This special panel debrief edition of the Journal of American History Podcast features a conversation on "Sovereignties in the Atlantic World: Black and Indigenous Intersections," held at the 2024 OAH Conference on American History.

Historians of Indigenous peoples and historians of the African diaspora do not engage with each other often enough. Both sets of specialists generally presume that their fields operate by distinctive, and possibly incommensurate, analytics. Historians of Native America stress the importance of sovereignty, which underscores the nationhood of Indigenous peoples. The obvious counterpoint to sovereignty is subjection: conquest and the ways that sovereignty persists within colonization. By contrast, historians of the African diaspora have stressed a different dyad of slavery and freedom. Rooted in the transatlantic slave trade, the plantation complex, and the racialization of labor relations, these scholars center the violence of racial bondage and probe the ways that enslaved people sought liberation in ways small and large. In this episode, Miguel A. Valerio, Matthew Kruer, Hayley Negrín, Shavagne Scott, and Alycia Hall challenge the assumption that these frameworks are incommensurate and argue that both fields have much to gain through conversation. They proceed from the basic question: what happens when we think of slavery and sovereignty as two sides of the same conceptual coin?

Read more about the session here: https://oah.org/conferences/oah24/sessions/session/?id=5525

Music: King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band's Mabel's Dream, 1923

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This special panel debrief edition of the Journal of American History Podcast features a conversation on "Queering Work: LGBT Labor Histories," held at the 2024 OAH Conference on American History.

In this episode, Lane Windham, Alex Melody Burnett, Ryan Patrick Murphy, and Shay Olmstead continue their important conversation about queer and trans workers, "hauntings" in queer history, and "queerbossing." LGBT historians have long focused on leisure and nightlife, but the workplace is also fundamental for understanding the queer past. Fear of job loss was one of the most salient aspects of living a queer life for much of the 20th century, and utterly shaped how LGBT people moved through the world. In some occupational settings, jobs could also affirm gender nonconformity and were also a key place where gay or trans people found each other.

This panel was solicited by LAWCHA.

Read more about the session here: https://oah.org/conferences/oah24/sessions/session/?id=5525

Music: King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band's Mabel's Dream, 1923

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This special panel debrief edition of the Journal of American History Podcast features a conversation on "Nursing for the Common Good: Health Activism, Social Justice, and the History of Nursing Work," held at the 2024 OAH Conference on American History.

In this panel, Kara Dixon Vuic, Cory Gatrall, Karissa Haugeberg, and Charissa Threat continue their important contribution to the conference. They consider nursing as political history, and how studying nursing leads to significant historiographical interventions in labor, political, and medical history. Their panel investigates how nurses have confronted issues as diverse as health, poverty, racism, gender, and the environment. The panel also examines how the nursing profession has responded to and reflected on these issues and how historians have understood the relationship between nursing, health crises, and community activism.

This panel was endorsed by LAWCHA.

Read more about the session here: https://www.oah.org/conferences/oah24/sessions/session/?id=5379

Music: King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band's Mabel's Dream, 1923

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This special panel debrief edition of the Journal of American History Podcast features a conversation on "New Carceral Histories: Legacies of Punishment before the Era of Mass Incarceration," held at the 2024 OAH Conference on American History.

In this panel, Maile Arvin, Abigail Kahn, Halee Robinson, Derek Taira, and Walter Stern continue their important conversation about ethics and violence in historical research, generated from the papers they presented on this panel. These works critically consider both how we conceive of the carceral state and the purposes of punishment in the era prior to mass incarceration—to extract labor, to assimilate, to destroy kinship ties, and to construct the boundaries of who belongs in the United States empire. Besides providing a temporally distinct perspective, these works unite historiographical traditions that are often siloed—histories of incarceration, colonialism, and education—and, in doing so, highlight the interdependence of the penal system, American empire, and formal schooling in defining and enforcing the boundaries of belonging in American society. By being in service to disenfranchised voices in history, and highlighting the interconnectedness of incarceration, education, and colonialism, this panel seeks to inform and recast current debates on incarceration and abolitionism.

