NEHA is excited to share the below preliminary program for our Fall Virtual Conference, hosted by Sacred Heart University on Saturday, October 17. Final archived program available here.

Participants and attendees should register by October 15, 2020 using this link: https://neha.wildapricot.org/events

Preliminary Program

NEHA Fall 2020 Virtual Conference
Saturday, October 17, 2020
Sacred Heart University

All sessions will be held online. The links for each session will be distributed the day before. Please note that ALL sessions are on EST. All participants will need to register prior to the conference in order to receive access to the sessions.

8-8:20 Welcome (Pre-Recorded)

If you live-tweet any panels, please use the hashtag #NEHA2020

First Morning Sessions, 8:30-10:00

Panel 1
New Deal America
Comment and Chair: Kelly Marino, Sacred Heart University

Unsettling Settlement: Documents, Narratives, and the Determination of Belonging in New Deal America
Brooke Depenbusch, Colgate University

Aunt Mary, the Mayor of Washington: Congresswoman Mary T. Norton’s New Deal for the District of Columbia
Robert Childes, University of Maryland, College Park

Panel 2
Modern American Identity Politics and Culture

Chair/Commentator: Todd S. Gernes, Stonehill College

Racial Segregation, Popular Culture, and Representation of Geographic Mobility in American Sheet Music, 1865-1900
Colin Anderson, George Washington University

Who is an American? Colonial Period Rooms and the National Origins Act of 1924
Heather Hole, Simmons University

Religion in Support of Americanism: Evidence from Life Magazine
William Heiden, University of Hartford

Panel 3
Conservative Politics in 20th Century America

Chair/Commentator: Andrew Moore, Saint Anselm College

The Economic and Social Life of a Maine Klansman: Deforest H. Perkins and the Decline of the Maine Ku Klux Klan
Thomas MacMillan, Concordia University

The Maine Antis – Questions of Sexual Citzenship Among Women Opposed to Women’s Suffrage, 1914-1917
Kathryn Angelica, University of Connecticut, Storrs

Rise of the Republican Right Revisited
Brian M. Conley, Suffolk University

Desegregation in the Boston Public Schools: How One Woman’s Defiance Helped Forge the 20-Year Gap in the Liberal North
Monique Manna, Worcester State University

Panel 4
American Revolution

Chair/Comment: Eliga Gould, University of New Hampshire, Durham

Timothy Dwight’s Melancholy and the Age of the American Revolution
Robert J. Imholt, Albertus Magnus College

Patriot, Loyalist, Pragmatist: Allegiance and Neutrality in the Shadow of Fort George, 1779-1784
Darcy Stevens, University of Maine, Orono

Black Patriotism and Black Death in the Aftermath of the American Revolution
Adam X. McNeil, Rutgers University, New Brunswick

Panel 5
Modern Britain and the Politics of Colonialism and Independence

Chair/Comment: Margaret Sankey, Air War College

“A Double Claim to Be Consulted”: the Pankhurst Sisters’ Newspaper Coverage of Ireland During the Great War, 1914-18
Erin Scheopner, Goldsmiths, University College London

Gunpowder and the Gendering of British Indian Policy
Jennifer McCutchen, University of Maine, Orono

An Indigenous Education Policy as the Pancea for Africa’s Development: the Nigerian Case Study
Femi Oni, Independent Scholar

Martiality and Color Lines in the Great War: African Americans’ and “Non-Martial” Indians’ Quest for Political Rights
Sharmishtha Roy Chowdbury, University of Connecticut, Storrs

Panel 6
Politics and Environmentalism in Twentieth-Century Germany and Poland

Chair/Commentator: Melanie Murphy, Emmanuel College

“The Center Party, 1925-1928: Victim of Stability”
Martin Menke, Rivier University

Sigmund Freud’s Prophet, The Nazi Holocaust, and the Fragility of Historical Memory in Rural Poland
Robert Bernheim, University of Maine, Augusta

