Ohio History Journal




Historical News

Historical News

 

The Hayes Memorial Library has recently acquired some small but im-

portant additions to its manuscript collections. They include papers of H. H.

Morton and Dr. George R. Morton, Sandusky (7 items, 1855-77); papers on

the election of 1876 (5 items); letters of Rutherford B. Hayes to the Rev.

L. W. Bacon (5 letters, 1881-82, photostatic copies from Yale University

Library); additions to the William and Mary B. Claflin papers (22 items,

1866-89); a letterbook of General H. W. Benham (1877-82); Civil War

correspondence of J. R. Rhoades, Co. E, 110th Regiment, O.V.I. (158 items,

1862-65); and J. P. Reynolds correspondence (36 items, 1876-78).

 

The Minnesota Historical Society has established the Solon J. Buck

Award, to be granted each year to the author of the best article published

in Minnesota History, the society's quarterly magazine. The award carries

with it a grant of fifty dollars from a special fund. The winner for 1954,

Francis Paul Prucha of St. Marys, Kansas, was honored for his article on

"Minnesota 100 Years Ago as Seen by Laurence Oliphant," which appeared

in the Summer 1954 issue of the quarterly. All authors whose contributions

appear in Minnesota History are eligible for the award. Anyone writing in

the field of Minnesota and Northwest history is invited to compete.

In naming the award the society honors Dr. Buck, who founded the

quarterly in 1915 while he was superintendent of the society. He later be-

came archivist of the United States and has recently retired as assistant

librarian of the Library of Congress.

 

The eighth annual Seminars on American Culture, sponsored by the New

York State Historical Association, will be held in Cooperstown on two

consecutive weeks, June 26 to July 2, and July 3 to July 9. Requests for

information should be directed to Dr. Louis C. Jones, Director, New York

State Historical Association, Cooperstown, New York.

 

The special spring exhibition of the Historical and Philosophical So-

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HISTORICAL NEWS          211

 

ciety of Ohio, "The Ohio from Pittsburgh to Cairo," will open on the

evening of April 22 for members and will continue for six weeks.

The society has lately acquired a collection of 722 letters from old resi-

dents of Cincinnati to Hiram Powers (dating from 1827). Another recent

acquisition has been the journals of Colonel John May's trading expedition

to the Muskingum in 1788 and 1789, as well as his commonplace book and

other records.

 

The second annual Institute on Historical and Archival Management will

be held at Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Massachusetts, from June 20 to

August 12, under the sponsorship of the college and the department of

history of Harvard University. The two-month course of study covers archival

procedures, reproduction techniques, editorial procedures, all phases of

museum work, and problems in architectural preservation. In addition to

classroom lectures and assigned research, the course will include field trips

to museums and other institutions within a fifty-mile radius of Cambridge.

A guest faculty from leading archival and historical institutions has been

assembled. The director is Earle W. Newton, director of the Vermont His-

torical Society and secretary of both the American Association for State and

Local History and the Society of American Historians.

 

The Ephraim and William Parker Cutler collection is one of the most

important acquisitions of the Marietta College Library in recent years. It

comprises correspondence and papers covering almost the entire combined

life spans of the two men (1767-1889). According to George J. Blazier,

librarian, the collection now numbers 2,200 individual pieces.

 

Case Institute of Technology is offering a study tour of Europe, "Europe

in Historical Perspective," this summer from June 29 to August 29. Two

courses on the European Background of Western Civilization will be given

concurrently, and enrollees may qualify for six hours of academic credit.

The study tour is directed by Stanton Ling Davis, associate professor of

history at Case Institute, who will be conducting such travel parties for the

fifth consecutive year.

 

Irwin B. Abrams, chairman of the department of history at Antioch Col-

lege, addressed a recent meeting of the Greene County Historical Society on

"Berlin, a Tale of Two Cities."



212 THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

212     THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

Louis Filler has had a number of articles published during the past year.

"Why Historians Ignore Folklore" appeared in Midwest Folklore, Sum-

mer 1954; "Liberalism, Anti-Slavery, and the Founders of the Independent,"

in the New England Quarterly, September 1954; "The Young Godkin: To-

wards a Revaluation of a Great Victorian," in the Historian, Winter 1954;

and "Civilization and American Civilization," in the Midwest Journal, Sum-

mer 1954. Dr. Filler also edited and wrote the introduction for Mr. Dooley:

Now and Forever (Academic Reprints, Stanford, California, 1954).

 

Summerfield Baldwin III, head of the history department and chairman

of the social science division at the University of Akron, died suddenly on

January 15, 1955. Dr. Baldwin, a brilliant scholar and an exacting in-

structor, held three degrees from Harvard University, including his Ph.D.,

which he received in 1928. He came to the University of Akron from West-

ern Reserve University in 1943, and had been head of the history depart-

ment for the past nine years. Clara G. Roe, associate professor of history,

is acting head of the department since Dr. Baldwin's death.

 

Richard W. Griffin has been appointed an instructor in history at Capital

University. Mr. Griffin is the author of an article, "Cotton Frauds and

Confiscations in Alabama, 1863-1866," which appeared in the Alabama

Review for October 1954.

 

Philip Lee Ralph, chairman of the social studies department at Lake

Erie College, gave a series of four lectures on Christianity and Western

Civilization to the annual convocation of Congregational ministers of Florida

at Avon Park, Florida, on February 7-9.

 

Oberlin College has granted Robert G. Gunderson a sabbatical leave

during the second semester of this year to complete his manuscript on the

Washington Peace Conference of 1861.

 

Frederick D. Kershner, associate professor of history at Ohio University,

will spend the second semester (1955) on leave at the University of Wis-

consin. Warren F. Kuehl, who has his Ph.D. from Northwestern, will fill

in during Dr. Kershner's absence.

John F. Cady has received a Fulbright research award for study in Burma

for a twelve-month period beginning in June 1955. Dr. Cady's book, The



HISTORICAL NEWS 213

HISTORICAL NEWS           213

 

Roots of French Imperialism in Eastern Asia, was published last year by

the Cornell University Press as the Carnegie Award book for the American

Historical Association for 1954. He contributed a chapter, "South and

Southeast Asia," to Charles P. Schleicher's Introduction to International

Relations (Prentice-Hall, 1954), and a chapter, "Southeast Asia," to Soviet

Power and Policy (Crowell, 1955), by George B. de Huszar and associates.

 

W. Eugene Shiels, S. J., chairman of the department of history at

Xavier University, had an article, "History as an Integrating Discipline: The

Teacher," in the Jesuit Educational Quarterly for October 1954.