Historical Society Research Articles

Accessible History: Putting a Century of "The Chronicles of Oklahoma" Online

Since 1921, the Oklahoma Historical Society has published The Chronicles of Oklahoma, a nonfiction journal focused on topics related to the state’s history. In 2020, the Oklahoma Historical Society partnered with the University of North Texas (UNT) Libraries to make the extensive back catalog of quarterly-published issues of the Chronicles publicly available online through the Gateway to Oklahoma History (The Gateway) digital library. The scope of the project eventually expanded to include preserving individual articles in the Gateway to promote their discovery and impact for researchers. This presentation describes the project management practices, workflows, and metadata standards that were used to support the project. It also explores the challenges and highlights the successes of this multi-year preservation project.

"We Don't Need Any More Martyrs": Anti-War Protests at the University of Iowa 1970

This thesis argues that the May 1970 anti-Vietnam War protests at the University of Iowa were nonviolent compared to similar demonstrations at other colleges. This was due to the actions of University President Willard “Sandy” Boyd, who was able to strike a delicate balance between maintaining civil order and protecting the right to protest. Students protested the joint U.S.-South Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia and the killings of students at Kent State University during a time of intense political upheaval. American politicians and citizens debated how to handle the war in Vietnam best and what course of action to take when coping with anti-war demonstrations. This thesis examines the protests at the University of Iowa to understand better the local political dynamics and how local leaders coped with a dynamic political environment. This thesis uses sources from the University of Iowa archives, the Iowa State Historical Society, and the Daily Iowan archives. While many college and government officials chose to adopt repressive stances towards the protests that occurred nationally, the Iowa protests were de-escalated without any deaths. This resolution gives current elected officials a model of how to maintain civil order without violating the rights of American citizens.

Brothers and Sisters Unite: Take Back the Night in San Francisco, Cambridge, and Iowa City

Using archival documents from the GLBT Historical Society, Schlesinger Library, and Iowa Women’s Archives, this research argues that Take Back the Night marches during the late 1970s and early 1980s in San Francisco, Cambridge, and Iowa City followed similar patterns: they were motivated by local events, constructed meaning for attendees through similar structural elements, and struggled with the dilution of their messages and goals because of conflict. Existing research does not create concrete understandings of Take Back the Night based on comparisons or research on more than one event and geographic location, instead focusing on the broader feminist anti-violence movement, including potential causes of Take Back the Night, such as developing understandings of rape, increasing awareness of rape, and increasing opposition to violent pornography and media. This research explores how feminist anti-violence motivations manifested in Take Back the Night events in San Francisco, Cambridge, and Iowa City, highlighting these communities’ awareness of local statistics/frequency of attacks, knowledge of publicized trials and crimes (often serial), and organizers’ thoughts on pornography and media. Take Back the Night’s meaning is considered through examination of common elements of testimony and physical reclaiming of space, and how these elements created meaning for attendees. This research also argues that the message and goal of Take Back the Night were diluted by conflicts among organizers and with their surrounding communities, including disagreements about the role of pornography, the exclusion of women of color, and the exclusion of men. 

On the Brink: Reagan, Freeze, and the Nuclear Weapons Debate (1981-1984)

This article examines the nature of what motivated Reagan’s disarmament policy and what influence the Freeze movement had on it during his first term. It challenges the conventional view posited by scholars such as Lawrence S. Wittner and Angela Santese that early in his administration, Reagan was not interested in disarmament and that the Freeze movement, via public pressure and efforts in Congress, forced Reagan to soften his bellicose rhetoric and alter his approach to disarmament policy. By examining Freeze documents from the State Historical Society of Missouri (SHSMO), executive branch documents from the Reagan Library, and the State Department Office of the Historian, as well as pertinent memoirs, this article offers a more complex and nuanced analysis of what drove Reagan’s thinking during this crucial period in the Cold War. In contrast to Wittner and Santese, it asserts that Reagan genuinely sought nuclear arms reductions throughout his first term and that any tactical adaptation in his approach resulted from an evolution in his mindset toward the Soviets caused by the cumulative effect of the attempt on his life, relationship with Ambassador Dobrynin, the Pentecostalist case, and NATO’s Able Archer exercise, and was only tangentially related to the Freeze movement.

