The Historical Society's First Convention

Abstract

The HistoricalSociety's First Convention ffrty Vankt or lack ofa better term, we dubbed The Historical Society's first comprehensive conference the "national" convention. Although the society's main organizational efforts have sofarfocused on the United States, we encourage interest elsewhere, and our membership includes several dozen foreign members, particularly in Canada and in Western Europe. 5 3 — i ? TI he convention met in Boston on the final weekend in May ol this year, and was very successful in terms of intellectual content , parucipaiion. and organization, t hairs Alan rsors and Martin Skl.n. together with President Eugene Genovese, had assembled the program relatively quickly. Nevertheless, when a tentative program of some twenty sessions began to emerge in fall 1998. it faced a great demand for expansion, from both the supply of program ideas and the unexpected burgeoning membership and interest in The Historical Society (THS). 1 Iu- organizers s[\-nt an additional three months coordinating a further dozen or so sessions. As final as final programs go, this one was read)- at the end of January. The three-day convention took place on campus at the society's host institution. Ik)StOn I Diversity. The event began with a plenary meeting featuring an account of the society's origins by Marc Trachtcnlx'ig (University of Pennsylvania), and the presidential address by L.ugene Genovese (sec enclosed pamphlet). Genovese called attention to the diversity of THS membership and explored the societyS mission to reform the historical profession bv raising and discussing fundamental questions based on the appeal to empirical evidence. After the Thursday afternoon meeting, participants gathered at a banquet dinner, catered by Boston L'niversity. The fare was !.intasile, and the setting allowed old friends to get together, even while nuking new acquaintances, for professional socializing that would continue throughout the weekend . Breakfast meetings on Friday and Saturday continued this process of collegialitv while addressing issues such as the job crisis and issues facing graduate students. Smaller meetings of THS business and planning were also held, bor those interested , Friday lunch groups were organized for sonx· dozen historv specialties, with the particular purpose of bringing together senior and junior scholars in an informal setting. I hen late Friday afternoon more formal "caucuses" were held bv subficld in order to determine how best to integrate different specialties of history into the general programs of THS. At the beginning of Saturdays lunch perkxl, each ol the society's fifteen regions gathered the mcmIx is attending to discuss regional plans already underway and to deliberate new ideas. Finally, at the conclusion on Saturday afternoon, society officers, the board of governors, the executive committee, and the regional coordinators assessed the Ihm national meeting as well as its general progress. Two plenary sessions, each construed as a pncl to discuss a recent book with its author, were well attended. 1 he first. on Thursday evening, examined Donald Kagan's On the Origins of War and ihr Preservation of Peace. On Friday afternoon prticipants discussed Wilson Jeremiah Moses' Afrotopia: The Roots of African American Popular History. On Iriday morning. Saturday morning, and Saturday afternoon, the convention offered ten parallel sessions. 1 he majority brought together several presentations of works in progress. Other sessions focused discussion on such topics as Early Modern Catholicism, political violence in South Africa and the American South, the film Amistad, the Cold War, and Carlism in Spam from 1 810 to 1939. Time and again, attendees observed that with so many sessions attracting their interest, they had trouble deciding which to attend and regretted having to miss others. After the final sessions on Saturday, the information table became a receiving line of sorts for the scores of expressions of congratulations and of support for future endeavors. The program had been expanded after organizers gauged that interest and attendance would go beyond their original plans for two hundred participants. In fact, the final attendance ligure fell between 450 and 500. Of these, fifty-five to sixty were graduate students, most from the Boston area but some hailing from beyond the state and region. THS has not vet determined whether it will make the "national" conference an annual event. Nonetheless, the overwhelming enthusiasm...