@modamhist.bsky.social
News and insights from the journal Modern American History, devoted to all aspects of American history since the 1890s.
Gallery view, Jeffrey Gibson: the space in which to place me, Venice, Italy, 2024. Photo by Timothy Schenck. Courtesy of the Portland Art Museum.
A new Q&A in 8.2: "The Indigenous Turn in Museums." Two historians and three curators reflect on their work, curatorial visions, goals for reaching wider publics through Indigenous arts, and the extent to which an “Indigenous turn” has transpired.
Read here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
PhD Candidate Jan Michael
Congratulations to the honorable mention for our third Annual Brooke L. Blower and Sarah T. Phillips Essay Prize winner: Jan Michael at @tgsatnu.bsky.social for "The Boundaries of Power: How Posse Comitatus Sought to Dismantle the U.S. State."
Look for the article in a future issue of MAH!
Keep an eye out for the full article in a future issue of MAH!
01.10.2025 16:44 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Syrus Solo Jin
We're excited to announce the winner of the third annual Brooke L. Blower and Sarah T. Phillips Essay Prize: @syrussolojin.bsky.social at @nyu.edu with “‘Are You My Kimchi Mother?’ Race, Women, and the U.S. Military’s Study Abroad Training Program in the Early Cold War.”
01.10.2025 16:44 — 👍 6 🔁 3 💬 1 📌 0
Snowstorm, Lowell, Massachusetts documentary photographs, 1980s, public domain.
Our last research article from 8.2: @henrymjtonks.bsky.social looks at Lowell, MA, as an example of how deindustrialization & urban decay in the 1970s forced policymakers to focus on public-private partnerships as mechanisms of economic regeneration
Read here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
David Falconer/ U.S. National Archives
Molly M. Henderson, who is a VAP in Gender & Women's Studies @uwmadison.bsky.social, explores how Mobil Oil used its investments in children & families to bolstered its reputation and prevent alternate visions of economic redistribution.
Read here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Carmelita Hinton’s radical youth delegation in Yan’an, Shaanxi Province, undated, 196-1-466, Shaanxi Provincial Archive.
8.2 also includes "Unity and Struggle: The Twilight of Maoism in the United States" by Kazushi Minami.
Linked here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Sambolín’s print captured the entangled ecological and human threats of the superport, as well as the colonial valences of the project. Credit: Nelson Sambolín, Nelson Sambolín (Salinas, Puerto Rico, 1944), “Superpuerto, colonialismo, pillaje, veneno,” 1972, Taller Baja, serigrafia, Donación SKB, Colección Museo de Historia, Anthropología y Arte, Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto de Rio Piedras.
Another exciting new piece of research from 8.2: "A Tale of Two Superports: Oil, Empire, and Anti-Colonial Environmentalism in Puerto Rico and Palau" by Dante LaRiccia.
Read the full article here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
An incarcerated worker puts the finishing touches on a sign that reads “National Forest Campground Steamboat Falls.” The work of incarcerated men allowed forests to become recreational forests, even when they stayed inside penitentiaries. “Prisoners making campground signs,” 1945–1965, Department of Corrections, McNeil Island Corrections Center Photograph Collection, 1855–2010, Digital Archives,
The latest issue includes several exciting research articles.
Our cover article is "The Specter of Waste: Incarcerated Bodies, “Healthy” Labor, and the Production of Recreational Forests" by Anaïs Lefèvre
Read here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Link here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
23.08.2025 16:36 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Installation photo, American Sunrise: Indigenous Art at Crystal Bridges, November 9, 2024-March 23, 2025. From left to right: Kelly Church, Sustaining Traditions: Basket of Resilience; Jody Naranjo, Finding Yourself; Jeri Redcorn, “Sheyahtse” Warrior; Jane Osti, A Sacred Fire; Jane Osti, The Abundance; Virgil Ortiz, Pueblo Revolt of 1680/2180,Susan Folwell, Attack of the 50 ft. Collector; Les Namingha, Geometric Interruption. Photograph by Jared Sorrells, Courtesy of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.
An exciting Soapbox from 8.2
Historians Amanda Cobb-Greetham and Scott Manning Stevens interview curators Kathleen Ash-Milby (@portlandartmuseum.bsky.social), Jordan Poorman Cocker (Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art), and Patricia Marroquin Norby (@metmuseum.org) on the “Indigenous turn”
Check out new scholarship and exciting features at the link below:
19.08.2025 14:25 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Men from the Clallam Bay Honor Camp fighting a forest fire. “Honor Camp Fighting Forest Fire,” Agenda 6, no. 3 (Jan. 1, 1961). American Prison Newspapers, 1800s-present: Voices from the Inside via Reveal Digital, JSTOR.