THE TYBEE ISLAND, GEORGIA BLACK HISTORY TRAIL: A COMMUNITY APPROACH to BLACK GEOGRAPHIES

ABSTRACT Tybee Island, Georgia, was a colonial borderland between Spanish and British America before evolving into a middle-class, seaside resort in the 1800s. It continued as a popular vacation spot in the twentieth century. However, research has highlighted the island’s troubling history of racial segregation, particularly surrounding events like the Orange Crush Beach Party. Previous studies also underscored the Historical Society ignoring the island’s Black history in its exhibits. Building on this, a collaborative project emerged in 2021 involving a Georgia Southern University faculty member and undergraduate student, Tybee MLK Human Rights Organization, and Tybee Island Historical Society. The goal was to create a Black History Trail highlighting a rich yet ignored Black history and culture on the island and addressing the exclusion of Tybee’s Black population from museums and markers. This project integrates community geography, focusing on resolving problems like social exclusion, and exploring spatialities of Black life, social oppressions, and resistance. Utilizing archival research, oral history interviews, and ArcGIS, the project developed a 13-stop virtual tour using ESRI Story Maps. We conclude our paper by highlighting the lessons learned during the trail’s development, the multitude of ways the trail embodies the theory of Black geographies in practice, and the broader challenges in honoring Tybee’s Black geographies. Keywords: community geography, Black geographies, Tybee Island, tourism, memory

Library of the Historical and Genealogical Society in Moscow at the Beginning of the 20th Century: The Reconstruction Attempt

Library of the Historical and Genealogical Society in Moscow at the Beginning of the 20th Century: The Reconstruction Attempt

To Map, To Ascertain

This paper offers a reflection on the theme of this special issue, how mapmakers deal with uncertainty, from a digital humanities perspective. For modern geohumanities scholars and digital mapmakers working in the field of history, dealing with the dual uncertainties of historical data and historical societies themselves can be a difficult task. How do they deal with these challenges? Do we use similar solutions to deal with uncertainty? Can we learn from the practices of early modern cartographers? And to what extent is (un)certainty itself a fruitful research topic in the geohumanities? To answer these questions, it is important to consider the historical development of the field of geohumanities and why it has learned to adapt to dealing with uncertain or ambiguous knowledge. Practical examples from my own research demonstrate how modern geohumanities scholars are affected by the notion of uncertainty in different ways. These examples are linked to the contributions and questions raised in this special issue. The engagement with early modern cartographers shows how important it is for geohumanities scholars not only to invest in geospatial analysis tasks, but also to become cartographers themselves.

Making Archives in Place: adopting a creative exchange approach in heritage research

ABSTRACT This paper provides a reflexive account of creative exchange in critical heritage studies research. It does so by recounting the methodological opportunities and challenges of researching on a large interdisciplinary heritage programme. We tested this creative exchange approach when undertaking fieldwork with a museum and a history society in the UK’s Clay Country in Cornwall, which resulted in a public-facing output: a short film titled ‘Archives in Place’. We argue that this creative exchange approach enabled us to cross-fertilise our heritage research themes of ‘transformation’ and ‘profusion’, and we illustrate how new insights were revealed through examples taken while we were recording, analysing and editing the short film. By means of conclusion, we encourage heritage researchers to critically engage with methods and to have confidence in experimenting with creative methodologies which have the potential to open up new perspectives for heritage studies.

