Room 310: Teaching Midwestern History: A Roundtable

Camden Burd - Eastern Illinois State University

Cory Haala – Central Lakes College

Dustin Gann – Midland University

Jennifer Stinson – Saginaw Valley State University

Ramya Swayamprakash – Grand Valley State University

Jazma Sutton – Miami University

Room 312: Mapping People, Activities and Congregations in Indiana

Cory Balkenbusch – Ball State University

Jennifer Mara DeSilva – Ball State University

Emily K. McGuire – Ball State University

Wendy F. Soltz – Ball State University

Room 314: The Midwest During the Civil War

Chair: R. Douglas Hurt - Purdue University

Scott Anderson – University of Missouri, Columbia – Serious Matter or Joke? The Black Brigade and he Defense of Cincinnati in the Civil War

Robert Hill – Concordia University – Providence and Emancipation: The Views of Midwestern Chaplains and Soldiers

Megan Van Gorder – Governors State University – Many Motherhoods, One Mother Bickerdyke: Civil War Era Maternal Identities in the American Midwest

Room 310: Race and Ethnicity in the Expanding Antebellum Midwest 

Chair: Miles Smith IV - Hillsdale College

Gail Blankenau – Independent Scholar – Journey to Freedom from Nebraska Territory

Roy Finkenbine – University of Detroit Mercy – How Potawatomi Hospitality Explains the Experience of Two Freedom Seekers

Room 312: Global Influences & Local Conflicts: Political, Religious, and Conservation Influences in the Early 20^th Century Midwest

Chair: Andrew Klumpp - State Historical Society of Iowa

Nathan Chaplin – University of Iowa – The Gateway to the Universe: Midwesterners and the Nicaraguan Canal, 1885-1902

Tina Langholm Larsen – University of Southern Denmark – Socialism and the Institution of Marriage: The Geleff Divorce

Jason Rose – Western Michigan University – Contested Spaces and Identities: Rooted Cosmopolitanism and the Fight Against the Klan

Room 314: Navigating Business, Finance, and Crisis in Midwest Economies

Chair: Dustin Gann - Midland University

William Kostlevy – Asbury Theological Seminary – Depression in America’s Dairy Land: Merlin Hull’s Constituents’ Eye Witness Accounts of the Economic Crisis of the 1930s

Jeff Schultz – Luzerne County Community College – Bay City’s Forgotten Fleet: DeFoe Shipbuilding, 1905-1976

Nancy Schumm – Independent Scholar – The Impact of the Midwest on National Banking in the 1850s

Paul Spyhalski – Minnesota State University, Mankato – Angus and Kalo as Exemplars of the Rise and Decline in the Iowa Coal Industry and Extraction Based Communities

Room 310: The Many-Sided Natures of Settler Conflict, Colonization, and Cohesion

Chair: Ann Vlock

Kathryn Bean – Northern Illinois University – Northern Wisconsin Forests, Railroad Expansion, and Settler Colonization, 1870s-1920s

Michael Belding – Iowa State University – Wall Building: Settler Colonialism in the Midwestern Agrarian Landscape

Tony Mullis – U.S. Army Command and General Staff College – When Settlers Compete: A Nuanced Perspective of Settler Colonialism and Violence in Territorial Kansas

Room 312: Roundtable Discussion of The Good Country: A History of the American Midwest, 1800-1900

Chair/Facilitator: Jeff Bremer - Iowa State University

Comment: Jon Lauck - Middle West Review

Brad Birzer - Hillsdale College

Brent Campney - University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

Nicole Etcheson - Ball State University

R. Douglas Hurt - Purdue University

Chris Laingen- Eastern Illinois University

Room 314: Women, Activism, and the Transformation of Gender Roles and Politics in the Early 20^th Century Midwest

Chair: Lisa DuRose - Inver Hills Community College

Stefanie M.P. Aulner – North Dakota State University – Cook Cars and Threshing Crews: North Dakota Women 1900-1925

