Congratulations to Graduate Student Jillian Rael on her Public History Achievements

Graduate student Jillian Rael has been very busy pursuing two significant public history projects in the last year.

First, she successfully filed an application to have the Whitaker-Motlow House registered with the National Register of Historic Places. The Whitaker-Motlow House, located in Lincoln County, Tennessee, was constructed circa 1850 by its owner Newton Whitaker. The Whitaker family were among the earliest settlers of the area and helped to establish the once thriving community of Mulberry. The house is a intriguing piece of transitional architecture that mixes the Greek Revival and Italianate designs. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in November of 2011 under Criteria C, as its design gives tangible expression to the family's middle class status. Jillian's work on the Whitaker-Motlow House began in 2009 as a part of a Public History course at UAH taught by Dr. John Kvach, and she pursued her work further by making the house the subject of her Senior Thesis in Art History, which she completed at UAH in 2010.

Second, Jillian received a book contract to prepare a book entitled Around Lynchburg , a photographic history of Lynchburg and Moore County Tennessee. The book is being published as a part of Arcadia Publishing's "Images of America" series. The history of the area is told through about 200 images collected from the community and tells the town's story though a combination of primary source research and oral recollections. The book is set to be released in June 2012.

See here a 1905 photograph of the Whitaker-Motlow House and the cover of Jillian's forthcoming book.

We are very proud of Jillian's hard work -- she is a credit to our graduate program as well as to the communities she has studied in Tennessee!

Phi Alpha Theta Brown Bag Lunch Series

The Tau Omega chapter of Phi Alpha Theta, the international history honorary, is sponsoring a Brown Bag Lunch Series in Spring 2012. Meetings are on Wednesdays from noon until 1pm in Roberts Hall 422.

Here are the scheduled presenters and topics:

March 7: "Whitaker House: Following the Road to Restoration of an Antebellum Home in Lincoln County, Tennessee" (by Jillian Rael)

March 14: "Information Overload as a Unifying Trend in Early Modern Natural Philosophy" (by Joshua Riddle)

April 4: "Alexander Hamilton and the Transformation of the American Economy" (by Matthew Menarchek)

April 11: "Grover Cleveland and the Restoration of the Kingdom of Hawaii: a Foreign Policy Failure" (by Janis Dye)

Bring your lunch and hear from some graduates and graduate students of the UAH History Department. Time is allotted for questions after each presentation.

Congratulations to Our Recent Graduates!

The History Department is pleased to announce our graduates from August 2011 and December 2011.

In August, Alyson Buck and Craig Noneman graduated with MA degrees in History. Graduating with BA degrees were Ryan Burkholder, Mary Kathryn Herrin, Samantha Hillgartner, Kayleigh Last, Christopher LeQuieu, Samantha Meiborg, and Celeste Patteson.

In December, Jesse Bates graduated with a MA degree in History. Receiving BAs were Frankie Barnett, Christopher Brown, Brittney Fore, Michelle Hopkins, Nicholas Huckaby, Joshua Riddle, Jared Robison, and Kimberly Willis.

Congratulations to you all!

Help Invent a History Department Tradition!

We are looking for volunteers to plan the first annual History Department Spring Picnic for students, faculty, and their families. If you want to help plan an afternoon of food and fun, please contact Dr. Sears at 824-2573 or cs0003@uah.edu.