Professor Emeritus Ben Rader recently received a $1,000 grant from the Maude E. Wisherd Fund for research on his family history project encompassing four families and their migration patterns in the late 19th adn 20th centuries. The grant was given through the UNL Emeriti Association.

Congratulations Dr. Rader!

The History Department is pleased to announce that department secretary Sandra Pershing  has been honored with the Annual Applause award for the College of Arts and Sciences. There are only six awards distributed, college wide, so it is quite an accomplishment. Winning the award also allows her to represent the college as a University wide Kudos Award nominee.

Please join us in congratulating Sandra!

Dr. Patrick Jones was recently featured as a guest on Willie Hamilton's cable access show "Real Talk," out of Omaha. He discussed race and urban inequality, the struggle for racial justice in the Urban north, and how it all connects to Omaha.

Pablo Rangel, the Department of History's 2010 Ed Hirsch Scholarship recipient, was a guest speaker at Lincoln Public School’s Arts and Humanities Program School on Wednesday, September 1, 2010 where he discussed history in the digital age which contributed to the LPS Humanities Program focus. Pablo presented his original research on the Northside neighborhood--Lincoln’s “lost neighborhood”--a community that housed many working class Lincolnites of primarily Mexican descent in the early-to-mid twentieth century. Northside once existed in an area that has been occupied by University-owned buildings since the late 1950s (14th St. to 18th St. east to west, and Vine Street to the north at what still are the railroad tracks that separate campus from the North Bottoms neighborhood). He is researching both the place and people that disappeared during the post WWII re-urbanization and institutional expansion. Pablo is an undergraduate student working under the supervision of Dr. James A. Garza, associate professor of History and Latin American Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, on this research project that is funded by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln U.C.A.R.E. program.

Department Chair Will Thomas has been named to the Chancellor's Innovation Campus Advisory Committee. He is one a select group of faculty members invited to participate in its shaping. Get the full story and an audio clip from NET.

UNL Senior History Major Timothy Relihan is scheduled to compete in the two-week college championship tournament of "Jeopardy!" airing nationally Nov. 8-19 (check local listings, programming dates are subject to change).

The Stromsburg native landed a spot on the popular game show after performing well on an online test and an audition that included a written test, a mock game and an interview. While more than 10,000 people took the online test, just 15 students were selected to be on the show, he said.

Relihan's show airs at 4:30 p.m. Thursday on KOLN/KGIN-TV (Time Warner Cable channels 11 and 111).

Read More...Journal Star Article

Read More...UNL Today

Margaret Jacobs' book, White Mother to a Dark Race: Settler Colonialism, Materialism, and the Removal of Indigenous Children in the American West and Australia, 1880-1940 (University of Nebraska Press) is the recipient of the first Coalition for Western Women’s History “Armitage-Jameson Best Book in Western Women’s History” Prize and  awarded the 2010 Robert G. Athearn Award from the Western History Association. The $500 award to the author and the $500 award to the press was presented at the WHA Banquet during the Western History Association Conference in Lake Tahoe, Nevada.

On September 28th at the National Endowment for the Humanities, the recipients of the 2010 NEH Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants will give the public a sneak preview of 46 ground-breaking projects that apply cutting-edge technology to high quality research in the humanities.

UNL Assistant Professor of History Douglas Seefeldt is presenting the Start-Up Grant-funded project "Sustaining Digital History" that he and Professor and department chair William Thomas co-direct. For more information on this important effort to chart the course for scholarly communication in the digital era, follow this link to the project's blog: http://digitalhistory.wordpress.com/

Begun in 2007, NEH Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants support pioneering projects that use technology to advance the humanities. These small grants are designed to spur innovation, test new ideas, and act as a catalyst for further development in the field.  Some projects focus on specific topics in the humanities. Others explore new technology-based methods for research, scholarly publications, collaboration, or public programming.

On September 28th, Start-Up grant recipients from around the country will assemble at NEH headquarters in Washington D.C. to present their projects in “lightning-round” format.  Project directors will have just two minutes and three PowerPoint slides to introduce and explain their projects to the public.

“This meeting will highlight some of the most exciting digital humanities research coming out of American universities, libraries, and museums,” says Brett Bobley, Director of NEH’s Office of Digital Humanities. “The projects represent an incredible array of technologies and the two-minute format makes for a fast-paced – and sometimes mind-blowing – afternoon.”

Drs. Douglas Seefeldt and William Thomas are among the recipients of a 2010 NEH Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant. They will be hosting a meeting for "Sustaining Digital History," this Friday, October 1st.

For information, please follow this link to the History Department's Events Page at http://events.unl.edu/history/upcoming/

A link to the NEH press release for the project directors meeting that includes the agenda and the lightning round presentation schedule: http://www.neh.gov/news/archive/20100916.html

On Sunday, Sept. 12, from 1 to 4 p.m. NET Television and the UNL History Department are
inviting all Nebraska history fans, collectors and genealogists to the “NET History Harvest.”
Because so many historical sources and archives are in people's attics or in trunks, the History
Harvest program will allow the public to bring their old letters, photographs, diaries, maps,
images, documents or other noteworthy items to share with historians. The objects will be
analyzed and discussed with the owner, photographed and documented.

The goal of the project is to digitize Nebraska history materials and make them available in a shared
online repository for schools, universities, colleges and interested citizens. Some people and their objects
may even be featured in an NET Television segment. Please find the full press release here.

To sign-up to reserve a Sunday time, visit netNebraska.org/historyharvest or call
800-634-6788. The registration period begins Aug. 25 and runs through Sept. 8. A podcast containing information about the event is available here.

“Every family has a history, and yet we sometimes think that the nation's history remains separate," said
UNL History Professor Will Thomas. “The nation's history intersects with family histories all the time.
The History Harvest hopes to bring these together and open up new sources for understanding our past."
The two “History Harvest” events are funded in part by the John, Paul, Anton and Doris Wirth
Foundation. NET Television and NET Radio are a service of NET.

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The history department hosted an all day Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA) workshop on August 18th, a formal effort to enhance the preparation of department teaching assistants--experienced and new--before the start of classes. The workshop was co-lead by Drs. Thomas and Borstelmann, the Department and Graduate Chairs respectively, and also included several guest speakers. Topics included philosophy and pedagogy, teaching with technology and Digital Course Management Systems such as Blackboard, Library Resources, as well as undergraduate advising. The workshop featured a common narrative of developing and preparing students for diverse careers both in and outside of the formal field of history. 

That same week, the department welcomed 12 new graduate students to the program from a variety of fields and geographical locations. Following orientation, matriculating and current graduate students met for a gaterhing at Yia Yia's to mark the beginning of a new school year. We wish everyone the best for a wonderful and productive semester!