On the Economic Origins of Concerns over Women’s Chastity

Abstract This paper studies the origins and function of customs and norms that intend to keep women from being promiscuous. Using large-scale survey data from more than 100 countries, I test the anthropological theory that a particular form of preindustrial subsistence – pastoralism – favored the adoption of such customs and norms. Pastoralism was characterized by frequent and often extended periods of male absence from the settlement, implying difficulties in monitoring women’s behavior and larger incentives to imposing restrictions on women’s promiscuity. The paper shows that women from historically more pastoral societies (i) are subject to stronger anti-abortion attitudes; (ii) aremore likely to have undergone infibulation, the most invasive form of female genital cutting; (iii) are more restricted in their freedom of mobility; and (iv) adhere to more restrictive norms about women’s promiscuity. At the historical society level, pastoralism predicts patrilocality, the custom of living close to the husband’s family after marriage, allowing them to monitor the bride. Instrumental variable estimations that make use of the ecological determinants of pastoralism support a causal interpretation of the results. I also provide evidence that the mechanism behind these patterns is male absence, rather than male dominance, per se, or historical economic development.

Spatio-temporal evolution of water engineering facilities and social influences on the Grand Canal during the Ming and Qing dynasties

This research explores the spatial distribution patterns of water engineering facilities along the Grand Canal during the Ming and Qing dynasties. It employs the entropy method to assess the social development status of prefectures during these periods and uses the Tobit model to examine the primary indicators influencing the distribution of water engineering facilities. The results show that the spatial distribution pattern of water engineering facilities was characterized by aggregation during the Ming and Qing dynasties. In contrast, the Qing dynasty’s distribution was more dispersed, with a shift in the construction focus of water engineering facilities towards the south. The spatial distribution pattern of water engineering facilities in the Ming Dynasty centered around the hotspot areas of Shuntian Prefecture, Yanzhou Prefecture, and Yangzhou Prefecture. During continuous improvements, these facilities exhibited a multi-point-regional aggregation phenomenon.The influence of commercial development indicator on the spatial distribution of water engineering facilities is positively correlated in both the Ming and Qing dynasties. However, the impacts of the indicator on different types of water engineering facilities vary between the two dynasties. During the Ming Dynasty, the indicators of transportation accessibility and cultural prosperity facilitated the construction of regional water engineering facilities, whereas in the Qing Dynasty, they significantly influenced several types of water engineering facilities. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, neither the agricultural development indicator nor the population size indicator significantly affected the distribution of water engineering facilities. However, there was a negative correlation between the population size indicator and the distribution of water distribution facilities in the Ming Dynasty. This study enhances the importance of environmental protection in historical societies and provides a valuable reference for other international studies of linear cultural and material heritage.

Regional Historical Societies

No abstract available.

STUDENT YEARS OF ACADEMICIAN P.G. VINOGRADOFF

The article reveals the importance of the period of student studies at Moscow University for the future career of the Russian and British historian Pavel Gavrilovich Vinogradoff (1854–1925), who became a member of Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of London. The research source base was made up of offi cial documents from Moscow University collection and ego-documents, i.e. correspondence, diaries and memoirs. The results are presented in the form of a “thick description”, revealing the culture of higher education in the Russian Empire in the early 1870s. Home training under the guidance of his father, as well as graduation from the 4th men’s gymnasium in Moscow with a gold medal became a reliable basis for Pavel Vinogradoff ’s mastery of the university course at the Department of History and Philology at Moscow University. The author characterizes not only the successes in the study of individual disciplines, but also the infl uence of professors, and most importantly, practices of their educational activities and relationships. He was especially influenced by those professors who were active in research — S.M. Solovyov, F.I. Buslaev, and, especially, V.I. Guerrier, whose disciple Pavel Vinogradoff became from the first year of his study. His scientifi c interests were formed under Guerrier’s infl uence. The system of lecture courses and the professor’s seminars recently introduced into the practice of teaching became a model to be perfected by the student, later himself a professor at Moscow University. N.I. Storozhenko’s home meetings were renewed by P.G. Vinogradoff in the early 1890s and created the basis for the Historical Society at Moscow University. In the author’s opinion, it was the mastery of educational practices, rather than evaluative indicators of success in certain disciplines that were crucial to the success of Vinogradoff ’s future career. Diverging from his teacher’s theoretical and methodological views on the principles of studying the past, nevertheless he, as a successor of Guerrier’s work, improved the methods of the scientific and pedagogical school of Moscow University’s “world historians”.

