2021 Northern Great Plains History Conference
All sessions will take place at the Lismore Hotel *
The Registration Desk will be open:
7:30am – 4:00pm Thursday and Friday
7:30am – 9:30am Saturday
Each session room will have both a projector and a computer. Presenters utilizing the projector should bring their file on a flash drive. If the software is not common in academic contexts, bringing your own computer would be a good precaution. Wi-fi access in the Lismore is generally strong, but unless it's essential to go online, bringing the file with you is safer. Those of you presenting virtually or chairing a session with a virtual presenter will receive relevant access information by email.
Session Schedule
Thursday Morning, Sept. 23
Thursday, 8:00am to 9:30am, Room: Wilson A
Classic Military History
Chair and Commenter: Joshua Nudell, Truman State University
Avery Sage, “Chaotic Endeavors: Gallienus’ Efforts in Saving Rome from the Crisis of the Third Century”
Dan Powers, “Xanthippos the Spartan Trained Mercenary at Carthage”
Graham Wrightson, “No Title (Why Pyrrhus Lost)”
Thursday, 8:00am to 9:30am, Room: Wilson F
Twentieth- and Twenty-First Century Political History
Chair and Commenter: Oscar Chamberlain, University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire
Anita Gaul, “The (Not So) Invisible Empire: the KKK in Southwest Minnesota in the 1920s”
Thomas Tandy Lewis, “The U.S. Supreme Court’s Dialectic on Affirmative Action: from Griggs v. Duke Power Company Until SFFA v. Harvard”
Bernard Lemelin, “The National Review and U.S. Foreign Policy, 1955-1975”
Thursday, 10:00am to 11:30am, Room: Wilson A
Presidential History
Chair and Commenter: Steve Sheehan, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh-Fox Cities
Sue Patrick, “Presidential Elections of 1932 and 1936 from Northwestern Wisconsin”
Philip Grant, “Northern Great Plains Press Reaction to the Death of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt”
Jonathan Hedeen, “Hollywood and the Continuity of Government: Historical Depictions of Presidential Succession in Media and Pop Culture”
Thomas Saylor, “Minnesota Residents and the 2020 Presidential Election”
Thursday, 10:00am to 11:30am, Room: Wilson F
Agriculture, Land Use, Economy, and Labor
Chair and Commenter: Elizabeth Jozwiak, University of Wisconsin Whitewater-Rock County
Ryan Moore, “Analysis of the Living History Farm (LHF) and the Living History Farm Movement through the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s”
Mark Myrdal, “‘The Third Power’: James A Everitt and the American Society of Equity”
Scott Randolph, “The Question of Value: Railway Valuation Theory and Practice in a “Banner Progressive State”
Thursday, 10:00am to 11:30am, Room: Wilson CD
Public Service: Writing History for a General Audience
Chair: Lori Lahlum, Minnesota State University, Mankato; Comment: Audience
Rachael Hanel, Minnesota State University, Mankato
Amy Mattson Lauters, Minnesota State University, Mankato
Linda LeGarde Grover, University of Minnesota-Duluth
Thomas D. Isern, North Dakota State University
Lunch: 11:30 am-1:30 pm
(The Society for Military History Luncheon will be held in Wilson B)
Thursday Afternoon, Sept. 23
Thursday, 1:30pm to 3:00pm, Room: Wilson A