“They Enable Us to See: Non-Jewish Rescue of Jewish Life in Poland”
Leora Tec, Bridge to Poland

Against the Current: Towards a (Hopefully) New Environmental History of the Mosel River
Troy Paddock, Southern Connecticut State University

Panel 7
Disparity, Disability, and Disease

Chair/Comment: Stephen Kenny, University of Liverpool

Una Mala Vida? Alzheimer’s Diesease, Cultures of Care, and Structural Healthcare Disparities Among Chicanos in New Jersey
Rachelle Cho, Independent Scholar

New York City and the 1918 Infuenza Pandemic
Eric Cimino, Molloy College

Remarkable Characters: Emerging Perspectives of Intellectual Disablility in the 1850 U.S. Federal Census of Massachusetts
Naomi A. Schoenfeld, Rivier University

Discrimination or Self Selection? Women and Medical School Admission 1900-1970
Andrew Simmons, University of Rhode Island

Break: 10-10:15

Second Morning Sessions, 10:15 – 11:45

Panel 8
Digital Methods in Public History

Chair/Commentator: Sarah Melton, Boston College

Digitizing Incarceration: A Database of Unfreedoms
Jessica Parr and Amber Stubbs, Simmons University

Doing Digital Public History Among the Dead: Cedar Grove Cemetery’s Stone Lot
Ella Howard, Wentworth Institute of Technology

Panel 9
Race, Religion, and Gender in Early America

Chair/Commentator: Elizabeth DeWolfe, University of New England

Public Prayers and Public Thanks in Eighteenth-Century Westborough, Massachusetts
Ross W. Beales, Jr., College of the Holy Cross

The Infamous Betsey Loring and the American Revolution
Sean Heuvel, Christopher Newport University

John Thomas Evans and the Search for the Welsh Indians of North America
Brian Regal, Kean University

Panel 10
Race, Religion, and Violence in America

Chair and Comment: Jacqueline Whitt, U.S. Army Air War College

Rebuilding White Masculinity: Violence in South Carolina
Gabrielle McCoy, University of Maryland, College Park*

“The Lapse of Time Has Softened Much of the Prejudice:” the Decline of Anti-Mormonism in Illinois
Brady G. Winslow, BASIS Independent Fremont

Vengeance, Violence, and Vigilantism: an Exploration of the 1891 Lynching of Eleven Italian-Americans in New Orleans
Caitlin Kennedy, University of Maryland, College Park

Panel 11
Pop Culture in American History

Chair/Comment: Jennifer McCutchen, University of Southern Maine

The Virginia House-Wife Project: Recipes, History, and Engagement
Rachel Snell, Independent Scholar

Maggie’s Story: Using Animal Narration Effectively
Allen F. Horn IV, Eastern Connecticut State University*

Gardens of the Spirit Land: Foodways, Animal Welfare, and the Alcotts in Shakerlandia
Coyote Shook, University of Texas, Austin

Racial Terrorism and Injustice: The Significance of Bearden’s Political Cartoons, Then and Now.
Amy Kirschke, Virginia Tech

Panel 12
Modern America

Chair/Commentator: Clifford Putney, Bentley University

Animation, Cultural History, and Foreign Relations: Walt Disney, Saludos Amigos (1942), and the Good Neighbor Policy, 1941-1945
Brian Peterson, Shasta College

Mapping Identity and Violence in the 1919 Boston Police Strike
Molly Copeland, Simmons University

The Seven Presidents: The Summer White House on the Jersey Shore
Thomas Balcerski, Eastern Connecticut State University

12-12:45 pm – Lunch Break

12:45-1:30 NEHA Hanlan Book Prize Announcement, Paper Prize Announcement

Afternoon Sessions, 1:30 – 3:00

Panel 13
Teaching History through Games: Innovative Tools for the Classroom

Chair/Commentator: Libby Bischof, University of Southern Maine

Sojorner’s Trail
Walter Greason, Monmouth University

Using Games to Teach History: A Twenty-Five Year Retrospective
Clifford Putney, Bentley University