This panel was endorsed by the OAH Committee on the Status of ALANA Historians and ALANA Histories, OAH–JAAS Collaborative Committee, WHA, and SHGAPE.

Read more about the session here: https://www.oah.org/conferences/oah24/sessions/session/?id=5220

Music: King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band's Mabel's Dream, 1923

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This Blogcast Episode features Carleigh Beriont's article, "On the Map," first published in Process: A Blog for American History on December 12, 2023.

In this episode, Beriont recovers the hidden history of the Marshall Islands, and how this area "has been central to U.S. security and military interests since the Second World War." She explains how the United States nuclear testing and resulting destruction of Bikini Atoll, its people, and the surrounding area has had lasting political and environmental impacts.

Read the Blog here: https://www.processhistory.org/on-the-map-beriont/

Music: King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band's Mabel's Dream, 1923

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In this episode of the Journal of American History Podcast Stephen Andrews speaks with Britain Hopkins about her article, "The Origins of the Student Loan Industry in the United States: Richard Cornuelle, United Student Aid Funds, and the Creation of the Guaranteed Student Loan Program," which appeared in the March 2024 issue of the Journal of American History. Through a consideration of key legislation and actors, Britain contributes to understandings of the origins of the student loan industry and student loan indebtedness in the United States. The article highlights how private organizations and actors—such as the American Bankers Association and the Volker Fund—worked with the Johnson and Nixon administrations to establish student loans as a primary means of funding higher education. These private-federal partnerships increasingly sought to commodify student loans on financial markets, thereby tethering access to higher education to previously excluded groups to market incorporation. The article thereby identifies the origins of student loan indebtedness as a legacy of the Johnson administration’s Great Society agenda. Stephen and Britain discuss neoliberalism, debt, and behind the scenes creation of this article. They also the historicize student debt and the complex, multifaceted issues that historically constructed the current student debt crisis.

Read the article here: https://doi.org/10.1093/jahist/jaad351

Music: King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band's Mabel's Dream, 1923

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This Blogcast Episode features Stephen E. Mawdsley's article, "Hesitancy against Hope: Reactions to the First Polio Vaccine," first published in Process: A Blog for American History on January 9, 2024.

In this episode, Mawdsley uses the development of the Polio Vaccine to explicate the history public health campaigns and vaccine hesitance in the United States. He shows that "hesitancy and opposition can be effectively challenged through education and outreach initiatives that reach wider demographics to help reduce the incidence of disease."

Read the Blog here: https://www.processhistory.org/mawdsley-hesitancy-against-hope-reactions-to-the-first-polio-vaccine/

Music: King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band's Mabel's Dream, 1923

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In this episode of the Journal of American History Podcast Amy Ransford speaks with Joshua A. McGonagle Altoff about his article, "Managing Settlers, Managing Neighbors: Renarrating Johnson v. McIntosh through the History of Piankashaw Community Building," which appeared in the March 2024 issue of the Journal of American History. The foundational 1823 Supreme Court case Johnson v. McIntosh drew from a 1775 negotiation between land speculators and Peeyankihšiaki (Piankashaw people) to subjugate Indigenous sovereignty to the plenary powers of Congress. This negotiation is usually framed as a “purchase,” but when read alongside a history of Peeyankihšia community building, it becomes clear that Peeyankihšia people intended to negotiate the right to live within, rather than own, their homelands. By moving away from the idea of a “purchase,” Joshua reveals how Peeyankihšiaki were preparing for prosperity, not declension, in the late eighteenth century. Amy and Joshua discuss sources, research, and behind the scenes creation of this article, and also the importance and implications of collaboration in historical research.

Read the article here: https://www.oah.org/publications/jah/

Music: King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band's Mabel's Dream, 1923

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