Robert Cherny Appointed OAH Treasurer

Robert W. Cherny, professor of history at San Francisco State University, has been appointed as treasurer for the Organization of American Historians. "Bob has been chair of a large department, which always means significant budgetary experience," said William H. Chafe, former OAH president. "He is chair of the faculty senate at [San Francisco State] and has statewide experience in the university system as well." Cherny has been appointed for a five-year term, beginning in April 2003.

Cherny is the author of American Politics in the Gilded Age, 1868-1900 (Harlan Davidson, 1997) and coauthor of the textbooks, Making America: A History of the United States (Houghton Mifflin College, 1999) and American Voices: A History of the United States (Scott Foresman, 1992). He is currently writing a biography of Harry Bridges, founding president of what is now the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. Most recently, he was a Distinguished Fulbright Lecturer of American history at Moscow State in 1996 and a visiting scholar at the University of Melbourne in 1997.

Cherny succeeds Gale E. Peterson as OAH treasurer. Executive director of the Ohio Humanities Council, based in Columbus, Peterson had served as OAH treasurer since 1993. "The organization and its members are grateful for Gale's ten years of dedicated stewardship and counsel," said OAH Executive Director Lee Formwalt.