Estelle Freedman and Tom Dublin
Co-Chairs, 1999 Program Committee

For the first time in its history, the annual meeting of the OAH will be held outside of the United States, just across Lake Ontario in the cosmopolitan Canadian city of Toronto. From 1 p.m. Thursday, April 22 until 11 a.m. Sunday, April 25, 1999, members can choose among 160 sessions housed at the Sheraton Centre and four off-site sessions at nearby historic locations in Toronto. The conference theme, "State and Society in North America: Processes of Social Power and Social Change," elicited an exciting range of sessions, many of them focusing on Canadian history, comparative history, and the international role of the United States. The program also emphasizes the relationship between social and political history, the teaching of American history, special sessions for graduate students, and current scholarship on gender, race, and ethnicity. In addition, publishers will be exhibiting their wares and a host of affiliated groups will hold their annual luncheons during the meeting.

Three plenary sessions highlight the themes of the conference. On Thursday evening, April 22, distinguished historians from the U.S., Mexico, Canada, and Germany will discuss "The Internationalization of American History." We are also honored that Canadian foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy, one of the leaders of the Nobel-prize winning effort to achieve a world ban on land mines, will address another plenary on Thursday evening (international crises not intervening). His talk is titled "In the Shadow of the Giant: Conducting Canada's Foreign Policy on the Border of the Lone Superpower." On Friday morning, the third plenary session brings together Bob Rae, the formal Social Democratic premier of Ontario, and two eminent labor historians, OAH president-elect David Montgomery and Canadian Historical Association president Greg Kealey, in a conversation on "Social Democrats in Power," moderated by Susan Porter Benson.

Dozens of sessions reflect the emphasis on state, society, and social change, including two panels considering post-war U.S. politics, one on feminism and one on race. Other panels address the U.S. Congress in the twentieth century, the N.A.A.C.P., affirmative action, sexuality and the state, the underground railroad, gender and Reconstruction, civil rights and foreign policy, the old and new lefts, and immigration and the state.

A major highlight of this conference will be the representation of Canadian historians and Canadian history in more than three dozen sessions, including panels on First Nations/Native American history, comparative perspectives on the West, and historical perspectives on NAFTA. Several sessions explore Canadian and American immigration history, and one of the panels on African American and African Canadian history will be held at the historic St. Lawrence Hall, the site of the first meeting of the Colored Free Men in Canada. In addition, several sessions explore cross-national identities and politics in the colonial and early national eras: "Self and Identity in the Early Modern Atlantic World" features Kathleen Brown, Natalie Zemon Davis, Cornelia Dayton, Philip Morgan, and Jennifer L. Morgan; "Whose Law Governs? Jurisdictional Tangles in New York, Canada, and Iroquoia, 1763-1800" includes papers by Alan Taylor and Jack Rakove, with comments by Carol Karlsen and Richard White.

This year the OAH program honors the contributions of several senior scholars whose work has greatly influenced historical writing. One panel addresses the prodigious scholarship of Joan Jensen, who has contributed so much to western, women's, Native American, Asian American, and economic history. Another session reflects on the impact of Carl Degler's masterful survey, Out of Our Past, on the 40th anniversary of its publication. Two Canadian scholars will be the subject of special sessions: Toronto resident Jane Jacobs will be present for a panel reflecting on her classic text, The Death and Life of Great American Cities; Michael Ebner, Carl Abbott, Gail Radford, Graeme Davison, and John C. Weaver will discuss the work of historical geographer James Lemons of the University of Toronto. In honor of David Thelen's retirement as editor of the JAH, former editorial board members and associate editors will reflect on the ways the journal, and the profession, have changed during his tenure from 1985-1999. Finally, the work and legacy of OAH President Elect David Montgomery will be the focus of a session with presentations by James Barrett, Ira Berlin, Julie Green, and Tera Hunter.

Local arrangements chairs Marc Egnal and Adrienne Hood have helped place some outstanding sessions in appropriate venues that allow participants to explore Canadian history and culture. On Friday afternoon, April 23, a panel on "Museums and Material Culture" will meet at the Gardiner Museum, followed by a guided tour "behind the scenes" of the Textile and Ethnology Departments at the Royal Ontario Museum, which is across the street. On Saturday morning, April 24, a session on trans-Atlantic radicalism in the late eighteenth century will meet at the historical Mackenzie House. It was the home and print shop of Toronto's first mayor, William Lyon Mackenzie, a leader of the 1837 Upper Canada Rebellion. A session on the Underground Railroad in Canada and the U.S. meets at St. Lawrence Hall. On Saturday afternoon a chartered bus will transport convention participants to nearby Ft. York, important in the British defense of Canada during the War of 1812, for a session on "Crossing Boundaries in Revolutionary New York: Revolutionaries, Canadians, Native Americans and Loyalists," followed by a tour of the archeological site there.

At the Toronto meeting the work of younger scholars and pioneers in new fields will be featured in several sessions. The Committee on the Status of Minority Historians and Minority History has organized a showcase for recent recipients of the Huggins-Quarles awards for scholarship on minority history. Panels on "New Research on Asian American History" and "Perspectives on Chicano/Chicana History" will present cutting-edge scholarship in these fields. Several ethnic history sessions will explore issues of race and the construction of racial identities in provocative ways. Media and teaching receive due attention at the meeting. One session focuses on "Cinema in the History Classroom," while new films on Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony and on the Black Press will be showcased at the meeting. Other sessions will explore using the World Wide Web in class and teaching films. Special graduate student sessions include "The Art of the Lecture," "What Community College Historians Do: Careers in Two Year Colleges," "Graduate Students and the OAH," "Part-time Teaching and the Future of the Profession," and "C.V. Workshop: What Do Institutions Look for from Graduate Students?"

As usual the Focus on Teaching Day activities on Saturday will provide rich material for classroom teachers at all levels. Some highlights include: "Online Local History: The Electronic Oberlin Group," "Great Cities: Perspectives on America's Urban Experience," "Integrating U.S. History and World History in the College and High School Curriculum," and "Implementing State Standards in History." Toronto provides abundant local color, excellent restaurants, and nearby landmark architecture. The University of Toronto and York University are sponsoring a Saturday evening reception at City Hall located just across the street from the Sheraton. The reception will begin at 6:30 p.m. and the song and dance of the Acadian musical group Puirt at 7:30 p.m. The reception should end around 8:30 p.m. in time for everyone to enjoy Toronto dining and nightlife. Please be sure to register early and plan to join us for what promises to be a very stimulating 1999 annual meeting.