When the Past is the Classroom: Merging Reacting to the Past and Experiential Education
Kathryn Lamontagne, Boston University

Panel 14
Traveling in the Middle Ages: Using Digital Methods and Spatial Analysis for Historical Research

Chair/Commentator: Ella Howard, Wentworth Institute of Technology

Women at the Common Law: Travel and Gender in Thirteenth-Century English Courts
Gary Shaw and Connor Cobb,* Wesleyan University

The Camino de Santiago: Student Researchers and Creating a Database for Spatial Analysis
Sean Perrone, Saint Anselm College

Medieval Travel as a Big Data Problem
Adam Franklin-Lyons, Marlboro College

Panel 15
Black Freedom Struggles

Chair/Commentator: Dominic DeBrincat, Missouri Western State University

Rethinking Fugitivity and the Courtroom Before the 1793 Fugitivity Law
Evan Turiano, City University New York

Struggles for Liberation: Tracing Black-Palestinian Solidarity
Amy Smith, University of Southern Maine

The Maine Soldier’s Amendment and the Right Over African American Freedom During the US Civil War
Eben Miller, Southern Maine Community College

“The Invisible Army:” African-American Religious Life and Death
Ashley Towle, University of Southern Maine

Panel 16
Contemporary Issues in the College Classroom

Chair/Commentator: Troy Paddock, Southern Connecticut State University

Teaching the History of the Present
Richard A. Gerber, Emeritus, Southern Connecticut State University

Mascots, Race, and Tribal Sovereignty
Andrew K. Frank, Florida State University

Panel 17
History and Public Memory Today

Chair/Commentator: Kristen Petersen, MCPHS University

Witch Trials in Public Memory
Tricia Peone, New Hampshire Humanities

Making Radical History Public: Presenting the Palmer Raids of a Century Ago Today
Allison B. Horrocks, Lowell National Historical Park & Brandon M. Hoots, University of Massachusetts – Amherst

The History of the Save Venice, Inc. 1966-2016
Magdalene Stathas, University of Massachusetts – Lowell*

The Tall Ships are Coming! Tall Ship and Historical Program Partnerships to Improve Enrollment, Retention, and Engagement
Nicholas Hardisty, Rhode Island College

Panel 18
The Ancient and Medieval Worlds

Chair/Commentator: Thomas R. Martin, College of the Holy Cross

“The Persian Man’s Spear has Gone Forth Far”: Reinterpreting Persian Aims in Greece
Erik Jensen, Salem State University

Muslims, Mongols, and Monstrous Races: Gunpowder Technology Comes to Medieval Europe
Robert Holmes, National Park Service

Interpretation of Strategy: The Ionian Revolt and the Invasion of 480 BCE
Matthew Gonzales, Saint Anselm College

Virtual Histories – Expanding Roman Architectural History Teaching through Virtual Reality
Jody M. Gordon & Anne-Catrin Schultz, Wentworth Institute of Technology

Panel 19
Nineteenth Century Massachusetts

Chair/Commentator: Rebecca Noel, Plymouth State University

Education Enabling Revolution
Benjamin Beverage, University of Massachusetts – Lowell *

Melville and His Mountain: Exploring the literary influence of a Sense of Place in Herman Melville’s Writing Process
Rebecca Taylor, Sienna College

A “Horrid Spectacle;” Diary Reactions to an Execution
Nicole O’Connell, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth

Panel 20
Addressing Contemporary Events Through the Lens of History in the K-12 Classroom

Chair: Kanisorn Wongsrichanalai, Massachusetts Historical Society

Topi Dasgupta, Concord Academy
Ed Rafferty, Concord Academy
Scott Spencer, Winchester High School
Kevin Levin, Gann Academy

* Denotes undergraduate presenter