Treatises, Spying, and Training Through the Centuries (SMH Session)
Chair and Commenter: George Eaton, United States Army, Rock Island Arsenal
John J. Riggs, “The Use and Influence of Military Treatises during the Medieval Period”
Adrian Manning, “The Lost Meeting of George Washington and Israel Putnam”
Adam Petty, “The Nauvoo Legion in Perilous Times”
Jeff Schultz, “Blunting the Bo Doi Blitz: Godley’s Clandestine Coalition and the Defeat of Campaign 74B, 1971”
Thursday, 1:30pm to 3:00pm, Room: Wilson F
Religion and Ethnicity in the Northern Great Plains
Chair and Commenter: Jameel Haque, Minnesota State University, Mankato
Elizabeth Foss, “Mikdash Me’at in the American West: Judaism Religious Practice and Innovation”
Adam Peterson, “‘Let My People Go’: Catholic Responses to the Minneapolis Plymouth Disturbance”
Dave Grettler, “Rev. Moses N. Adams and Grant’s Peace Policy in the Early Sisseton Wahpeton Reservation”
Stephen Cusulos, ““Assimilation as a Fundamentally Flawed Concept: What History Teaches Us”
Thursday, 1:30pm to 3:00pm, Room: Wilson CD
Teaching the History and Literature of the Holocaust: A Roundtable Discussion of an Interdisciplinary Approach to Holocaust Studies
Chair: Mark Karau, University of Wisconsin Green Bay; Comment: Audience
Mark Karau, Professor of History and Humanities, University of Wisconsin Green Bay
Valerie Murrenus Pilmaier, Associate Professor of English and Humanities, University of Wisconsin Green Bay
Tabatha Zwicky, Undergraduate Student, University of Wisconsin Green Bay
Charles Kriescher, Undergraduate Student, University of Wisconsin Green Bay
Thursday, 3:30pm to 5:00pm, Room: Wilson A
American Experiences in World War I (SMH Session)
Chair and Commenter: Jonathan Epstein, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
Johannes Allert, “‘I’m as restless as a lion’: Ruth Cutler’s Precarious Adventure in the American Red Cross”
Terrence J. Lindell, “Letters from France: World War I Soldiers Write Home to Bremer County, Iowa”
Matthew Jay Savage, “The Battle of Cantigny, Field Order 18, and the Evolution of American Infantry Doctrine in World War I”
Thursday, 3:30pm to 5:00pm, Room: Wilson F
Classical Cultural History
Chair and Commenter: Charles Reid, University of St. Thomas
Kaia Brose, “Athena Parthenos: Athenian Cultural Imperialism and the Patriarchy”
Victoria Gyori, “Leadership Through Numismatics: The Coins of Nero and Benito Mussolini”
Joshua Nudell, “Remembering Proskynesis: Reconsidering an Episode of Cultural Conflict in the Reign of Alexander the Great”
Zach Boettcher, “Backwards, Turned Around, and Upside Down: the Curious Case of Tomasso Poracchi’s Map of Menorca”
Thursday, 3:30pm to 5:00pm, Room: Wilson CD
Immigration, Refugees, and the Midwest
Chair and Commenter: Cheryl Jimenez-Frei; Audience
Sabrina Escalante, “The Bracero Program: An Introduction of Mexican Immigrants in South Dakota during World War II”
Alexis Polencheck, Breida Torres Berumen, and Wendy Villalva, “Rural Voices/Voces del Campo: COVID-19 Oral Histories, Public Health, and Latinx Immigrant Farmworkers in Rural Wisconsin”
Dakotah Willems, “Nebraskan Attitudes Toward World War II Jewish Refugees”
Grace Ward, “Syrian-Lebanese Immigration to North Dakota, 1885-1930”
Thursday 5:30pm to 7:30pm.
