019). Publications, Museum Exhibits, and Other Projects Queer Public History: Essays on Scholarly Activism (University of California Press, 2022); The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History (NYU Press, 2019); Rethinking the Gay and Lesbian Movement (Routledge, 2012; 2nd ed. 2023). Personal Statement I am honored to be nominated to serve as OAH vice president. I am a historian of sexualities, genders, cities, social movements, and constitutional law, with commitments to public, digital, and oral history. I have served in several organizational leadership positions, including as the first chair of the OAH Committee on the Status of LGBTQ Historians and Histories. I have worked at diverse types of educational institutions and have served as an advocate in the public realm for the discipline of history, for K–12 and higher education, for improved tenure density and better treatment of non–tenure track faculty, and against discrimination, inequality, and injustice within our field. These will be my priorities, and I am committed to learning and listening more to better serve OAH’s membership.
Executive Board Pair One - Candidate OneLaGarrett King, Associate Professor/Founding Director, Center for K–12 Black History and Racial Literacy Education, University at Buffalo Education Ph.D. curriculum and instruction, University of Texas at Austin; B.S. secondary education major, history minor. Grants, Fellowships, Honors, and Awards National Council for the Social Studies Sprit of American Award. Fall 2022—previous award winners include Rosa Parks, Jimmy Carter, Nikole Hannah Jones, and John Lewis; Society of Professors of Education Outstanding Book Award, fall 2022; Recipient of Isabelle Wade Lyda and Paul C. Lyda Professor of Education 2019–2022 (Endowed Professorship). Professional Affiliations American Educational Research Association—Division B Lifetime Achievement Award committee, Division B co-division chair, Conference co-chair; National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS); College, University, Faculty Association (CUFA) Executive Board member 2015–2018. Publications, Museum Exhibits, and Other Projects Co-author with Chara Haeussler Bohan and H. Robert Baker, Teaching Enslavement in American History (Peter Lang, 2022); “Black History Is Not American History: Toward a Framework of Black Historical Consciousness,” Social Education (no. 6, 2020), 335–41; “Interpreting Black History: Toward a Black History Framework for Teacher Education,” Urban Education (no. 3, 2019), 368–96. Personal Statement I have been in education for close to 24 years in various capacities. I have been a high school social studies teacher, teacher educator, and founding director for the Center for K–12 Black History and Racial Literacy Education. I hold a conference each summer in Buffalo, New York, called the Teaching Black History Conference where participants are connected with hundreds of educators around the world to learn about the best practices in Black history education. I have also served on different executive boards in large organizations such as AERA, CUFA, and several at my home university. My experience as well as my creativity would yield well as an OAH Executive Board member.
Executive Board Pair One - Candidate Two
Don Romesburg, Professor, Women’s and Gender Studies, Sonoma State University Education Ph.D., U.S. History; Interdisciplinary Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender, and Sexuality, University of California, Berkeley (2006); M.A., U.S. history, University of Colorado, Boulder (2000); B.A., history, Claremont McKenna College (1993). Grants, Fellowships, Honors, and Awards Named Prize: Don Romesburg Prize for Outstanding K–12 Curriculum in LGBT History, Committee on LGBT History (2019–ongoing); President’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship, Sonoma State University (2018). Professional Affiliations Committee Member, OAH Committee on the Status of LGBTQ Historians and Histories (2019–2023)—researched and drafted OAH/AHA responses to “Don't Say Gay” legislation, organized K–12 LGBTQ history panels for OAH conferences; Louise Pubols Public History Prize Committee, Western Historical Association (2022–2024)—selecting public history awardees for conference funding; Lead Scholar, Campaign for LGBT Inclusion in California K–12 History–Social Science Framework and Textbooks (2011–2018)—worked with educators and advocates on the FAIR Education Act (2011) and related implementation. Publications, Museum Exhibits, and Other Projects Contested Curriculum: LGBTQ History Goes to School (forthcoming); Editor, The Routledge History of Queer America (2018); “Presenting the Queer Past: A Case for the GLBT History Museum,” Radical History Review, 120 (2014). Personal Statement The OAH has long empowered our nation’s K–12 and postsecondary educators to produce and teach honest, relevant, diverse, and rigorous history. In this censorious era, the OAH should lead with programming, advocacy, mentorship, and organizing. The OAH can build bridges between teachers, history professors, and education schools; steer smart policy; support educators under siege; promote engaging and inclusive public history; and expand as a gathering place for ideas, resources, and training. As an Executive Board Member, I would bring my experience as lead scholar working with advocates on California’s FAIR Education Act and subsequent LGBTQ-inclusive K–12 History–Social Science Framework, textbook adoption, and training. My time as co-chair of the AHA’s Committee on LGBT History and, recently, as a member of the OAH’s Committee on LGBTQ Historians and LGBTQ Histories have honed related skills, commitments, and teamwork that I would be honored to apply on the OAH Executive Board.
