Those who attended the opening reception include Ambassador Dr. Peter Moser, the 2009-10 Marshall Plan Chair and Diplomat in Residence at the University of New Orleans. For more about the exhibition, please visit the Center Austria website: centeraustria

On Wednesday, October 7th, the Louisiana Humanities Center (LHC) hosted the first of a bi-weekly series of panel discussions regarding the last seven mayors of New Orleans. Each panel  is dedicated to a different mayor, from deLesseps Morrison through Ray Nagin, with scholars, journalists, and former staffers exploring the elections, challenges, and legacies of these leaders. The events are free and open to the public.

Dr. Dupont moderated the deLesseps Morrison panel on October 7th. The entire series will be held at the the Louisiana Humanities Center, which is located in the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Building, 938 Lafayette Street in the Central Business District. For more information, please see the following:  New Orleans Mayors

Audio from the panel session is available via the following link:
http://www.leh.org/html/podcast.html

Recent MA graduate Daniel Braud presented “Fulfilling the Drive:  Dutch Morial and the 1982 Mayoral Election,” which was based on his thesis research into the re-election campaign of New Orleans’ first African-American mayor: Ernest “Dutch” Morial.

James L. Conrad then presented “Three Strikes and We’re In:  Labor Unrest in the New Orleans Public School System 1966-1978,” which represents elements of his research into labor organization and strikes before and after the merger of the city’s two segregated teacher’s union locals.

Matthew B. Higgins then presented “A House Divided—The Evolution of the Superdome from a Divisive Concept into a Symbol of New Orleans.”

The “Come Together” panel was presented at the 27th annual Gulf South History and Humanities conference, which was held October 15-19 in Pensacola, Florida.

Photograph courtesy of Chanda Nunez

The orientation meeting for incoming graduate students was held on August 18th, from 9 am to 1 pm in the Liberal Arts Building Lounge. Organized by Director of Graduate Studies, Dr. Mary Niall Mitchell, the event began with an official welcome from Department Chair Dr. Madelon Powers.

Following Dr. Mitchell's overview of the graduate program, UNO Library History Research Specialist Connie Phelps explained the online and traditional resources available for their research needs. UNO Financial Aid Officer Ann Lockridge shared her expertise with the students. (Ms. Lockridge is also enrolled in the history graduate program.) UNO MA student Mary Jean Wallace helped to introduce the public history concentration.

Faculty and second year students joined the group at 12 noon to meet the new students and eat some traditional New Orleans foods: muffuletta and poor boy sandwiches.

The threat of German U-boats in the Gulf of Mexico during World War II was the topic of a June 30th Roundtable featuring C.J. Christ, U.S. Air Force veteran and author of WWII in the Gulf of Mexico.

Christ, who has written more than 100 articles, trained at the multi-engine school at Vance Air Force Base and completed heavy bombardment training at Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, in 1951. He served a tour flying B-29s over North Korea before earning an English degree from McNeese State University. A native of Eunice, he founded Houma Aviation which operated at the Houma airport for 25 years. He is also a licensed offshore master of sail and power vessels. Christ has been a member of the Verband Deutscher U-Bootfahrer, an organization of German submarine veterans, since 1981.

For more information on the UNO Eisenhower Center for American Studies, visit http://ikecenter.uno.edu/.

Dr. Millett has already written or edited four books on the Korean War and a fifth is in production. 

For more information about Dr. Millett's work, please visit his faculty page: Dr. Millett

Panel #1 "Colonial and Civil War Period" 1:00 p.m.

Joe Stoltz "The Louisiana Militia: Examining Loyalty in the Early National Period" &

Darryl Barthe "The Curious Circumstances of the Louisiana Native Guard"

Panel #2 "World War II" 2:30 p.m.

Thomas Nguyen Naquin "U-boats in the Gulf" &

Toni Kiser "Artifacts from Louisiana WWII Veterans"

The free event was presented by the UNO Eisenhower Center for American Studies, the National World War II Museum Research Department and the UNO Department of History.