Justin Clark – Indiana Historical Bureau/Indiana State Library – The Guardian Angel and the Hoosier Senator: The Political Alliance of Mother Jones and John W. Kern

Tracie Grube-Gaurkee – Texas Christian University - Girls Doff Skirts for Overalls: World War I Preparedness, the Women’s Land Army of America, and the Illinois Training Farm for Women, 1918-1920

Room 310: Race and the Law in the Early Midwest

Chair: Patrick Pospisek - Grand Valley State University

Mary Elise Antoine – Wisconsin Historical Society – Continuance of Slavery in the Northwest Territory

Jeff Forret – Lamar University – The Indigenous Origins of the Dred Scott Case

Gregory Rose – The Ohio State University at Marion – Did the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and the Civil War Impact the Distribution of African Americans in the Old Northwest between 1850-1870?

Room 312: Postwar Politics and Reform in Greater Chicago

Chair: Edward (Ted) Frantz – University of Indianapolis

Emiliano Aguilar – University of Notre Dame – Americanizing Programs, Dehon College, and Building Latino Political Power

Ashley Johnson Bavery – Eastern Michigan University – Murder at the Broadway Lounge: Race, Islam, and the Underground Politics of Postwar Gary, Indiana

Room 314: The Ongoing History Jobs Crisis

Chair/Facilitator: Kevin Mason – Waldorf University

Megan Birk – University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

Andrew Offenburger – Miami University

Miles Smith IV – Hillsdale College

Room 316: Making Our History: How Artists Rendered Lincoln’s Legacies

Chair: Megan VanGorder - Governors State University

Brytton Bjorngaard – University of Illinois Springfield

Graham Peck – University of Illinois Springfield

Room 310: Fire, Flora, and Family

Chair: Cate LiaBraaten - Loyola University

Catherine Lambrecht – Greater Midwest Foodways Alliance

Jeff Stern – Highland Park Historical Society and Fire Museum of Greater Chicago

Nancy Webster – Highland Park Historical Society and Highland Park Public Library

Room 312: Political and Technological History in the Modern Midwest

Chair: Cory Haala – Central Lakes College

Jacob Bruggeman – Johns Hopkins University – The Rise and Fall of Cleveland’s Freenet: Reflections on the Lost History of Midwestern Histories of Technology

A. James Fuller – University of Indianapolis – Mitch Daniels and Conservative Revolution in the 21^st Century Midwest

Phillip Grant – Pace University – Midwestern Cabinet Members During the Presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt

Joshua Kluever – Binghamton University (SUNY) – Grassroots Radicalism: Socialist Politics in the Early 20^th Century Midwest

Room 314: Education and Community Connections

Chair: Annie Whitlock - Grand Valley State University

Maxwell Harrison – Iowa State University – In the Hands of the People Themselves: Standard Schools, Consolidation, and Community Control in Rural Michigan

Chloe Hawkey – Johns Hopkins University – Errand into the Wilderness: American Studies at the University of Minnesota, 1945-1960

Wilson Warren – Western Michigan University – Democracy’s Institutions: History Teacher Preparation at Midwestern Teachers Colleges

Room 310: Leisure, Labor, Health and Reform in the Progressive Era

Chair: Megan Birk, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

William Hansard – Theodore Roosevelt Center – The Great Circus War of 1903: Circus Competition and Riled Roustabouts in the Marvelous Midwest

Elena Palazzolo – Johns Hopkins University – "'I could not avoid visiting them' - Touring the Union Stock Yards, 1880-1893."