Executive Board Pair Two - Candidate OneTera W. Hunter, Edwards Professor of American History; Chair, Department of African American Studies, Princeton University, History and African American Studies Education Ph.D. history, Yale University, 1990; M.Phil. history, Yale University, 1985; B.A. Duke University, 1982. Grants, Fellowships, Honors, and Awards Invited Fellowship, Rogers Distinguished Fellow in 19th-Century American History, Huntington Library, Pasadena, CA (2021: 2022); Birkelund Fellowship, National Humanities Center, Research Triangle Park, NC (2017–2018); Mary I. Bunting Institute Fellow, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard (2005–2006). Professional Affiliations Organization of American Historians: Committee on the Status of Women, (2021–2022); Frederick Jackson Turner Prize Book Committee (2020); Distinguished Lecturer (2001–2004, 2013– ); Chair, Avery O. Craven Committee (2010–2011); Huggins-Quarles Award Committee (2002–2006); Lerner-Scott Prize (1994). Southern Historical Association: Nominating Committee (2021); Executive Council (2015–2017); Chair, John W. Blassingame Award Committee (2018); H. L. Mitchell Award Committee (2000), Program Committee (1996–1997). Labor and Working-Class History Association: Contributing Editor, Labor: Studies in Working-Class History (2021–2023); Board of Directors (1999–2002, 2013–2016). Publications, Museum Exhibits, and Other Projects Bound in Wedlock: Slave and Free Black Marriage in the Nineteenth Century (2017); To ’Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women’s Lives and Labors after the Civil War (1997); Co-edited with Sandra Gunning and Michele Mitchell, Dialogues of Dispersal: Gender, Sexuality, and African Diasporas (2004). Personal Statement The production and teaching of historical knowledge is under threat at a time when the profession has never been more diverse and the scholarship more reflective of the full tapestry of lived experiences of American society, polity, and culture. It is important for the OAH to reflect on how to better serve all our constituencies in higher education, museum and archival institutions, and K–12 education in this environment. We have a crisis in the job market for future faculty, diminishing resources for existing faculty and graduate students, and declining foundation resources that require us to think creatively. We have an obligation to disseminate the rich historical knowledge we are producing and to make it legible, accessible, and useful to the broader public. Can we do more and be more effective as an organization? What would that that look like? These are questions I would like to be a part of exploring.
