Chase W. Fleece presented his research on “Rice is the Price: American Agriculturalists as Counterinsurgents in South Vietnam, 1964-73” at the American Historical Association’s Undergraduate Lightning Round.
During the winter break, I had the incredible opportunity to present research at the 136th annual conference of the American Historical Association in the “City of Brotherly Love.” Along side nine other burgeoning undergraduate scholars, I presented “Rice is the Price: American Agriculturalists as Counterinsurgents in South Vietnam, 1964-73” in a lightning round style panel on the Vietnam War and the Global 70s. Being the only scholar – among only a handful of others in the entire conference – focusing on agricultural history, I had the unique opportunity to introduce others to its infinite wonders (for my fellow graduate students, I didn’t introduce myself as “Corn King”). For those interested in reading a short synopsis of my research, I have included the abstract below.
As the Gary Hess Lecture approaches and our speaker, Bill Allison, is a distinguished graduate of our program, we take the opportunity to share this post of our colleague Dr. Doug Forsyth about the department’s contributions to the field of Policy History —Amílcar E. Challú
≈ Comments Off on Historians Take Over Grand Rapids, Michigan!
By Kasandra Fager, BGSU History MA student, edited by Chloe S. Kozal
BGSU History Graduate Students pose outside the Grand Rapids Public History Museum in Grand Rapids, MI. Photo by: Kate Brekke.
Imagine the best museum you have visited, whether that was a
Presidential Museum, a battlefield, or an art museum. Did it have
interactive exhibits, a planetarium, an easy-to-read narrative, or a
family-friendly atmosphere? Well, if nothing comes to mind, consider
Grand Rapids, Michigan as your next destination!
≈ Comments Off on “1972: From the End of the Vietnam War to the Beginning of Watergate”, Dr. Benjamin Greene’s presentation featured in Wapakoneta Daily News
As we reflect on 50 years since 1972, we contemplate how past events and historical figures impact our present history. Students of Dr. Greene will learn more about this influential period in the HIST 3334/3334H: The Vietnam War course in Fall 2022.
Chloe S. Kozal has been passionate about researching how civilians express their political views through art during tumultuous periods of history in Latin America. A continuation of her research and her article (Communication from Far: The Role of Subversive Mail Art During the Argentine Dirty War (1976-1983), this podcast investigates how Mexican artists and mail artists brought change and protest during the Mexican Dirty War.
Nicholas Hartzell- NPR Mexican Debt Crisis Talk
A podcast on the Mexican Debt Crisis in 1982. Listen on Spotify!
Connor Przysiecki- NAFTA, the Economy, and Mexico’s Public Heath Crisis
In Connor’s own words: ” This is my final project for a course I’m taking (Spring 2022) at Bowling Green State University, Modern Mexico. I’ve never done a project in this format. I’m open to civil conversations in the comments, if you’d like more context on a particular subject within this area of study. Enjoy!”
As a remembrance of our colleague Professor Emeritus Don Rowney, who recently passed away, we share below Dr. Doug Forsyth’s eulogy with minor edits for brevity. We thank Dr. Forsyth for sharing the text.
Don Rowney on the lower right-hand side.
As
early as my on-campus job interview at Bowling Green, in spring 1996, it became
clear to me that Don Rowney was the faculty member at the university who was
most interested in having me as a colleague.
My wife, Mercedes, and I drove out to northwest Ohio in early summer of
1996, as I looked for a place to live.
Don and Susan invited us over for dinner, and I paid my first visit to
the Old West End Historical District in Toledo, where Don and Susan were
living, where Susan is still living, and where I would go on to live for
twenty-four years and counting. I still
remember vividly that dinner, on the porch behind Don and Susan’s house, and in
particular one detail. Don asked
Mercedes, who was and is a professor at Brown University in Providence, Rhode
Island, why she had accompanied me on the long drive out to the Midwest as I
looked for a place to live. ‘Do you
think I’m going to leave my husband back here, without making sure it’s a
decent place?’ she quipped. Don looked
at her with this peculiar expression of delight he sometimes had, when someone
said something unexpected, and in his view particularly amusing—it was the
first, but not the last time I saw that expression on his face. And that sealed it—he and Mercedes became
friends for life. Mercedes and I made life-long friends in the Old West End,
and in many cases they were already friends of Don and Susan. I think I owe not just the continuation of my
career to Don, but also a good deal of the happiness I’ve derived from living
in this part of the world, over the past quarter century.