Regional Historical Societies

No abstract available.

Hispano-⁠indigenous Alliances and Cacical Political Authority in La Florida, 1565–97

Many scholars of La Florida argue that indigenous societies welcomed missionaries only in the seventeenth century, once they had no choice but to align with the Spanish Empire or risk geopolitical isolation and effacement. This argument fits into the problematic general narrative that Spanish missionaries enslaved native peoples and forcibly converted them to Catholicism—problematic because it leaves indigenous rulers out of the story. In this article, I use the brief missions to the Calusa, Tequesta, Tocobaga, and Guale peoples of the present-day southeastern United States to show that indigenous rulers in La Florida encouraged missionary activity well before the seventeenth century, and not as a last resort but as a way to further their expansionist ambitions. The indigenous rulers’ encouragement of missionaries and gains from the Spanish presence show how sharply the interests of the indigenous political classes diverged from those of indigenous commoners. I argue that in light of the reality of political privilege in La Florida’s native societies, historians must view historical indigenous societies as they do more familiar societies—as broad groupings riven by political interests rather than as social collectivities—and jettison the thematic lens of colonialism to achieve a faithful history of the transformation of the Americas.

Историческая политика Польской Народной Республики в 1980-е гг.: особенности трансформации

The article examines the transformation of the historical politics of the Polish People’s Republic in the 1980s. The author proceeds from the position that the commemorative practices of the Polish socialist government experienced significant external influence from the “mnemonic actors” opposed to the state − the Solidarity trade union and the Polish Catholic Church. The purpose of the study is to analyze the transformations of commemorative practices in the conditions of confrontation between the Polish United Workers’ Party and opposition structures. The works of domestic and foreign authors on the problem of research are noted, in which experts analyzed historical politics through the involvement of didactic literature, paid attention to anniversaries and memorable dates of socialist Poland, and also used a semiotic approach. Relying on a wide array of narrative sources, the author traces the structural changes in the historical policy of V. Jaruzelski: the reform of history textbooks, the actualization of previously suppressed historical events, the institutionalization of the academic community of historians under the auspices of the Polish Historical Society. It is noted that the impulse to modify commemorative practices was the spread of alternative versions of the past by the opposition, which contributed to their actualization in the collective memory of Polish society. The author focuses on the role of the Polish-born Pope John Paul II, whose visit to socialist Poland in 1983 actualized the events related to the Holocaust and the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. It is concluded that the anti-communist forces of the Polish People’s Republic influenced the transformation of the course of historical politics due to the popularity of institutions opposed to the state in the conditions of permanent socio-economic and political upheavals in the country in the 1980s.