Executive Board Pair Two - Candidate TwoManisha Sinha, James L. and Shirley A. Draper Chair in American History, University of Connecticut Education Doctor of Philosophy History, Columbia University (1994). Grants, Fellowships, Honors, and Awards John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship for Humanities, US & Canada, 2022; James W.C. Pennington Award, Heidelberg Center for American Studies, University of Heidelberg, Germany, 2021; Mellon Distinguished Scholar in Residence, American Antiquarian Society, 2020–2021; Mellon-Schlesinger Fellow, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, 2019–2020. Professional Affiliations President-Elect, Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, 2024; Co-Chair, Program Committee, Annual Meeting of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, 2023; Historian Advisory Council, American Civil War Museum, Richmond, Virginia, 2022–; Board Member, Society of Civil War Historians, 2018–2022; Elected to Council, American Antiquarian Society, 2021–; Elected to Board of Trustees, Connecticut Historical Society, 2021–; Chair, Nominations Committee, Southern Historical Association, 2021–22; Member, Nominations Committee, Southern Historical Association, 2020–2021. Publications, Museum Exhibits, and Other Projects (1) The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic: Reconstruction, 1860–1920 (Liveright, forthcoming, March 2024). (2) The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition (Yale University Press, 2016)—2017 Frederick Douglass Book Prize, Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition; 2017 James A. Rawley Prize for the Best Book on Secession and the Sectional Conflict Published in the Last Two Years, Southern Historical Association; 2017 Best Book Prize, Society of Historians of the Early American Republic; 2017 Avery O. Craven Award for the Best Book on the Civil War Era, Organization of the American Historians; National Book Award for Non Fiction, Long List, Sept. 2016; Honorable Mention for U.S. History, American Publishers Awards for Professional & Scholarly Excellence (PROSE Award), Feb. 2017; Chinese rights sold to Beijing Han Tang Zhi Dao Book Distribution Co., Ltd., 2019; Editor’s Choice, New York Times Book Review, March 6, 2016; “Great History Books of 2016,” by Stephen L. Carter in Bloomberg View Dec. 27, 2016; Times Higher Education Book of the Week to coincide with UK book publication, May 2016; Reviewed widely in the Times Literary Supplement, the New York Review of Books, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, BBC History, the Atlantic, Christian Science Monitor, the Boston Globe, the Providence Journal. (3) The Counterrevolution of Slavery: Politics and Ideology in Antebellum South Carolina (University of North Carolina Press, 2000)—named one of the ten best books on slavery, Politico, 2015; quoted in 1619 Project “America Holds on to an Undemocratic Assumption from Its Founding: That Some People Deserve More Power than Others,” by Jamelle Bouie, New York Times Magazine, Aug. 14, 2019. Personal Statement If elected to the Executive Board, I would like to expand on recent efforts to establish a more public facing presence for American historians. In these fraught times of censorship and political interference in the teaching of U.S. history, the OAH must mount a vigorous public defense of our discipline. We should continue to build partnerships with public school teachers and museum professionals to build the broadest possible coalition to meet this onslaught. As President elect of SHEAR, I want to build stronger connections between the OAH and organizations in specialized areas such as SHEAR, SHA, SHAFR, to name just a few. Within the organization, I would stress our commitment to maintaining a diverse membership and leadership, and to continue to encourage the development of new sub-fields, methods, and perspectives. Another important commitment for me would be to address the continuing crisis with contingent faculty, lack of jobs, and resources.
