Selma
The 45th Anniversary of the Civil Rights March from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery, Alabama. The sign for the Selma-to-Montgomery National Historic Trail was photographed by Carol M. Highsmith. It is in the George F. Landegger Collection of Alabama Photographs at the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
Staff
Intoxicating Beverages: New National Archives Exhibit Explores Alcohol in American History
Throughout our history, Americans have had conflicting attitudes toward alcohol. While one leading founder—George Washington—established a lucrative business distilling whiskey,…
US Capitol Restoration Commences
Looking at the stately US Capitol from afar, it’s hard to imagine that its origins are as divisive and contradictory…
NASA’s Leading Edge: One Hundred Years of Aeronautics
Credit: NASA/Langley Research Center, 1.usa.gov/1MGWe9x Currently on display at the National Air and Space Museum, the NACA Emblem had previously…
When History Is Not Good Enough for Hollywood
Get it right; and don’t be boring.” That is the advice I give to students about writing history. I stole…
The Brouhaha over Selma
The 87th annual Academy Awards ceremony is over, and Selma, snubbed by many Academy members (myself included) in the best…
Missed Opportunities with Selma
There has been a lot written about what is wrong or right with the film Selma. Fans of the movie…
Varieties of Leadership in Selma
First, I must confess: I cried through the whole movie, from the first scene to the last. As a historian,…
History as Entertainment or Entertainment as History?
When I learned that plans were afoot to make a feature film about the March from Selma to Montgomery, I…
The Past Isn’t Even Past, Especially on Twitter
Social media was on fire regarding the film Selma and the Oscars. Anger seemed to focus on the “snub”: no…
Of Selma and History
Earlier this month, on the same day that President Obama, civil rights veterans, and dignitaries gathered in Selma, Alabama, to…
Selma and the International History of American Civil Rights
When peaceful civil rights marchers were brutally beaten in Selma, Alabama, in 1965, the world reacted with horror at the…
On Academic Leadership
Whether you’re a volunteer or a conscript, you may find that service as a department chair brings particular challenges to…
Keeping Track of Record Keeping: Closing the Gaps in Federal Records Management
In a January column in this space, I spoke of the benefits of the Presidential and Federal Records Reform Act…
AHA Joins Other Associations to Protest Georgia’s Proposed Religious Freedom Restoration Act
In collaboration with other scholarly societies scheduled to meet in Atlanta over the next two years, the American Historical Association…
AHA Letter of Support for the National Library of Medicine
The National Library of Medicine (NLM), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is the world’s largest medical library.…
Interview with Donald Ritchie, Retiring Historian of the Senate
Historian of the Senate Donald Ritchie has announced that he will retire in May. Don has been with the Senate…
The New Jersey Initiative
New Jersey has reached a turning point in its approach to history instruction. The Standards and Model Curriculum recently adopted…
Perspectives on Contingent Labor
The Coordinating Council for Women in History long has addressed problems facing women in academia, including the issue of contingent…
Carl Degler (1921-2014)
Carl N. Degler, a former president of the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, and the Southern Historical…
Paul N. Hehn (1927-2014)
AHA Member since 1966 Paul N. Hehn was the son of a German immigrant father and a French-Canadian mother. Born…
Ari Hoogenboom (1927-2014)
Historian of the Gilded Age and AHA 50-Year Member Ari Hoogenboom, Broeklundian Professor of History emeritus at Brooklyn College and…
George W. Rollins (1916-2014)
Historian of the American West George W. Rollins, professor of history emeritus at Eastern Montana College (now Montana State University…
Raymond A. Mohl (1939-2015)
Credit: University of Alabama, Birmingham. AHA 50-Year Member Raymond A. Mohl, one of the leading urban historians in the United…
Patriotism and Dissent
Dissent and patriotism. Which of the two benefits one’s country and which harms it? Or, as James Grossman asks us…
AHA Member Spotlight: Cynthia Bouton
AHA members are involved in all fields of history, with wide-ranging specializations, interests, and areas of employment. To recognize our…
America’s Misconceived “Wars on Terror”
The United States government is currently pursuing a host of policies, some of them quite aggressive, in the Middle East—a…
Visit Local History Museums across the US with the New AHA Member Benefit
Summer is a great time to be a historian. Some of us work on the academic calendar, so summer signals…
Footsteps to Freedom
This year the staff at Appomattox Court House National Historical Park wanted the 150th anniversary commemoration of the Confederate surrender to…
Germany Schaefer and the Perfect Shot in an Unusually “Meta” Flashback Friday
Each week we scour the web for interesting and historic documents that catch our eye. This week we stumbled across this…
Checking in with Former National History Center Interns
Through the National History Center’s internship program, students gain skills that will help them pursue their careers inside and outside…
AHA Member Spotlight: Sung Yup Kim
AHA members are involved in all fields of history, with wide-ranging specializations, interests, and areas of employment. To recognize our…
AHA Career Diversity Announces Department Grants
AHA Career Diversity is pleased to announce its next venture to expand opportunities for history graduate students and allow for…
2015 NASA and Jameson Fellowships Awarded
The AHA is pleased to announce the 2015–16 recipients of the J. Franklin Jameson Fellowship in American History and the…
2015 AHA Research Grants Awarded
Each year, the American Historical Association awards several research grants with the aim of advancing the study and exploration of…
Our Federal Tax System
How did our current federal tax system coming into being? What lessons can we draw from its history as Congress…
Possibilities after the History PhD
It is hardly necessary to note that these are challenging times for history PhD programs. Continued tightening in the academic job…
AHA Member Spotlight: Alice Browne
AHA members are involved in all fields of history, with wide-ranging specializations, interests, and areas of employment. To recognize our…
Entering the Job Market with a BA in History
To help students adapt to the changing job market, the AHA has begun a new series on searching for jobs and developing…
Pilgrims’ Books and Charms at the Art Institute of Chicago
In 1889, Chicago businessman Clarence Buckingham inherited a third of his father’s fortune. That, along with his successful career with the…
Getting to Know History from the Inside
I interned for the National History Center during the academic year of 2014—2015 as I began the MA program in…
AHA Member Spotlight: Susan Smith-Peter
AHA members are involved in all fields of history, with wide-ranging specializations, interests, and areas of employment. To recognize our…
The Fourth Amendment and the Patriot Act
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled Section 215 of the Patriot Act illegal under federal law but did not…
“Flex a Historical Muscle”
I never thought I would hear anyone say that they were in desperate need of historians. But two weeks ago,…
AHA Announces New Taxonomy of Historical Fields
Do you study capitalism, childhood and youth, or emotions and senses? Do you see yourself as a transnational or borderlands…
Some Thoughts on “Entangled Trajectories: Integrating Native American and European Histories”
“Entangled Trajectories: Integrating Native American and European Histories,” the symposium that Ralph Bauer (Univ. of Maryland) and I organized earlier…
Tuning Project Releases Department Materials: New Resources for Teaching History
Today we are pleased to launch curricular materials developed by faculty participating in the AHA’s Tuning project. Since 2012, the…
Bridging Historias through Latino History and Culture: An NEH Bridging Cultures at Community Colleges Project
Bridging Historias: Latino/a History and Culture in the Community College Classroom will culminate its two-year National Endowment for the Humanities-funded program…
Introducing #ScholarFest
What happens when you take 70 scholars from multiple disciplines, put them in a room together, and ask them to…
John W. Kluge Center Accepting Fellowship Applications
The John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress is now accepting applications for Kluge Fellowships. The application deadline is July…