OAH | News of the OAH

Thank You and a Request

We would like to thank all the 2020 OAH Annual Meeting registrants who have opted to donate their registration fees rather than request a refund. We will convert all donated and non-refunded registrations into a tax-deductible contribution. Proof of contribution will be available after May 1 for your records.

Just days before we made the decision to cancel our conference due to COVID-19, we were getting ready to begin our annual appeal. After cancelling the conference, your support is even more critical. Due to the cancellation, the OAH stands to lose staggering sums of money. We lost significant registration revenue. In addition, we have amounts due to vendors for services already provided, including a contract with Marriott that includes penalties for empty hotel rooms and canceled receptions. We are working with a lawyer to negotiate the hotel costs, but we will, in any event, incur significant losses. We ask you to help us weather the moment with any contribution you can offer. Your support, financial or otherwise, during this challenging time is very much appreciated and helps us reduce disruptions to your most loved programs.

As part of our annual appeal, OAH president, Joanne Meyerowitz, and Executive Director, Kathrine M. Finley, share a summary of the many accomplishments by and for our vital community over the past year. They are included here as a reminder of the programs and services your contributions support.

A highly successful OAH Annual Meeting in Philadelphia with the highest attendance in six years.
Continued publication of the acclaimed Journal of American History as well as The American Historian magazine and the Process blog.
The launch of an endowment campaign with an initial gift of $50,000 from Past President Earl Lewis. We currently have over $140,000 in pledges and contributions toward our five-year challenge of $500,000.
The completion of 14 National Park Service projects and initiation of 28 new projects.
The organization signed on to historians’ amicus briefs that asked to unseal grand jury transcripts of the 1946 Moore’s Ford lynching, requested settlement funds to preserve records of the opioid industry, and used historical arguments to protest the rescission of DACA.
The completion of the American History Experts database for the media. The database has won three national awards. More than 400 OAH members have created profiles to assist the growing number of members of the media who utilize the database.
The creation of a new OAH website with improved navigation.
Participants in the Distinguished Lectureship Program delivered 72 lectures, and almost 600 OAH members participate as lecturers in the program.
The inauguration of Public Voice workshops on op-ed writing and media training, supported by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
The search for a new Executive Director prior to Katherine Finley’s upcoming retirement.

We know these are challenging times for our community. If you are able to help, any donation is gladly welcomed and much appreciated. Donations can be mailed to the OAH office at 112 N. Bryan Ave, Bloomington, IN 47408, or sent via our online form at https://secure.oah.org/store.

New Staff at the Journal of American History

We are pleased to welcome Amy Ransford as an Editorial Assistant. Ms Ransford is a Ph.D. candidate in History at Indiana University. Her dissertation, Trading Women: Patriarchy, Race, and Settler Colonialism in the Hudson River Watershed, 1600–1790, analyzes entangled kinship and trade networks and the Native, African, and European women whose commercial and productive activities were central to the long process of colonization. In her role as an Editorial Assistant, she primarily oversees the production of the JAH podcast and manages social media promotion of the Journal and Process blog. She previously served as an editorial assistant at the American Historical Review.

New *JAH* Editorial Assistant Amy Ransford

Become a Reviewer for the Journal of American History

The JAH is always looking for qualified historians to serve as reviewers for the Journal of American History. To be qualified, a reviewer should have either a Ph.D. in American history or a related field, professional experience in the teaching or presentation of the history of America, or publications in the field. It is crucial that prospective reviewers indicate their areas of interest and publications on the reviewer data sheet since we use this information to identify reviewers who have expertise in the particular subject matter of the book or article being reviewed.

To submit a new reviewer data sheet, or to update an existing record, please use this url– https://jah.oah.org/reviewer-data-sheet/ –and complete the form. We recommend that those interested in reviewing update their information at least once every two years to ensure that you remain on the active reviewer roster.

New Member Benefit

We are pleased to announce that we have partnered with Learning Plunge to offer OAH members a 10% discount on their new history card game, History Plunge. Members can access the discount code in the OAH Member Portal at https://secure.oah.org. With History Plunge, players gain valuable critical thinking and social-emotional skills. The target audience, 3-12 grade students, will learn about all the U.S. Presidents, as well as important events in U.S. history, when and where they took place, who was involved, and their historical impact. Utilizing artwork from the Smithsonian’s National Portrait collection, players gain fluency with valuable content knowledge about the United States, including awareness of influential people, which can lead to improved reading comprehension and critical thinking about United States history, as well as providing students a context for analyzing current events. You can learn more about History Plunge on their website at https://www.learningplunge.org/what-is-historyplunge/.

Women’s History Index

In honor of Women’s History Month, and as part of the Sex, Suffrage, Solidarities series by which the OAH is marking the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment, the Journal of American History is pleased to publish the JAH Women’s History Index. This index consists of every article of women’s history printed in the JAH since its inception as the Mississippi Valley Historical Review in 1914. The index, along with a brief note about methodology, is available on Process at http://www.processhistory.org/?p=5494&preview=true.

Katherine Turk, Associate Professor of History and Adjunct Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has curated this online issue of articles selected from the index. Turk is the author of Equality on Trial: Gender and Rights in the Modern American Workplace (2016). We offer these materials as resources for readers who wish to learn more about women’s history and U.S. historiography more broadly. Entitled “Not Additive, but Transformative: Women and Gender in the Journal of American History,” the online issue will be freely available through May 2020 on Oxford University Press’ website – https://academic.oup.com/jah/pages/womens-history-month-collection-2020

New Member Community Coming Soon

OAH staff is in the final stages of preparing a new member benefit–an online community–where you can connect, discuss, and collaborate with fellow OAH members. We anticipate launching this exciting new feature by the end of next week. All OAH members will receive an email invitation to take part and get connected. We are very excited about the possibilities this new platform opens for us as a community so we can continue to connect during these trying times. We welcome your participation, input, and suggestions upon the launch of this new member benefit.

News of the OAH