Executive Board Pair Three - Candidate OneJerry González, Associate Professor of History and Director of UTSA Mexico Center, University of Texas at San Antonio Education Ph.D. American history, University of Southern California, 2009; M.A. American history, University of Southern California, 2005; B.A. history, California State University, Fullerton, 2002; A.A. history, Fullerton College, 1999. Grants, Fellowships, Honors, and Awards Principal Investigator, Mellon Foundation Humanities Pathways Grant, 3 years, $500,000 (Sept. 2022–Aug. 2025); Westside Community Partnerships Seed Grant, UTSA, $5,000 (2021–2022); Principal Investigator, Mellon Foundation Humanities Pathways Grant, 3 years, $500,000 (Sept. 2019–Aug. 2022). Professional Affiliations Member of Board of Directors, Society for American City and Regional Planning History, 2022–2025. As a Board member I participate in the governance of the organization in formal meetings as well as in subcommittee activities. I currently serve on the Programming Sub-Committee to design and develop events that align with the organization’s themes. Co-chair, Organization of American Historians Committee on the Status of African American, Latina/o, Asian American, and Native American (ALANA) Historians and ALANA Histories, May 2018–May 2019. As co-chair with Lauren Araiza, I worked with the Executive Director to schedule and run meetings related to the business of ALANA. Mentorship of young scholars constituted the thrust of ALANA’s activities and priorities during my time as co-chair. So, with one of our designated conference panels, we developed a panel of undergraduate scholars each of whom went on to study at the postgraduate level. Committee Member, OAH Committee, ALANA. As a committee member I helped coordinate conference panels and receptions and develop plans for ALANA activities between conference sessions. Publications, Museum Exhibits, and Other Projects In Search of the Mexican Beverly Hills: Latino Suburbanization in Postwar Los Angeles (Rutgers University Press, 2018); “Latino Interchanges: Greater East Los Angeles in the Freeway Era,” with Dr. Gilbert Estrada, in Ryan Reft, Amanda K. Phillips de Lucas, and Rebecca C. Retzlaff, eds., Justice and the Interstates: The Racist Truth about Urban Highways (Island Press, 2023). Personal Statement It’s an honor to be nominated for a seat on the Executive Board for the OAH, and I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the work of the organization. I have served the OAH in the past as a member and co-chair of the ALANA Committee, where I worked collaboratively with committee members and OAH leadership to ensure that the ideals of inclusivity at the heart of ALANA’s mission are also reflected in the overall organization. During my time in ALANA, we made mentorship of young scholars a priority and sponsored panels comprising undergraduate scholars in 2018 and 2019. Other significant leadership experiences that will bear on my service to the OAH include my role as Director of the UTSA Mexico Center at my home institution and my service as a member of the Board of Directors for the Society for American City and Regional Planning History.
Executive Board Pair Three - Candidate TwoErika Pérez, Associate Professor, History, University of Arizona Education Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles, 2010; M.A., University of California, Los Angeles, 2006; M.A., San Francisco State University, 2004; B.A., University of California, Berkeley, 1995. Grants, Fellowships, Honors, and Awards Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, NEH long-term fellow, 2023–2024; Armitage-Jameson Book Prize, Coalition for Western Women’s History, 2019; Provost’s Author Support Fund Award, University of Arizona, spring 2018. Professional Affiliations Western History Association, Chair of Committee on Assault Response and Educational Strategies; Committee on Race in the American West; Organization of American Historians, Chair of Committee on African American, Latino/a, Asian American, Native American (ALANA) Scholars and ALANA Histories; Coalition for Western Women’s History, Co-chair of QuIT (LGBTQ+ organizing committee). Publications, Museum Exhibits, and Other Projects Symposium presenter, “Session 5: Kinship and Genocide in California,” In The Other Slavery: Histories of Indian Bondage from New Spain to the Southwestern United States symposium. Sponsored by the Smithsonian Latino Center, National Museum of the American Indian, and National Museum of African American History and Culture (September 26, 2021); “The Dalton-Zamoranos and the Unevenness of U.S. Conquest in California: A Borderland Family at the Turn of the Twentieth Century,” Pacific Historical Review special volume “Gender and Intimacy across the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands,” 89 (Winter 2020); Colonial Intimacies: Interethnic Kinship, Sexuality, and Marriage in Southern California, 1769–1885 (2018). Personal Statement As a university educator in Arizona, I have witnessed the politicization of curriculum that references sexuality, gender, race, and ethnicity. Our state’s superintendent of public instruction set up a hotline for reports against K-12 educators’ “inappropriate” curriculum. My campus has offered protections for reactionary groups that espouse violent rhetoric and images on our campus mall but surprisingly little for faculty, staff, and students from doxing by such groups or from campus gun violence. The OAH must play a prominent role advocating for members whose academic freedom, job security, and safety are in jeopardy. I offer years of service experience with the Western History Association, Coalition for Western Women’s History, and the OAH’s ALANA committee. I aim to collaborate with colleagues about the future direction of the OAH, about how to mobilize ourselves as historians in this critical political moment, and how to regain public trust in the expertise we offer.