Just dropped: issue 8.2! Linked below.
19.08.2025 14:25 — 👍 8 🔁 0 💬 7 📌 1New on First View!
Alex Jacobs at @vanderbilt.edu explores the crisis in American conservatism. He seeks to explain how, after 60 years of successes, right-wing political triumph has come at the cost of any capacity for effective, stabilizing governance.
Read the full piece below.
On First View for 8.2
Lorrin Thomas from @ruhistorydept.bsky.social examines the Supreme Court's first decision on affirmative action: Regents of the University of California v. Bakke in 1978. She argues that we can't understand Bakke without including Latino participants.
Read more below:
An incarcerated worker puts the finishing touches on a sign that reads “National Forest Campground Steamboat Falls.” The work of incarcerated men allowed forests to become recreational forests, even when they stayed inside penitentiaries. “Prisoners making campground signs,” 1945–1965, Department of Corrections, McNeil Island Corrections Center Photograph Collection, 1855–2010, Digital Archives, https://digitalarchives.wa.gov/Record/View/E6367837C8742B57DD51AEBD89D40C73.
Up on First View!
"The Specter of Waste: Incarcerated Bodies, “Healthy” Labor, and the Production of Recreational Forests" by Anaïs Lefèvre. The piece examines how, after WWII, as they faced prison riots and rising concerns about juvenile delinquency, many states set up penal forestry camps.
Read here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
19.07.2025 21:42 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
The anti-superport campaign urged Palauans to vote ‘Yes’ to approve the federated Micronesian constitution in 1978. Credit: Trust Territory Photo Archives, Pacific Collection, University of Hawai‘i-Mānoa Library.
*New on First View*
The Honorable Mention Essay from the 2024 Brooke L. Blower and Sarah T. Phillips Prize written by Yale PhD candidate Dante LaRiccia. The article examines how Puerto Rican and Palauan activists developed novel environmental critiques and strategies to oppose them.
Link below:
Poster of the Mao Tsetung Memorial Meetings.
New on First View: Unity and Struggle: The Twilight of Maoism in the United States by Kazushi Minami, which follows the fragmentation of U.S. Maoism in the 1970s and the relationship between Mao’s China and its devout followers in the heartland of capitalism.
Link below!
My @modamhist.bsky.social article about industrial decline, economic regeneration, and the rise of the “New Liberals” is available to read! ➡️ doi.org/10.1017/mah....
I explore Lowell National Historical Park as a microcosm of the modern Democratic Party’s complex transformation. #USHistory
Ten more days until submissions are due!
05.06.2025 20:09 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0Don't forget to submit something for our third annual essay prize competition!
29.05.2025 16:48 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0*New on First View!*
The first article from 8.2 is “Put Your Money Where the Kids Are”: Mobil Oil, Social Responsibility, and Cultures of Privatization in the 1970s by George Washington University PhD candidate Molly Henderson.
Read the article here:
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Read the 2024 Brooke L. Blower and Sarah T. Phillips prize winning essay from John Miles Brach, titled "Union Exemption: Nonprofit Work and the Boundaries of the Commercial Economy, 1951–1976."
Early career scholars, see below for details on how to submit your own piece for consideration for 2025!
We are excited to announce the third annual Brooke L. Blower and Sarah T. Phillips Essay Prize Competition. Ph.D. candidates and early-career instructors are welcome to submit! Our deadline is June 15.
16.05.2025 14:09 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 3
The illustrated headings for “The Interests of Working Women” pictured some of the most common working-class women’s occupations: stenographer, shopgirl, and seamstress. New York World, July 5, 1896, 29; June 28, 1896, 31; July 12, 1896, 29.
From 8.1: the cover article by Julia Guarneri, which explores women's response to attempts by advertisers to target them with specialized "women's pages."
Read the full story here" www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
01 May 1975, Doc Lap Palace, Saigon - Fall of Saigon to North Vietnam - Image by © Francoise de Mulder/CORBIS
Today is the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon. Candace Sobers' article, "J. William Fulbright, the Contested Legacies of the American Revolution, and the War in Vietnam" explores American responses to the Vietnam War.
Read the article here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Read "To Live and Die in Catholic L.A.: Cemetery Workers, Catholic Employers, & Labor’s Future" on our website:
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