Leo Gorman wins Southern Historical Association's Woodward Prize and the Southeastern Council of Latin American Studies (SECOLAS) Award

The 2008 Ralph Lee Woodward, Jr. Prize for the best graduate student paper presented at the Latin American & Caribbean Section of the Southern Historical Association annual meeting in New Orleans last fall was presented to Leo B. Gorman, University of New Orleans MA 2009, for his paper titled “Immigrant Labor Strife and Solidarity in Post-Katrina New Orleans.”

2008 LACS-SHA Ralph Lee Woodward, Jr. Prize
Committee’s Comments: “The decision was not easy because of the high quality of papers received, but the committee decided in favor of Gorman for his creative use of source material, broad conception and ambitious nature of the topic, and the work's intellectual sophistication. Gorman has produced an excellent account based on extensive interviews, and a fine historical study of Honduran Latino community in New Orleans before the storm. We also felt that Gorman's presentation at the conference was excellent.”

Gorman also presented his thesis, "Crisis and Recovery in Post-Katrina New Orleans" at the Southeastern Council of Latin American Studies (SECOLAS) during the  spring 2009 semester and won the top award for submitted graduate student papers. After defending his thesis in April, Leo has decided to pursue other projects before entering a graduate PhD program in the near future.

Dr. Nikki Brown, assistant professor of history, presented the historical background to the landmark legislation before fielding questions and leading a discussion regarding the significance of the act. In addition, a few audience members described their personal experiences during the segregated era as well as how society changed following the passage of the Civil Rights Act. In addition, the UNO Earl K. Long Library featured a display of books related to Civil Rights through July on the second floor.

Dr. Brown is the author of Private Politics and Public Voices: African American Women's Activism from World War I through the New Deal which was awarded the 2007 Letitia Woods Brown Memorial Book Prize for the best book on African American women's history.

Her second book, Encyclopedia of Jim Crow, a three-volume reference work co-edited with Barry Stentiford of Grambling State University, was published by Greenwood Press in 2008. She is currently researching the past, present and future role of historically black colleges and universities in African American education. For more information about Dr. Brown, please visit her department webpage:

Dr. Brown

photo credit:
Photographer: Kimberly Edwards

 
The PBS series History Detectives aired a segment titled "Creole Poems" on Monday, June 29th. Earlier this year, producers of the program interviewed Associate Professor of History Dr. Mary Niall (Molly) Mitchell regarding her research into the Couvent School for free children of color in Antebellum New Orleans.

“In the antebellum period, the school was important because it served as a quasi-public school for free children of color at a time when only white children could attend the public schools in New Orleans,” Dr. Mitchell said. “All of the teachers were free people of color. … [The students] learned useful things like how to write a business letter to an associate, but they also had an awareness of the goings-on among free people of color in the rest of the Atlantic World, especially the Caribbean.”

The episode featuring Dr. Mitchell can be viewed via the following link:

Creole Poems

The National World War II Museum in New Orleans honored the 65th anniversary of the D-Day invasion at Normandy with a weekend of commemorative events.

One highlight of the weekend was a gaterhing titled June 6: A Gathering of the Greatest Generation, a special “roll-call” ceremony when veterans from each of the 50 states stood together to be honored by the Museum. The ceremony also served as a tribute to those veterans who are now desceased.

Dr. Guenter Bischof, Marshall Plan Professor of History, led all three men in discussion before a large audience. Their lively stories of World War II exploits and memories proved to be a highlight of the 65th anniversary event. Panelists Tom Blakey and Jim Livaudais were both members of the 82nd Airborne division. Both landed in Nomandy on June 6, but Blakey parachuted into Normandy while Livaudais maneuvered a glider and landed near St. Mere Eglise. Mike Mervosh fought in Roi-Namur, Saipan, Tinian, and Iwo Jima invasions and won three Purple Hearts in the process.

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Although helping a President is an especially dramatic example of the work of the Eisenhower Center, it is not the only public service the Center performs.  The mission of the Eisenhower Center is the study of the causes, conduct, and consequences of American national security policy and the use of force as an instrument of policy in the twentieth century.

