Congratulations New Phi Alpha Theta Inductees

The Tau Omega chapter of Phi Alpha Theta, the international history honorary, inducted ten new members on March 10, 2012: Matthew Hale, Michelle Hopkins, Kirsten Hughes, Phillip Irwin Jr, Erin Looney, Tracy McMahan, Jennifer Mellard, Julia Paul, Chase Tate, and James Xiques.

Thanks to Faculty Advisor Dr. Sandra Mendiola for organizing the induction and to Dr. John Kvach and his wife Ann for hosting the event in their home.

Pictured here see Dr. Sandra Mendiola with inductee Phillip Irwin Jr, Dr. Sandra Mendiola with inductee Julia Paul, and graduate student and previous inductee Matthew Menarchek, who gave a brief talk about his Graduate Research Assistantship as part of the event.

Congratulations, students!

Dr. John Kvach Chosen as NEH City Scholar for Civil War Project

Dr. John Kvach has been selected as a city scholar for a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant project about the Civil War.

To commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, the Alabama Humanities Foundation has partnered with Birmingham, Huntsville, Mobile and Montgomery Public Libraries to host the “Making Sense of the American Civil War,” reading and discussion series. Each library will host a free, five-part reading and discussion series led by NEH city scholars.

The NEH city scholars program features UAHuntsville’s Kvach and a panel of distinguished Alabama historians, including Victoria Ott of Birmingham Southern College; Lonnie Burnett of The University of Mobile; Patience Essah of Auburn University, George Rable of The University of Alabama; and Bob Bradley of the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

Kvach’s presentations will be given at the main branch of the Huntsville Public Library at 7 p.m., on the following Thursday evenings at 7 p.m., March 15 and 29, April 12 and 26, and May 10.

Congratulations, Dr. Kvach, and thanks for all the work you to do promote public history at UAH and in our community!

UAH History Alum Joseph T. Richardson Receives John W. Odom Memorial Prize in Southern History from the University of Mississippi

The history department congratulates our alumnus Joseph T. Richardson on receiving the John W. Odom Memorial Prize in Southern History at the University of Mississippi. The prize is named in honor of Mr. Odom of DeSoto County, Mississippi, who was a benefactor of the university.

The purpose of the prize is to recognize outstanding scholarship in the field of Southern history. The prize is awarded annually to the student at the university who presents the best paper dealing with a topic in Southern history, as determined by a faculty committee.

Joseph's paper was entitled "'Discovering' the Plain Folk: Frank Lawrence Owsley and History from Manuscript Census Returns." It examined the methodological breakthrough of Southern historian Frank Lawrence Owsley, who in the 1940s became the first social historian to make a large-scale, systematic use of the United States manuscript census returns to study the southern "plain folk," or yeomanry.

Congratulations, Joseph!