AHA Activities, May 1985

Deborah Welch, New Project Di­rector, History Teaching Alliance: A native of North Carolina, Deborah Welch completed her undergraduate education in history at Agnes Scott Col­lege where she received the BA in 1974. She attained her MA degree at Wake Forest University and this Spring will receive the PhD from the Universi­ty of Wyoming. Her primary field of research is American Indian history.

For the past two years, Deborah Welch has worked as Assistant Director of the Statewide Humanities Leadership Project, a collaborative network of Uni­versity and public school teachers which seeks to strengthen humanities educa­tion in a three-state area—Colorado, Nebraska, and Wyoming. In addition, she brings to the History Teaching Alli­ance Project experience in the teaching of history at both the university and high school levels. For further informa­tion on the History Teaching Alliance, see Perspectives, March ’85, p. 1.

Captured WWII Documents Project: Over a year ago, the AHA’s Research Division issued a call for donations of captured German and Japanese docu­ments through veterans’ magazines. The Division’s concern was that persons in possession of such documents may not know of their historical value to researchers. The AHA received many donations from persons who served in the US armed forces in World War II. The National Archives and Records Administration evaluated the docu­ments for the AHA, and several subse­quently have been donated to the US Army Military History Institute located at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. Plans are currently being made to transfer Japanese documents to the Japanese Defense Ministry, where they will be translated and made available to schol­ars and others. The AHA wishes to express its appreciation to NARA and the USAMHI for their valuable assist­ance.

Donation of AHR Sets to the People’s Republic of China: Our members may recall that in 1982-83 we ran a highly successful program of soliciting donations of consecutive runs of the American Historical Review for shipment to several universities of the PRC. Those donating their volumes, in addition to creating new shelf space for themselves and en­joying a tax break based on expert eval­uation of their gifts, also had the plea­sure of bringing some of the best of our scholarship to historian colleagues abroad. The project was funded by a grant from the United States Informa­tion Agency.

We are pleased to announce a second round for those wishing to donate a consecutive run of AHRs dating back to the early 1950s. Please write to describe your holdings available for a gift to Ms. S.P. Banks, AHR/USIA, American His­torical Association, 400 A St. SE, Washington, DC 20003. We will notify those selected where to ship their dona­tion and how to address it. Shipments must be mailed by December 31, 1985. We will reimburse for packing and ship­ping.

This activity is assisted financially by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the United States Information Agency under the authority of the Fulbright-Hays Act of 1961.

Leopold von Ranke Conference: At its meeting in December, the Council of the Association voted to cosponsor a conference on “Leopold von Ranke and the Shaping of the Historical Discipline” to be held at Syracuse University in October, 1986. The academic year, 1986-87 at Syracuse will mark not only the centennial of Ranke’s death but also that of the acquisition of his personal library of books, pamphlets, and manu­scripts by the university in 1887. Despite important work in Germany and the US since World War II and increasing interest by scholars in the professional­ization of historical studies and other academic disciplines in the period since the eighteenth century, Leopold von Ranke continues to suffer from the eclipse of his reputation that took place at the end of the nineteenth century. One of the hoped-for results of this conference will be a further broadening of the perspectives from which his con­tribution can be evaluated. For this rea­son, the conference will not focus nar­rowly on Ranke, but will use him as a symbol and centerpiece to an explora­tion of both the achievements and short­comings in the integration of historical research into the matrix of “modern” disciplines.

The speakers at the conference will explore several themes: 1) German in­tellectuals and their influence, 1750-1900; the achievement of Ranke as his­torian and founder of the modern his­torical discipline; and the development of professionalism in the modern Uni­versity. Participants will include Peter Burke (Cambridge), Felix Gilbert (Insti­tute for Advanced Study), Doris Gold­stein (Yeshiva), Donald Kelley (Roches­ter), Jaroslav Pelikan (Yale), Fritz Ring­er (Pittsburgh), and Rudolf Vierhaus (Max Planck Institut, Gottingen). The conference will take place over three and one-half days and will consist of papers, panel discussions, and questions and comments from the floor. At pre­sent, the planning for the conference is well along. Application has been made to the NEH and other sources for sup­plemental financial support. The plan­ning committee is chaired by James M. Powell of Syracuse. Georg Iggers, SUNY-Buffalo, will be the AHA’s representative at the conference.

The committee wishes to invite those who may be interested in participating or receiving information about the conference to write to Professor Powell at the Department of History, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13210. The outstanding hotel facilities available near the university can accommodate several hundred guests and the city of Syracuse is accessible by plane, train, car, and bus from all major population areas of the US and Canada.

Plans are also under way for the eventual publication of the major papers delivered at the conference.