Gari-Anne Patzwald – Independent Scholar – In Order to Completely Exterminate Influenza: Masking During the Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919 in the Midwest

Ann Vlock – University of Nebraska-Lincoln – Innocent Victims or Vile Women? Midwestern Discourse and Leadership in the Age of Consent Reform Campaign, 1885-1920

Room 312: Public History: Using Midwestern Spaces and Visual Tools to Engage Audiences

Chair: Rachel Wheeler, IUPUI

Michael Leverett Dorn – Independent Scholar – Historical Memory Work Along the Lincoln Highway in 1926

Kevin Moskowitz – University of Texas at Arlington – Mapping North American Automobile Manufacturing Networks, 1910-1950s

Melissa Paduk – Western Michigan University – A Walk Through Western Michigan University’s History

Room 314:  Race and Conflict in the Urban Midwest

Chair: Emiliano Aguilar, University of Notre Dame

Robert Zeidel – University of Wisconsin, Stout – A Question of Ethnicity of Race: The Quixotic U.S. Senate Career of James Shields

Edward Frantz – University of Indianapolis – Confronting Community: Black Radical Action in Indianapolis, 1969

Jordan Zdinak – Ohio University – The Lynching of Christopher Davis and the Roles of the Media in the Midwest

Room 316: Telling and Teaching Stories About Michigan

Bonnie Campbell – Independent Scholar

Raymond Deeren – Austin Peay State University

Lisa DuRose – Inver Hills Community College

Garth Jerome – Michigan State University

Andy Oler – Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Presenting: Kristy Nabhan-Warren
Meatpacking America: How Migration, Work, and Faith Unite and Divide the Heartland

Teleconference Auditorium, Eberhard Center

Room 310: Many Worlds on the Waapikaminki: Creating an ArcGIS StoryMap of the Conner Family, Lenape, and Moravians on the White River

Hiba Alalami – Indiana University Purdue University, Indianapolis

Shauna Keith - Indiana University Purdue University, Indianapolis

Phil Kozenski - Indiana University Purdue University, Indianapolis

John Peyton – Indiana University Purdue University, Indianapolis

Rachel Wheeler - Indiana University Purdue University, Indianapolis

Room 312: Raising the Bar: Midwestern Women and the Practice of Law

Chair: Luke Pickelman - Northwestern Michigan College

Rachael Drenovsky – Michigan Supreme Court Learning Center – “A Higher Court Calling”: The First Women of the Michigan Supreme Court

John Lupton – Illinois Supreme Court Historic Preservation Commission — Carving Herself a Path: Illinois Women and the Legal Profession

Room 314: Art, Literature, and the Imagined Midwest

Chair: Renee Gaarder - Purdue University

Christa Adams - Bard Early College Cleveland - Collecting Cachet: Asian Art and the Midwestern Museum in the Early Twentieth Century

Ray Boomhower – Indiana Historical Society – The Artists Return: Harry A. Davis Jr., Garo Z. Antreasian, and Indiana Art

Ellen Lansky – Inver Hills Community College – Cultivating the Wild: Wilderness Situations in Bonnie Jo Campbell’s Once Upon A River and Cheryl Strayed’s Wild

Room 316: Understanding the Northern Borderlands of the Midwest: A Discussion of North Country: Essays on the Upper Midwest and Regional Identity

Chairs/Facilitators: Greg Rose - Ohio State University at Marion; Jon Lauck - Middle West Review  

Hank Meijer, Author of Arthur Vandenberg: The Man in the Middle of the Twentieth Century

Ted Karamanski - Loyola University

Gleaves Whitney - Ford Foundation 

The Hauenstein Center and our partners at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation and the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library & Museum were excited to announce the long-awaited final stop for the premiere book tour celebrating the release of An Ordinary Man: The Surprising Life and Historic Presidency of Gerald R. Ford. Joining us for the closing keynote of the 9th annual Midwest History Conference, this event featured a deep and insightful conversation between two nationally renowned West Michigan historians. Together, author Richard Norton Smith and Hank Meijer, executive chairman of Meijer Inc. and vice-chairman and a trustee of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation, explored Smith’s new book about our 38th President and Grand Rapids’ own, Gerald R. Ford.

Watch the full event recording here!