Suffragetto

We took a bit of a break from regularly scheduled programming in History 202 to play Suffragetto, an early 20th-century game pitting suffragettes against police.

Podcast: Presidential Legacies with Dr. Phillip Payne

Turns out that TAP into Greater Olean has a podcast and who doesn't love a good podcast.  Dr. Payne recently appeared on it to discuss Warren G. Harding, presidential politics, legacy, and papers.  Check it out at Podcast: Presidential Legacies with Dr. Phillip Payne

Military Technology: another new course on the fall schedule

The history department has added a course on the history of military technology as a special topics course this upcoming fall.  SBU students, keep an eye out for it.  Details to follow.... 

Digital History and Archival Practices at work

We're exploring apps and mobile technology in History 419:  Digital History and Archival Practices.  Students hard at work building a prototype app.

Humanities Grads and Careers

Inside Higher Ed, in Shocker:  Humanities Grads Gainfully Employed and Happy, reports on a new study. 

Although humanities majors are often depicted as being on the fast-track to a career as a barista, according to the story a "a study being released today by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences -- based on data from the U.S. Census and other government sources, plus Gallup polling of workers nationwide -- challenges the myth of the underemployed, unhappy humanities graduate.

The report doesn't contest that those who majored in engineering or natural sciences earn more, on average, than do humanities graduates do. But it shows humanities grads to be gainfully employed and holding positions of authority, and finds that only a slightly smaller share of them than of their better-paid counterparts think they have enough money. When it comes to measures of career satisfaction, humanities grads are as satisfied as those who majored in STEM."

Chautauqua Scholars Program

This prestigious scholarship will be awarded to select students who indicate a rationale for a desired week of study at Chautauqua Institution in the summer of 2018.

St. Bonaventure University and Chautauqua Institution engage in hands-on instruction and civil dialogue that lead toward a deeper understanding of the world around us and the dynamic and complex relationships that cause conflict, but that also lead us forward as a society.  The Chautauqua Scholars program will create an intersection between these institutions, leading to deeper insight to not only understand the civic role we play, but to become leaders and designers, aiming at a better and more inclusive American experience for all.  This program will put students in contact with the nation and the world’s leading experts in their interested fields of study.  By choosing the week to attend, students will immerse themselves in the topic of their choice, thereby playing a role in curating a transformational educational experience.

The program scholarships will include:

Cost of week-long programming at Chautauqua (gate pass)

Housing for the week

Master classes and programming with keynote speakers

Application Procedure:

Student must provide: academic standing, and a letter of nomination from a faculty member who will serve as an off-site mentor during their study at CI (stipend provided).  A two-page summary of the student’s interest in the topic and content will also be considered.

The student will receive one credit of internship or independent study.  Depending on the week chosen and work agreed upon, it may be possible to complete the “W” or “D” designations for their General Education requirements.  Students and faculty mentors will be responsible for satisfying designation requirements for the week at Chautauqua if proposed.  Honors students, with the support of their Honors advisor and the Honors Program director, may utilize the week at CI to complete their required “Honors Experience” or could use the time to develop their Honors project necessary for their Honors degree.

Native American History Course Fall 2018

On a frigid day in December of 1890, Sitting Bull, the famous Sioux chief and warrior, was murdered outside his home on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota during a failed attempt to arrest him. The culprits, Sioux policemen employed by U.S. Indian Bureau agents, then mutilated his body and executed his fourteen-year-old son in cold blood. The order to arrest Sitting Bull came from an Indian Bureau agent named James McLaughlin. McLaughlin falsely believed the Sioux chief instigated and led a nonviolent but anti-white movement called the Ghost Dance but others within the bureau ridiculed McLaughlin's paranoia. Distrust and fear created the conditions for Sitting Bull’s murder – fear of the culturally mysterious Ghost Dance and distrust of Sitting Bull, the man who helped defeat General George Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876 and evaded capture by the U.S. Calvary for five years after. This same distrust and fear led to the massacre of roughly 146 Lakota Sioux, mostly unarmed men, women, and children, at Wounded Knee two weeks after Sitting Bull’s murder. The massacre at Wounded Knee marked the end of the Indian Wars, the culmination of almost three hundred years of conflict on the North American continent. Why? Why did Sitting Bull and many of his people at Wounded Knee meet such a horrible end in 1890? How did the relationship between Europeans/Americans and various Native American tribes deteriorate over time and result in violence? Could other paths have been taken?

These are some questions we will seek to answer when I teach Native American History this Fall 2018 semester. We will explore why interactions between Europeans/Americans and Native Americans often ended in violence, even though people on both sides often tried to navigate a middle ground. The course will begin with an examination of pre-contact Native American societies in North America and conclude with an analysis of present-day issues facing Native American tribes in the United States. We will cover topics ranging from cultural exchange, nonviolent interactions, and trade to disease, warfare, atrocities, and environmental degradation. The course will pay particular attention to the history of the Iroquois Nation and the Seneca Tribe to take full advantage of local resources like the Seneca-Iroquois National Museum in Salamanca. In the process, we will also analyze the historical relationship between the Seneca Tribe and St. Bonaventure University.    

Bibliography and Some other Incredible (not too academic) Books on Native American History:

Brown, Dee, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (New York: Henry Hold and Co., 1970)

Cozzens, Peter, The Earth is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2016)

Lipman, Andrew, The Saltwater Frontier: Indians and the Contest for the American Coast (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015)

Merrell, James H., Into the American Woods:  Negotiators on the Pennsylvania Frontier (New York, 1999)

Richter, Daniel K., Ordeal of the Longhouse: The Peoples of the Iroquois League in the Era of European Colonization (Chapel Hill: Omohundro Institute and University of North Carolina Press, 1992)

Richter, Daniel K., Facing East from Indian Country:  A Native History of Early America (Cambridge, Mass., 2001)

Usner, Daniel H. Jr., Indians, Settlers, and Slaves in a Frontier Exchange Economy:  The Lower Mississippi Valley Before 1783 (Chapel Hill, 1992)

White, Richard, The Middle Ground:  Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815 (New York, 1991)