reception
room: wilson b
Friday Morning, Sept. 24
Friday, 8:00am to 9:30am, Room: Wilson A
Waldemar Ager and Progressive-Era Eau Claire
Chair: Robert J. Gough, University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire; Commenter: Robert Zeidel, University of Wisconsin – Stout
Brian L. Blakely, Texas Tech University, “Waldemar Ager and the Progressive-Era Norwegian Immigrant Community in Eau Claire”
Gregory Kocken, University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire, “Waldemar Ager and Women’s Suffrage”
Friday, 8:00am to 9:30am, Room: Wilson F
New Applications of Historiographical Approaches to Indigenous History
Chair: Chad McCutchen, Minnesota State University, Mankato; Comment: Audience
Brianna DeValk, Minnesota State University, Mankato
Ikwe Mennen, Minnesota State University, Mankato
Abigail Fer, Minnesota State University, Mankato
Friday, 8:00am to 9:30am, Room: Wilson C
The United States Prepares for the Second World War (SMH Session)
Chair and Commenter: Thomas Hanson, United States Army Command and General Staff College
Victoria Bryant Stewart, “Service Demanded and Service Given: U.S. Conscription before World War II”
Robert F. Williams, “‘Good landing, good fight, and good luck’: Proving the Efficacy of Large-Scale Airborne Operations during Operation Husky, July 1943”
Jerry Martin, “Training in the Heartland: Nebraska and Force Training for World War II”
Friday, 8:00am to 9:30am, Room: Wilson D
Me Too in the Archive: The Politics of Writing the History of Sexual Assault (WHIG Session)
Chair and Commenter: Kristin Mapel Bloomberg; Audience
Nikki Berg Burin, University of North Dakota
Kristin Mapel Bloomberg, Hamline University
Lori Ann Lahlam, Minnesota State University, Mankato
Friday, 10:00am to 11:30am, Room: Wilson A
Popular Participation and the Political Tradition in the Upper Midwest: Spearfishing to Sturgis
Chair and Commenter: Paisley Harris, University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh--Fond du Lac
Catherine McNicol Stock, Connecticut College, "Legendary: The Politics and Culture of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally"
Cory Haala, University of Houston, "'The League was there for the Indians, so the Indians were there for the League': Promises and Pitfalls of White-Native Populism in the 1980s Midwest"
Michael Jacobs, “Challenging the Assumption of Klan Initiated Violence: The Case of Wisconsin”
Daryl Webb, “‘Milwaukee … Will Be Governed by the Social Democrat’: Mayor Emil Seidel and the Birth of Sewer Socialism”
Friday, 10:00am to 11:30am, Room: Wilson F
Social Memory and Indigenous Historical Narratives
Chair: Chad McCutchen, Minnesota State University, Mankato; Comment: Audience
Sara Tosteson, Minnesota State University, Mankato
Kassandra Mackenthun, Minnesota State University, Mankato
Paul Spyhalski, Minnesota State University, Mankato
Friday, 10:00am to 11:30am, Room: Wilson C
Connecting Past and Present: Contextualizing Pandemics, Gender, and Race from Contemporary Times into the Past
Chair: Robert W. Galler, Jr., St Cloud State University
Marissa Hendrickson, St. Cloud State University, “Women’s Basketball at St. Cloud State University: A Century of Change”
Renee Goerdt, St. Cloud State University, “The Trajectory of Racial Equality in Early Minnesota”
Jennifer Sonterre, St.Cloud State University, “Enduring Disenfranchisement: Retaining Voting Rights”
Lunch: 11:30 am-1:30 pm
(The Women’s History Interest Group Luncheon will be held in Wilson B)
Friday Afternoon, Sept. 24
Friday, 1:30pm to 3:00pm, Room: Wilson A
Military History
Chair and Commenter: Mark Karau
Wylie Caras, “Sleight of Hand, Hidden Hammer: the Soviet Summer Offensives of 1944 and Their Origins”
Tauri Madziise, “The Unsung Soldiers: Analyze the Welfare of War Collaborators in the Second Chimurenga, 1980-2016 (Zimbabwe)”
Brett Barker, “‘The Great Era of the Age Has Come’: A Wisconsin Civilian’s Remarkable Civil War”
Friday, 1:30pm to 3:00pm, Room: Wilson F
Women’s Political Activism in the Early Decades of the Twentieth Century (WHIG Session)
Chair and Commenter: Kristin Mapel Bloomberg, Hamline University
Kelly Kirk, Black Hills State University, “Next Causes: Women’s Activism After the Vote”
Bethany Andreasen, Minot State University, “‘Let us all understand the big issues:’ The Nonpartisan Leader and “The Farm Women’s Page”