Nominating Board Pair One - Candidate OneDan Berger, Professor of Comparative Ethnic Studies; Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Scholarship, University of Washington Bothell Education Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 2010; M.A., University of Pennsylvania, 2006; B.A., B.S., University of Florida, 2003. Grants, Fellowships, Honors, and Awards Literary Lion, King County Library System Foundation, 2023; Scholar in Residence, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, 2019; OAH James A. Rawley Prize, 2015. Professional Affiliations Justice, Power, and Politics book series, UNC Press editorial advisory board, 2021–present—peer review manuscripts, consult with series editor on projects; James A. Rawley Book Prize Committee, 2020–2022 (chair, 2021)—awarded best book-length history of race in the United States published that year; Maria Stewart Journal Article Prize Committee, African American Intellectual History Society, 2017–2020 (chair, 2019)—awarded best scholarly article in African American intellectual history published that year. Publications, Museum Exhibits, and Other Projects Stayed on Freedom: The Long History of Black Power through One Family’s Journey (2023); Washington Prison History Project—digital archive and website, 2018–present; Captive Nation: Black Prison Organizing in the Civil Rights Era (2014). Personal Statement Central to the political and social crises we are living through is an attack on historical knowledge itself, especially in the realm of race and social justice. I would hope to use my position on the OAH Nominating Board to support scholars who take such threats seriously in standing for leadership roles within the association to bolster the OAH as an advocate for multiracial democracy. In more than a decade of OAH membership, I have served the OAH on book award committees, the distinguished speakers bureau, and as a peer reviewer for JAH. This work joins other service I have done for the larger profession through other manuscript reviews, public scholarship, and mentorship of junior colleagues. I currently serve as Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Scholarship in my School, which is part of an underfunded branch campus of an underfunded public university.
Nominating Board Pair One - Candidate TwoLaura Briggs, Professor, Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies, University of Massachusetts Education Ph.D., American Studies, Brown University, 1998; Masters of Theology and Secondary Education, Harvard Divinity School, 1989; A.B., Mount Holyoke College, 1986. Grants, Fellowships, Honors, and Awards FRG-Healy Grant, 2019–2022 ($21,000), “The Future is Born in Small Places”; James A. Rawley Prize for Best Book in the History of U.S. Race Relations, Organization of American Historians, 2013; University of Michigan Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies Fellow, Oct.–Nov. 2007. Professional Affiliations Organization of American Historians, Academic Freedom Committee; American Studies Association, various awards committees, American Quarterly Editorial Committee (as book review co-editor); American Historical Association, Commission on the Status of Women. Publications, Museum Exhibits, and Other Projects Taking Children: A History of American Terror (2020); How All Politics Became Reproductive Politics: From Welfare Reform to Foreclosure to Trump (2016); Reproducing Empire: Race, Sex, Science and U.S. Imperialism in Puerto Rico (2002). Personal Statement A functional nominating committee is essential to the life of any professional association, albeit behind the scenes. It needs to work efficiently and fairly, much like the administration of any university or school department. Egalitarian and effective administration is very much in my wheelhouse. I was chair of Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst for 7 years and of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Arizona for three years, and, for a year, Associate Dean of Social and Behavioral Sciences.