Photograph courtesy of the Eisenhower Center.

The history department and the Midlo Center for New Orleans Studies sponsored a screening of the award-winning documentary A Legend in the Classroom: The Life Story of Ms. Yvonne Busch

Saturday, May 16, 2009

1:00 pm

Education Building Room 203

The documentary was produced and directed by Leonard Smitth III, and it is based on the book Chord Changes on the Chalkboard: How Public School Teachers Shaped Jazz and the Music of New Orleans, by Dr. Al Kennedy, UNO history instructor and UNO Midlo Center Research Associate.

More information about the film can be found via this link: Legend in the Classroom.

For more information about UNO's Eisenhower Center, please visit their website: Ike Center. More information about the publication can be found via America in World War II magazine.

History major Neil Chatelain presented his research into Confederate naval history during the 2009 Regional Meeting for Louisiana Chapters of Phi Alpha Theta, an international honors society for history students.  Held in conjunction with the Louisiana Historical Association, the conference took place in Monroe, Louisiana, on March 19-21, 2009.

Titled “Her Deck was a Perfect Shambles:” The History of the Confederate Gunboat McRae," Chatelain's paper was based on research conducted while enrolled in the History of New Orleans course. 

Graduate student Mark J. Duvall also presented a paper at the Louisiana Historical Association.   Based on his MA thesis research, his paper was titled "Emergence of the New 'Southern Belles: 'New Orleans Poydras Home Re-defines Gender Roles."

Kateřina Králová
Lecturer, Charles University, Prague
Fulbright Scholar, Yale University.

"Czech(oslovak) – American Relations in the Twentieth Century"
Tuesday, March 24, 2009 in
Dr. Bischof’s U.S. Diplomacy Course

Dr. Kravola presented a second lecture on the same day:

"The Destiny of German War Criminals in Greece
and the Unresolved Issue of Postwar Reparations"

Katerina Kralova is a lecturer in the Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University of Prague and a Fulbright scholar at Yale University in 2008/2009. She has lectured on Czech history in the UNO Summer Prague Seminars in Prague for many summers.

For more information visit:
www.centeraustria.org

Dr. Bischof presents his latest book at Austrian Embassy. Guenter Bischof (middle) presented his new book New Perspectives on Austrians in World War II (Contemporary Austrian Studies XVII) at the Austrian Embassy on February 25.

Titled “Mardi Gras from the Inside,” the event featured Mardi Gras cultural history recorded by those who know it from the inside: UNO history students. The presentations ended with a kingcake party in the Liberal Arts building lounge.

Featured Presentations included:

• Interview with Mardi Gras Indian Big Chief Alfred Doucette; recorded by his cousin Richon Saunders
• History of the New Orleans Mint, the company that makes doubloons for Rex, Bacchus & many other krewes; presented by Jeff Ferguson
• Short video documentary regarding the Mistick Krewe of Comus; produced by Nicholas Cassara
• Gentilly neighborhood roots of the Krewe that reshaped Mardi Gras: Endymion; Marjorie Muniz interviewed her father and Endymion founder Ed Muniz; History graduate student Joseph Stoltz discussed the role his grandfather’s bar played in forming plans for the krewe
  

To view some of the presentations, please see: New Orleans research

Ursula Mathis-Moser and Günter Bischof, eds.

Acadians and Cajuns: The Politics and Culture of French Minorities in North America

Acadiens et Cajuns: Politique et culture de minorites francophones en Amerique du Nord.

For more details and the Flyer Click here

East Indies, 1910-1929" was published in the February 2009 issue of the Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, a journal published by Cambridge University Press. In his article, Dr. Goss examines the creation of institutions and agendas of pure science in colonial Indonesia, and their relationship to the Dutch civilizing mission. The following link provides more information about the article: Southeast Asian Studies

Dr. Jeffrey Wilson published “Environmental Chauvinism in the Prussian East: Forestry as a Civilizing Mission on the Ethnic Frontier, 1871-1914” in Central European History.

Dr. Michael Mizell-Nelson recently published a review essay “(Batista-era) Havana on the Bayou” in Reviews in American History.