Lisa Payne Ossian, Emerita Professor of History, Des Moines Area Community College, “The ‘I Too’ Temperance Movement: A Re-Evaluation of Midwestern Women’s Political Action at the Turn of the Last Century”
Friday, 1:30pm to 3:00pm, Room: Wilson C
Women, Political Agency, and Power
Chair and Commenter: Roxanne K. Muldoon, Independent Scholar
Kathryn Hicks, “‘Power to the Wives’: How Anne Boleyn and Katharine Parr Gained and Used their Power during their Time as Queen” (undergrad)
Jennifer Helton, “Esther Morris and Her Historians: A Suffrage Controversy”
Charles Barber, “Lydia Cady Langer (1850-1959): A Maverick in Her Own Right”
Paisley Harris, “‘Will the Real Ma Rainey Please Stand Up’: Narratives of the Life, Performances and Career of Ma Rainey”
Friday, 3:30pm to 5:00pm, Room: Wilson A
Native Americans and Education
Chair and Commenter: Andrew Sturtevant, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire; Audience
Steven Stofferahn, “Twilight at Dawn? Ambivalence and Anxiety in Dakota Benedictine Missions”
Eric Bennett, “The Damages Done: Colonization and Assimilation of Native Americans in the Boarding Schools”
Anna Peterson, “A Case Study of native American Experiences at Lutheran Colleges, 1940s to 1950s”
Abigail Fer, “Meriam’s Momentary Metamorphosis: Progressive Education and the Indian New Deal”
Friday, 3:30pm to 5:00pm, Room: Wilson F
Education: Representation, Erasure, and Memory
Chair and Commenter: Stanley Arnold, University of Northern Illinois
Brie Swenson-Arnold, “‘There is a great work going on here’: Daniel Coe and Higher Education in the Midwest and South during the Civil War”
Alexandria Gonclaves, “Long Twilight Struggles”
Mitchell Cozad, “How the High School Education System Has Affected the Image and Role of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X”
Friday, 3:30pm to 5:00pm, Room: Wilson C
The Wages of War
Chair: Timothy Shiell, University of Wisconsin – Stout
Robert J. Gough, University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire, “The Business of Doctoring During the Inter-War Years”
Selika Ducksworth-Lawton, University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire, “Lessons from the Deacons of Defense and Justice for Today’s Activists”
Gaius Stern, University of California – Berkeley, “Pyrrhus and the Roman POWs”
Friday, sept 24, 6:00pm to 7:00pm, ROOM: WILSON B
COCKTAIL HOUR
FRIDAY, SEPT 24, 7:00PM TO 8:30PM, ROOM: WILSON B
BANQUET
Saturday Morning, Sept. 25
Saturday, 8:00am to 9:30am, Room: Wilson A
Region, Environment, and Identity in the American West
Chair and Commenter: Michael J. Lansing, Professor of History, Augsburg University
Mark Harvey, “Bernard DeVoto and the Environmental History of the American West”
Molly P. Rozum, “Creating Place on North America’s Northern Grasslands”
Lori Ann Lahlum, ““A Wild Looking Place”: Creating Home on the Northern Great Plains”
Saturday, 8:00am to 9:30am, Room: Wilson F
Marriage, Agency, and the Family
Chair and Commenter: Joanne Jahnke-Wegner, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
Drew Folk, “Assault, Adultery, and Absence: Gender and the Struggle for Personal Autonomy in the Nebraska Sandhills During the Great Depression, 1929-1941”
Michael Mullin, “Sioux Falls and the Divorce Wars: from Frontier Community to a ‘Respectable’ Town”
Saturday, 10:00am to 11:30am, Room: Wilson A
The Long Arc of History: Applying Yesterday’s Lessons Learned (SMH Session)
Chair and Commenter: Christopher Johnson, United States Army Command and General Staff College; David Mills, United States Army Command and General Staff College
David Cotter, Director, Department of Military History, United States Army Command and General Staff College
Thomas Hanson, Professor, SAMS, Army University
Martin Clemis, Associate Professor, United States Army Command and General Staff College
Saturday, 10:00am to 11:30am, Room: Wilson F
University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire History Department Summer Research Scholarship Projects
Chairs: Cheryl Jimenez-Frei, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire; Joanne Jahnke-Wagner, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
Weston Weisensel and Adler Orr: "Crisis, Community, and Change: Public Health in Rural Wisconsin, 1900-Present"
Tiffany Goetz: “Re-examining Women’s Roles During the Civil War and Reconstruction”