Nominating Board Pair Two - Candidate OneLisa Pfueller Davidson, National Historic Landmarks Program Manager, National Park Service Education Ph.D. American studies, George Washington University, 2003; B.A. American studies and art history, Douglass College–Rutgers University, 1993. Grants, Fellowships, Honors, and Awards Hagley-Winterthur Arts and Industries Fellowship, 1999; Vernacular Architecture Forum Student Fellowship, 1998; Presidential Merit Fellowship, George Washington University, 1994–1997. Professional Affiliations Vernacular Architecture Forum: current member, past service includes: Treasurer (5 years), board member (3 years), Conference Organizing committee (2010 and 2018 conferences), Buchanan Award committee chair and member. Society of Architectural Historians: current member, past service includes Buildings of the United States Editorial Board member, Latrobe Chapter (Washington, DC) President, Secretary, Biannual Symposium Chair. National Council on Public History: current member. Publications, Museum Exhibits, and Other Projects Co-author with Catherine C. Lavoie, Buildings of Maryland (2022); “‘A Service Machine’: Hotel Guests and the Development of an Early-Twentieth-Century Building Type,” Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, 10 (2005); “Early Twentieth-Century Hotel Architects and the Origins of Standardization,” Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts, 25 (2005). Personal Statement I would be honored to serve on the OAH Nominating Board Committee. I have over 25 years of experience as a public historian working in the Cultural Resources, Partnerships, and Science directorate of the National Park Service, with emphasis on an interdisciplinary approach to architectural history and the built environment for place-based historical projects. My past experiences serving on professional association boards have been personally invaluable and I believe a key contribution to the health of our profession. My goals for service to OAH would be to bring the perspective of a historian working in the public sector and to support continued collaboration between the academy and historic preservation.
Nominating Board Pair Two - Candidate TwoKanisorn Wongsrichanalai, Director of Research, Massachusetts Historical Society Education Ph.D., University of Virginia, 2010; M.A., University of Virginia, 2004; A.B., Bowdoin College, 2003. Grants, Fellowships, Honors, and Awards Project co-director, National Endowment for the Humanities, Humanities Initiatives at Hispanic Serving Institutions Grant, Project Title: “West Texans and the Experience of War: World War I to the Present,” 2015–2017 (while at Angelo State University); Project co-director, Library of America, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, “World War I and America,” 2017 (while at Angelo State University); Project co-director, National Endowment for the Humanities & the American Library Association, “Latino Americans: 500 Years of History,” 2015–2016 (while at Angelo State University). Professional Affiliations Member, (City of) Boston Commemoration Commission (part of a city-wide committee to plan for the commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the 400th anniversary of Boston’s founding); Trustee, Pejepscot History Center, Brunswick, Maine (chair of the Program Committee, responsible for helping plan upcoming public history events at a local historical society in southern Maine); Colonial Society of Massachusetts (member Program Committee, responsible for helping develop programming for this organization of enthusiastic scholars). Publications, Museum Exhibits, and Other Projects Edited with David J. Silbey, Wars Civil and Great: The American Experience in the Civil War and World War I (University Press of Kansas, 2023); “The Bridge: On the Role of Historical Societies, Archives, and Research Libraries,” Journal of the Early Republic (Winter 2022), 583–87; Northern Character: College-Educated New Englanders, Honor, Nationalism, and Leadership in the Civil War Era (Fordham University Press, 2016). Personal Statement As an academic who has worked as both a tenured professor at a rural state university and administrator for a leading research library, I am especially attuned to the shifting nature of the scholarly world. I have long been a fierce advocate for bridging the gap between academic and lay audiences as a way to benefit both. In my capacity as Director of Research at the MHS, I have the great fortune of meeting many academics, both rising scholars and established ones. I am familiar with a host of individuals’ research projects, skills, and interests. As a member of the OAH Nominating Committee, I would seek to connect a diverse range of scholars with offices in which they could help advocate for the importance of the humanities and help increase support for scholarship in both academic and public circles.