Dr. Brown earned her PhD from Yale University and has taught at Kent State University and Grambling State University. Her research interests include U.S. Women, African American Women, American intellectual, and African American intellectual history as well as Black Comedy as Social Commentary. Dr. Browne was interviewed for a New York Times article published the day following the inauguration of President Barack Obama. Please select the following link to read the article: NYT 1/21/09

Director of the Eisenhower Center and Professor of History at UNO. Commander of the Royal Military Academy, Major General HarryVindivogel, stated the following regarding Dr. Millett: “You are indeed an outstanding professor specialized in military history.  Several of your books are worldwide known.  As former colonel of the U.S. Marine Corps you understand the military world.  You have a lifelong contact with several members of our academic community.  Your research has received the highest praise in our Faculty.”  The ceremony will be held at the Academy in March. 

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He also gave papers on "The Anatomy of the Prague Spring and the Invasion of Czechoslovakia and the American Response" at Harvard, Mississippi State, Nicholls State and Tulane Universities. He attended a Boltzmann Institute for the Study of the Consequences of War workshop on "The Vienna Summit of 1961" in Graz Austria, where he also lectured on "The Americanization of Austria" at the University. In October and November he was busy commenting on the Presidential Election and the Obama victory in various Austrian media. He also began service on the scholarly advisory board of the "Institute for Austrian-American Studies" of the Botstiber Foundation of Philadelphia.

More than 15,000 people attended the November 23, 2009 event, which featured 30 sandwich vendors, two music stages, and a series of history panel discussions. UNO students offered two sessions featuring some of the Oak Street storytellers they had been working with.

Translations of these volumes into Russian and Czech are under way; shorter collections of essays will appear in English (with Bischof as editor), Italian, Danish and Finnish.

A volume of essays and a volume of documents (many of them previously unpublished materials from the Moscow Archives) were published this August in Austria for the 40th anniversary commemorations of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia.

Her recently published book Raising Freedom’s Child: Black Children and Visions of the Future After Slavery has been widely praised in the American public.

For the Flyer Click here

Ashley Barckett and Leo Gorman presented their work on October 2nd, and Joe Stoltz served as commentator. This was the first in a series initiated by Rebecca Ergen and other members of the graduate student organization.

Conference poster available via this link.

The interview was broadcast on the internet and can be viewed at the following link:

pritzkermilitarylibrary

The European Forum Alpbach

The European Forum Alpbach has been meeting since 1945 every year to discuss international affairs. In August 2008, Dr. Guenter Bischof participated in a panel on "Euro-Atlantic Relations" the state of NATO, the European Union, transatlantic relations  in the face of the Georgian crisis.

The monthly lecture series exploring Louisiana's historical and cultural legacies is sponsored by The University of New Orleans Midlo Center for New Orleans Studies and the Louisiana State Museum.

All lectures are free to the public, and they all will take place at the Cabildo, 701 Chartres Street, in the Arsenal building

For more information about other upcoming lectures, please select: Ya-Ya

Allan Millett's written work, teaching and other pursuits have educated and informed us all in a most profound way.  In creating this premiere annual award to recognize one author's lifetime commitment to scholarly writing on military topics we ultimately hope to contribute to a better understanding of the horrible complexities of war, past, present and future."

For more information about the award, please select: Pritzker Award

For more information about Dr. Millett and the Eisenhower Center, please select: Eisenhower Center

In addition, Dr. Mary Niall Mitchell has been awarded two short-term fellowships for summer research: the Andrew Oliver Fellowship from the Massachusetts Historical Society and a fellowship from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.

Traditional approaches in Marshall Plan Studies have been analyzing the economic contribution of the European Recovery Program (ERP) to Western Europe’s economic recovery and political stabilization. This meeting focused on Marshall Plan public relations and propaganda.

How was the Marshall Plan “sold” to the Americans and how were its achievements presented to the Western Europeans to remind them of America’s generosity in rebuilding Europe and buttressing Europeans against the Communist threat? For more about the conference, please visit CenterAustria’s website.

