News of the Organization

News from the OAH Magazine of History

The new July 2009 issue of the OAH Magazine of History on Disability History is hot off the press! As guest editor Daniel J. Wilson of Muhlenberg College writes in the Foreword, “Disabled individuals typically appear as relatively passive patients or as inmates subject to the attention and procedures of the doctors and other health professionals. Disability histosry radically changes the perspective of the historian. The disabled become the focus of the study. Their lives, their efforts to be independent, their advocacy on their own behalf, their rights as citizens, and their decisions to seek a cure, or not, become the subject matter of this new historical approach.”

To introduce readers to the topic, leading scholars of disability history, Paul Longmore and Susan Burch, survey the literature and explain how disability can illuminate many areas of U.S. history. David Gerber explores the histories of disabled veterans from the Revolutionary War to the current war in Afghanistan. Richard Scotch examines the multifaceted history of the disability rights movement from the 1880s to the present. Dan Wilson’s teaching strategy asks students to consider two documents not often examined in context: “The New Colossus,” the poem by Emma Lazarus affixed to the Statue of Liberty offering to take in Europe’s “poor . . . huddled masses”; and the government regulations on excluding immigrants with mental or physical “defects.” Kim Nielsen offers a variety of ways for students to explore disability history through the medium of biography. And Penny Richards focuses on some of the best internet resources on disability history.

Speaking of online resources, as the July issue went to press, we learned that the MOH is now available on J-STOR, the not-for-profit digital archive. Users are able to access articles as full-text PDF files for searching, browsing, downloading, and printing from the Magazine’s first year of publication in 1985 up until the most recent five years. The ability to search past issues is a great feature. Just for fun, I searched the word “reconstruction” and my “hits” included not only volume 4, n. 1, 1989, which focused on post-Civil War Reconstruction, but also issues on African American History, Desegregation, Civil War, Industrial Revolution, Congressional History, and Taking a Stand in History. If you do not have current access to J-STOR through your institution, you can purchase full access to the MOH (and the Journal of American History and Mississippi Valley Historical Review) at the annual rate of $15. Simply call the OAH Membership Department (812-855-9857 or 9854) with your credit card ready.

Finally, at the end of June, OAH staff said goodbye to Keith Eberly, who did a fine job as assistant editor of the Magazine for the past three years. From the October 2006 issue on Social Movements of the 1960s until the latest July 2009 issue on Disability History, Keith was responsible for layout, selecting images, corresponding with authors, supervising interns, and many other essential tasks. A Ph.D. candidate at Indiana University studying the historical memory of Franklin Roosevelt, Keith leaves us to take a position as graduate research fellow with the History Learning Project at IU. In his place, we have welcomed OAH diversity fellow Tanisha Ford as the Magazine’s new assistant editor. She is already hard at work preparing the October 2009 issue on North American Migrations and the January 2010 issue on Business History for publication.
--Carl R. Weinberg, Editor
OAH Magazine of History

2010 OAH Election

The OAH Nominating Board is pleased to announce the following candidates standing for office in the 2010 OAH Election. OAH Vice President: Albert Camarillo, Stanford University. OAH Executive Board (one candidate will emerge from each of the following three pairs): pair one: Jon Butler, Yale University; George Sanchez, University of Southern California; pair two: Gary Reichard, California State University, Long Beach; Gideon Sanders, James Madison High School; pair three: Annette Atkins, St. John’s University; Jane Kamensky, Brandeis University. OAH Nominating Board (one candidate will emerge from each of the following three pairs): pair one: Kristen Hoganson, University of Illinois; Thomas Sugrue, University of Pennsylvania; pair two: Michael Green, Community College of Southern Nevada; Marguerite Renner, Glendale Community College; pair three: Raymond Arsenault, University of South Florida; Lynn Dumenil, Occidental College.

Candidate biographical sketches, as well as personal statements, will be included with the ballot in the November 2009 OAH Newsletter.

ACLS Humanities E-Book Subscriptions

ACLS Humanities E-Book (HEB) is pleased to make individual subscriptions available to current members of the OAH.

Individual subscriptions are $35.00 for a twelve-month, renewable, subscription. Your subscription offers unlimited access to its collection of cross-searchable, full-text titles across the humanities and related social sciences (<https://www.humanitiesebook.org/titlelist.html>).

Titles have been selected and peer-reviewed by ACLS constituent learned societies for their continued value in teaching and researching, and approximately 500 are being added each year. The collection includes both in- and out-of-print titles ranging from the 1880s to the current year. Titles link to publishers’ websites and to online reviews in JSTOR, Project MUSE, and other sites.

The link below will bring you directly to the online purchase module at ACLS Humanities E-Book. You will need to choose the Organization of American Historians from the pull-down menu and provide your membership number. To begin your subscription, please visit: <https://www.humanitiesebook.org/subscription_purchase.html>.