Nominating Board Pair Three - Candidate OneKent Blansett, Langston Hughes Associate Professor of Indigenous Studies and History; Executive Director American Indian Digital History Project; and Interim Co-Director for the Institute for Digital Humanities Research at KU, University of Kansas Education Ph.D. in history, University of New Mexico, 2011; M.A. in history, University of New Mexico, 2004; B.A. in history, University of Missouri, 1997; B.A. in interdisciplinary/American Indian studies, 1997. Grants, Fellowships, Honors, and Awards Keynote Lecture, Northern Great Plains History Conference, 2023; Katrin H. Lamon Residential Fellowship, School for Advanced Research, Santa Fe, NM, 2013–14; Newberry Library Short-Term Fellowship for Individual Research, 2009. Professional Affiliations Organization of American Historians: OAH Program Committee 2016–17; presented research at four annual meetings; and a member since 2006. Western History Association: Co-organizer Indian Scholars Luncheon, 2023–Present; Co-chair WHA Program Committee, 2018–19; WHA Program Committee, 2016–2017 & 2014–2015; Advisor WHA Committee on Race in the American West, 2011–Present; Judge Award Committee: John C. Ewers Book Award, 2019–2022; Sara Jackson Award 2014–2016; WHA Logo Redesign Committee; Presented 12 times at annual meeting; and a member since 1999. Native American Indigenous Studies Association: Presented 4 times at annual meeting; and a founding member of the organization since 2007. Publications, Museum Exhibits, and Other Projects Co-edited Indian Cities: Histories of Indigenous Urbanization (University of Oklahoma Press, 2022); A Journey to Freedom: Richard Oakes, Alcatraz, and the Red Power Movement (Yale University Press, 2019). Museum Exhibit: “Not Your Indians Anymore: Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Alcatraz Takeover,” with National Park Service on Alcatraz Island, 2019–2023, with previous openings at the University of Nebraska Omaha and the Ska-nonh Great Law of Peace Center, Syracuse, NY, in 2018. Personal Statement My dedication and service to the historical profession is evidenced in my role as the benefactor and founder of the American Indian Digital History Project (www.aidhp.com), which hosts a cooperative online archive that provides free, equal, open-source, and searchable access to significant range of Indigenous primary sources. For over thirteen years, AIDHP has provided a service to historians and the greater public interested in utilizing rare historical Indigenous sources. AIDHP has sparked worldwide interest and research into modern Indigenous history. If selected for this important role in the OAH, I bring with me decades of service to the field as an educator, a public historian, and a digital historian who values diversity, equity, accessibility, community building, organizing, and social justice. Thank you for this amazing opportunity to potentially serve on the OAH Nominating Committee.
Nominating Board Pair Three - Candidate TwoFarina King, Horizon Chair of Native American Ecology and Culture, University of Oklahoma Native American Studies Education Ph.D., U.S. history, Arizona State University, Tempe, 2016; M.A., African history, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 2010; B.A., history and French studies, Brigham Young University, Provo, 2008. Grants, Fellowships, Honors, and Awards Don Fixico Award, Western History Association, 2022; Stand UP Award, Association of University Presses, 2022; Humanities Initiatives, Colleges and Universities, National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Grant for Mapping Tahlequah History co-directed by Dr. Farina King and Dr. John McIntosh, announced 2020, 2021–2024. Professional Affiliations Secretary, Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, 2023–present; Committee on Committees, Organization of American Historians, 2021–2023; President, Southwest Oral History Association, 2021–2022. Publications, Museum Exhibits, and Other Projects Gáamalii dóó Diné: Navajo Latter-day Saint Experiences in the Twentieth Century (2023); Farina King, Michael P. Taylor, and James R. Swensen, Returning Home: Diné Creative Works of the Intermountain Indian School (2021); The Earth Memory Compass: Diné Landscapes and Education in the Twentieth Century (2018). Personal Statement I am honored to be considered for the OAH Nominating Board. I served on the OAH Committee on Committees between 2021 and 2023. The OAH changed my life with opportunities such as being a recipient of the Huggins-Quarles Award and Samuel and Marion Merrill Travel Grant as a doctoral student. I was also selected for a Japan Residency at Meiji Gakuin University, which the Organization of American Historians and Japanese Association for American Studies enabled me to do in June 2022 after waiting two years during the pandemic. While waiting, I developed connections with Japanese scholars who focus on Native American histories. As a part of the Nominating Board, I would embrace reinforcing such networks and collaborations that bridge different communities and peoples throughout the world.
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