Dr. Mitchell’s New Orleans Book Signing

Dr. Mitchell discussed and signed her book, Raising Freedom's Child, on Tuesday, May 20, at the Garden District Book Shop. Pianist Tom McDermott played before and after the reading.

Stacey Civello, Marcus Christian Prize awardee

Scott Manguno, Windell Prize awardee

During the recent conference "Real to Reel: WW II in Film, Newsreels and Documentaries" organized by the National World War II Museum, UNO Chair
of History Guenter Bischof chaired both the keynote address by noted British World War II historian Antony Beevor and a panel on "Behind Barbard Wire: Films on the Dark Side of World War II."

The special exhibition Real to Reel: Hollywood & World War II features artifacts, images, war-era movie posters and audio video elements. On exhibit are items worn or used by stars such as Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. Visitors will be able to view clips from selected movies, cartoons and shorts and also might recognize some stars and stars-to-be in military training and propaganda films. The exhibit runs from April 11- August 31, 2008.

With each chapter, Mitchell narrates an episode in the lives of freedom’s children, from debates over their education and labor to the future of racial classification and American citizenship. Raising Freedom’s Child illustrates how intensely the image of the black child captured the imaginations of many Americans during the upheavals of the Civil War era. Through public struggles over the black child, Mitchell argues, Americans by turns challenged and reinforced the racial inequality fostered under slavery in the United States. Only with the triumph of segregation in public schools in 1877 did the black child lose her central role in the national debate over civil rights, a role she would not play again until the 1950s.

Center Austria Events

• In September 2007 he helped to organize an international conference was organized in Innsbruck together with the Canadian Center of the University of Innsbruck and the University of Monkton in Canada on "The Politics of Cultural Minorities in North America: Cajuns and Acadians."
• The highlight of the Ten Year Anniversary was a celebration in February with Eva Nowotny, the Austrian Ambassador to the U.S., and Karlheinz Toechterle, the new Rektor of the University of Innsbruck. On this occasion the ambassador also handed a major Austrian award to Dr. Bischof -- the "Grand Cross of Austria", bestowed by the President of Austria -- recognizing his effort in Center Austria and his leadership in the promotion of Austrian Studies in the U.S. The former Austrian
  Vice-Chancellor and Minister of Science Erhard Busek gave a talk on "Nation-Building in the Balkans." Additionally, the Tirolean Ensemble of Modern Music gave a concert and workshops in the UNO Music Department in late April.
• In May 2008, another conference will be held in Vienna, Austria, jointly with the University of Vienna on "The Marshall Plan in Film, Pictures and Posters" with the Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation as principal sponsor.

Opening panel of the Prague Spring Conference with (from left to right)Guenter Bischof, Kenneth Zezulka (Honorary Consul of the Czech Republic in Louisiana), Peter Kolar (Ambassador of the Czech Republic to the U.S.),Carl Drichta
(Associate Vice Chanellor and Dean of etropolitan College), Peter Ruggenthaler (Boltzmann Institute for the Study of the Consequences of War, Graz-Austria)

After the intense two-day discussions, conference participants left no
doubt that Ambassador Koláø’s initial assessment was absolutely correct
– both the high hopes in the bloc, Europe and around the world aroused
by the reform communists during the Prague Spring and the surprising
shock of the Warsaw Pact invasion made this a watershed event in Cold
War history. The courage of the Prague Spring reformers served as an
inspiration and model of Solidarity in Poland and also left a mark on
Gorbachev and the dramatic reform movements of 1988 – 1991 that led to
the final collapse of the Soviet Union and its empire.

The Phi Alpha Theta conference is held in conjunction with the 2008 Louisiana Historical Association annual meeting. Phi Alpha Theta is an international honor society that seeks to bring together students, professors and other historians in an environment conducive to research, sound teaching, publication and the exchange of ideas among peers. The UNO chapter is directed by Drs. Jeff Wilson and Jim Mokhiber.

"The Golden Age of New Orleans Aviation: The Blue Frontier." Mangipano wrote his paper as part of the coursework in Dr. Madelon Powers’ Researching New Orleans class.