Montana Historical Society Member Recognition

Montana Historical Society Member Recognition

The good intentions of federalism

The article is devoted to substantiating the controversial thesis that federalism is not an autonomous type of political structure. Federations are interpreted as a set of specific failures of different origins in the course of following the basic modern scenario of the formation of a unitary nation-state with a consolidated (civil) political identity. The article has for theoretical basis the actor approach, which interprets the political form of the federation as a derivative result of a conflict pact between the central and peripheral elites. In this methodological perspective, the history of the concept of federalism is examined and a comparative historical analysis of the world federal experience is carried out. As a result, a number of interrelated author's conclusions were formulated. First, it is shown that the original Kantian project of a world federation of states has little in common with federalism, which refers to the description of the internal structure of individual societies. Secondly, the conclusion is substantiated by the fact that in the modern theory of federalism a harmful mainstream tradition has developed, which scales as a normative successful experience the centralizing federalism in the United States. Thirdly, the cultural and historical features of the formation of two families of federations are highlighted and analyzed, one of which is associated with the acquisition of independence by offshoots of the West, and the other was formed by the later processes of the collapse of the colonial empires of the West and the liberation of colonies in Africa and Eurasia. Fourthly, it is argued that the federal political structure at the theoretical level was intended to reconcile, at the basis of the political project of Modernity, the liberal utopia of a universal and culturally homogeneous civil nation and the actual cultural diversity of any modern states, which is a permanent source of erosion of its political sovereignty and differentiation of collective identities. Fifthly, it is proved that all derived political, legal, economic and other signs of federalism are due to one initial problem - the legitimation and subsequent institutionalization of the conflict between the central elite and regional elites, challenging the indivisibility of political sovereignty and demanding political autonomy. Sixth, federalism as a changeable pact of elites in specific historical societies does not provide convincing grounds for its qualification as an autonomous political form compared to a unitary nation-state. The final conclusion is that the political format of federalism in most states is a long-term way of formalizing the political divorce of cultural communities that could not create a common political nation.

Language and Translation in G.U. Pope’s Thirukkural -A Study

When language and literature come together, we may learn more about how society was formed in the past, present, and future. Language is a tool for communication, and literature is a reflection of human existence. Language is essential to society for educating people and advancing their level of knowledge. It is also essential to everyone’s ability to survive in the world. Literature depicts historical societies’ way of life, including both way of life and the psychological aspects of human behavior. A person’s lifestyle is shaped by their culture, as they were raised with the moral standards that society has instilled in them.Language, literature, and culture come together to form a beautiful bundle of moral principles. The fact that a large number of individuals overlooked those items indicates that fashion, not moral principles, will drive modernization. Translators invariably take chances without realizing it, bringing words, syntax, and structure from the source language into the target language. Literature depicts historical societies’ way of life, including both way of life and the psychological aspects of human behavior. The fact that a large number of individuals overlooked those items indicates that fashion, not moral principles, will drive modernization.

Императорское Русское военно-историческое общество и формирование исторической памяти о военных событиях в начале ХХ века

This study analyses the ability and potential of the Imperial Russian Military Historical Society to influence the formation of historical memory of military events in Russian history in the early 20th century. The methodological basis is a synthesis of ideas from the interdisciplinary paradigm of memory studies, as well as comparative historical and typological historical methods. The author proceeds from the assumption that in the early 20th century, the Russian Military Historical Society was among the key actors in the formation of historical memory of significant events in military history. The extensive structure, large membership, broad local representation and various forms of commemoration allowed the society to participate in the process of selecting acts of remembrance of military events and figures as well as assigning certain meanings to them. The study identified difficulties in implementing a number of commemorative projects, such as insufficient financial support and conflicts between the central and local offices as well as between the society’s members. The author comes to the conclusion that, despite the organizational and financial problems, the Russian Military Historical Society during its short period of existence has made a significant contribution to preserving the memory of military campaigns, which is reflected in various forms of commemoration. In addition, the society has managed to earn a reputation and gain the trust of military historians. Turning to these topics not only expands our understanding of the mnemonic actors existing in the modern world, but also allows us to recreate the main directions of the policy of memory in the Russian Empire in the early 20th century. Further research into the commemorative projects of the Imperial Russian Military Historical Society, as well as its interactions with other actors, seems promising.

Three Eye and Vision Care History Organizations: Their Emphases, Activities, and How to Get Involved

This paper describes three organizations devoted to various aspects of the history of eye and vision care. The Optometric Historical Society, founded in 1969, strives to promote the study, documentation and appreciation of optometry history. The Ophthalmic Antiques International Collectors’ Club, founded in 1982, and the Ocular Heritage Society, founded in 1984, are societies of collectors of vision aids and other objects related to eye and vision care, and they work to promote the study of ophthalmic antiques.