Author: Brittany Von Kamp, recent graduate from the History M.A. program
Beyond Truman: Robert H. Ferrell and Crafting the Past (Rowman & Littlefield, 2020)
When pursuing a publisher for
his book manuscript Beyond Truman: Robert H. Ferrell and Crafting the Past
(Rowman & Littlefield, 2020), author Dr. Douglas Dixon responded with a
laugh—that several editors rejected the book’s thrust, saying: “Nobody cares
about historians.” Dixon explained that this was a major hurdle in getting the
book to readers who, in fact, do care about the challenges faced by past masters
in doing history. What challenged
Ferrell, as the field evolved into the twenty-first century was postmodernism,
the New Left, and social and cultural history.
Though Dixon feels Ferrell is an important person to study, the book is
much more than merely a study of this important presidential, diplomatic, and
military historian, though his biography is central to it. Instead, the author
had to find a way to make Ferrell’s world larger than the historian himself, to
fit Ferrell into the larger historical narrative – a task that many historians
face as they write about their own research. In the end, Dixon says that “the
book is not just about Ferrell; it’s about the larger culture of history and doing
history,” particularly in the last half of the twentieth century to the present
day.
≈ Comments Off on Nationalism, Newspapers, and Public Opinion in the Civil War: The Cincinnati Daily Commercial, 1864 to 1865
Author: Kasandra Fager, senior in the History major
Editor: Brittany Von Kamp, second year student in the M.A. in History
This is a public presentation written as part of HIST4001, Professional Practices in History and HIST3265, Civil War.
In a great national crisis like ours, unanimity of action among those seeking a common end is very desirable, almost indispensable, and yet no approach to such unanimity is attainable, unless some deference shall be paid to the will of the majority, simply because it is the will of the majority.
Editor: Brittany Von Kamp, second year student in the M.A. in History
This is a public presentation written as part of HIST4001, Professional Practices in History and HIST4804, Seminar in Diplomatic and Military History .
Figure 1: CCF Exploitation of North Korea, 1952, Korean War Propaganda Leaflets This image was published by the Psychological Warfare Section of the United States Army. The poster portrays the North Korean leader, Kim Il Sung, feeding Communist Chinese troops while the people of his country starve. The second image is the back side of the poster which is a caricature of the communist dove of peace. The last image is a documentation sheet which translates the Korean of the poster and gives the prominent information regarding the poster.
The Korean War was the first major conflict in what became known as the Cold War following the conclusion of WWII. The basis of this conflict was the ideological struggle between the two major world powers, the United States which was a capitalist-based economy and the Soviet Union which was a communist-based economy. The war was not a struggle between the two countries head on but was fought with proxy nations who shared similar ideologies with the major powers.
The use of stereotypes towards an opposing force has been a tactic throughout most of human history. Stereotypes have been used to portray the opposite side in a conflict to the civilian people. A racial stereotype, in its basic definition, is when one group takes a characteristic of another group and over dramatize it to make the other side seem almost sub-human. This process is known as othering. Othering is when a person or a group of people view another group in a certain which aims to alienate them or separate them from the larger group.
≈ Comments Off on A Mother’s War: An Ohioan Woman and Her Struggle With the Korean War
Author: Cody Johnston, senior in the History major
Editor: Brittany Von Kamp, second year student in the M.A. in History
This is a public presentation written as part of HIST4001, Professional Practices in History and HIST4804, Seminar in Diplomatic and Military History.
“Air Mail to Glenn Hefner, January 1952” MS-858 Hefner Family Papers Box 4, Folder 1
The Korean War was the first time that the Cold War turned hot. This was due to the increasing tensions between the Capitalist and Communist superpowers of the world after WWII. In fact, this war is one of many firsts. The Korean War is the first proxy war that the United States engaged in. It was the first time that the United Nations (UN) had held a role in a military capacity. These were unprecedented times. Marred by the numerous and complex geopolitics of Asia during the 1950’s, coupled with fears of the conflict escalating to a nuclear holocaust, the Korean War is one that was controversial from the outset. Despite the fear of communism spreading across the United States, the American public did not have much support for the Korean War and it’s goal of containing communism.