Undergraduate history major Jeff Ferguson will present  “The New Orleans Mint and Mardi Gras Doubloons” during the Louisiana Folklore Society 2008 Annual Meeting . The conference takes place in New Orleans on the UNO campus, April 4-5th. Ferguson conducted his research while enrolled in Dr. Mizell-Nelson’s History of New Orleans course. Mizell-Nelson will also showcase a few other examples of UNO undergraduate research in a separate presentation.

Tuesday, March 25th 2008, 2 p.m

UNO Earl K.Long Library, Douglas Hitt Room Room 407

Conveners

Wolfgang Zach, Department of EnglishUniversity of Innsbruck

Günter Bischof, Center Austria
University of New Orleans

Mary Niall Mitchell, Department of History
University of New Orleans

University of New Orleans,
Center Austria, Education Bldg.
Room 128

Tuesday
February 26, 2008
9:30 am to 4:00 pm

For more information click on the link Flyer

Review

"Talking to historian and archivist Melissa Lee Smith about her new book Historic Photos of New Orleans is like taking a pleasant ramble through New Orleans history, and the soundtrack is a love song to her home town." Times-Picayune
For full review, select: Smith.Melissa review

About the Author
Melissa Lee Smith grew up in Covington, Louisiana. She received her B.A. in history from Loyola University of New Orleans in 1994 with a focus in Louisiana history and women's history. She completed her M.A. in history from the University of New Orleans with a focus on New Orleans' African-American society during the Jim Crow era. Smith and her husband Patrick Ellis currently live in New Orleans with their son James. Smith currently works as the lead Archivist of the Tulane Recovery Project for Library Associates Companies. She also performs freelance research and writing.

February 16, 2008

Dr. Bischof Awarded Grand Cross of Austria for 2007

The President of Austria awarded one of the Austrian nation's most prestigious honors to Guenter Bischof, Chairman of the
UNO History Department and Director of CenterAustria.

Acknowledging his scholarship on contemporary Austrian history and his promotion of Austrian Studies in the United States, Austrian Ambassador to the United States, Dr. Eva Nowotny, presented the Grosse Ehrenzeichen für Verdienste um die Republik Österreich [Grand Cross of Austria] (2007)

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Dr. Eva Nowotny, Austrian Ambassador to the United States, during the Ten Year Anniversary Celebration of UNO's CenterAustria presents award to Dr. Bischof.

February 12, 2008

"The Chief Justices of Louisiana,”

Dr. Warren Billings

Thursday, March 20

6:00 PM to 8:00 PM

UNO Lecture Series at the Cabildo
701 Chartres Street

The monthly lecture series exploring Louisiana's historical and cultural legacies is co-sponsored by The University of New Orleans Midlo Center for New Orleans Studies.

Dr. Billings, UNO Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus, collectively profiled the chief justices and provided more detailed sketches of those among the twenty-one individuals who left singular marks on the Supreme Court of Louisiana from its creation in 1813 to the present.

Dr. Billings also commented upon the court as an institution and how it has operated.

For news items from 2007 and earlier, please select the following link:

Past News

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Dr. Raphael Cassimere Jr, UNO HistoryProfessor Emeritus, presents a lecture titled "Why Black History?"

On February 21, Dr. Raphael Cassimere lectured on the significance of Black history.  The UNO Seraphia D. Leyda University Teaching Professor of history, Dr. Cassimere specializes in U.S. Constitutional and African American history. He is the author of African-Americans in New Orleans Before the Civil War (1996), as well as numerous articles on Civil Rights and legal history. His research interests also include early American and Louisiana history and African American slavery.

Additional lectures in the History Ya-Ya Series are held the third Thursday of each month. Other lectures included the following

On April 17, Sharing the Stage: Interracial Jazz and Civil Rights in New Orleans, 1946-1970, by Dr. Charles Chamberlain.

On May 15, (Mis)remembering General Order No. 28: Benjamin Butler, the Woman Order, and Historical Memory, by Dr. Alecia Long.