Long-time readers of this Newsletter will have become accustomed to reading that enrollments in History courses are continuing to grow each year and that the faculty perseveres in its efforts to give quality instruction in the face of an ever-increasing student load. The news this year is that undergraduate enrollments appear to have become stabilized -- at just over 1,300 students in history courses -- and that records are being set at the graduate level. As a matter of fact, the records began last year, when seven students received a M.A. in history -- six of these being with thesis. Both numbers are a record by a wide margin, and we expect perhaps six more this year, with four on the thesis track. With 50 active graduate students, 16 of them new this fall, we have set two more records, and from all the evidence we have, such numbers are likely to continue.
Naturally, we are delighted with such growth, and our faculty is rising to meet the new challenge. However, it does not come without problems. The three assistantships that we were allocated many years ago have not been increased to account for the larger numbers. This is supplemented by the possibility of work at the University Archives and occasional research grants. Sheila Wright, for example, has been awarded a grant of $8,600 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This grant was obtained as a result of a great deal of work on the part of Aaron Fogleman, Graduate Coordinator, and Lary Dilsaver, a member of the Geography Department who has been a friend to History in many ways over the past few years. Despite such success, a major aim for the Department remains obtaining more sources of continuing support.
The higher level of graduate student enrollment has also made it necessary for us to begin to rethink our program, which was designed on the assumption that we would have fewer than half the present number. Our object is to find ways to improve the program without sacrificing the personal attention that has been fundamental. Your advice -- particularly that of our alums, but not limited to them -- will be most welcome on this subject as it is on others.
The Humanities/Social Sciences Colloquium, which was founded two years ago through the efforts of Aaron Fogleman, had an excellent second year and is off to a good start for the third year with a talk by Larry Holmes on his research last year in Russia. A list of last year's speakers with their topics is printed inside, where you will also find an interview with Larry Holmes about his experiences in the former Soviet Union. Along with the usual news of students and the activities of our faculty, you will also find a brief feature on Maureen Ogle, who joined this Department in September after receiving her Ph.D. at Iowa State University. We are very pleased to have her, and expect that she will be developing a series of new courses based upon her specialties that our students will find both exciting and rewarding. Another new feature which we expect to continue in future issues, the "featured alum," is a more in-depth sketch, along with a photograph, of a selected alum. We trust that you will be interested in the varied activities of this year's alum, Dale Foster, since he left here in 1980 with dual degrees in economics and history.
In closing, I will simply say that if you're ever in the neighborhood, drop in. Failing that, we would like to hear from you, whether it be with information about your activities, advice for our programs, or a contribution to one of our funds. For any of these purposes, please feel free to call, write, FAX or contact us via electronic mail. Our various addresses and numbers are on the last page of this Newsletter.
In September 1993, Dr. Maureen Ogle joined the Department as a specialist in the history of the United States in the nineteenth century and in the history of American technology and material culture.
Maureen studied at Drake University, Simpson College, and the University of Iowa before withdrawing from college altogether and entering the school of life for close to a decade.
After driving a cab, repairing streets with a city maintenance crew, serving as a nanny, waiting tables, and working as a journeyman carpenter, she discovered that the university setting she had left years earlier might hold the answers to some of her questions. She entered the University of Iowa's Bachelor of Liberal Studies program and finished in a quick two years.
She entered the graduate program at Iowa State University, returned to Iowa for a year, and then settled down for the remainder of her graduate career at Iowa State, where she studied in that department's History of Technology program.
Among the first subjects that interested Maureen was the structure of work, and she did an early study of the time clock's role in shaping labor history. Soon, however, she knew the history of small cities interested her more than labor history. She researched and wrote her master's thesis at Iowa State on municipal services in small Iowa cities from 1870 to 1900.
Faced with the dilemma of all graduate students -- finding an appropriate research topic for her Ph.D. dissertation -- she originally intended to broaden her M.A. research on municipal services into a study of American fire fighting in the nineteenth century.
One morning at 3:00, however, an epiphany intervened. It led her immediately away from the study of small cities (which, by the way, she still believes are more important to a full understanding of the history of the United States than what she terms the "atypical" urban areas). The sudden realization that awoke her was that an aspect of the material culture of the nineteenth century, specifically household plumbing, merited her attentions. For the technology of plumbing and its development illustrate Maureen's contention that "we use technology to order our world according to the ideas we hold most important. Technology embodies values." She completed her dissertation entitled "All the Modern Conveniences: American Household Plumbing, 1840-1900" in 1992 and received a grant from the National Science Foundation to study the topic further and develop her work into a book manuscript.
At South Alabama, Maureen has begun teaching the American history survey courses, along with a special topics course on the history of urban America. At home she enjoys cooking and loves reading all manner of books, but especially mysteries. She divides her time between Alabama and Iowa, where her long-time companion, Bill Robinson, is chair of the Philosophy Department at Iowa State University.
Maureen names the hills of Warren County, Iowa, and Tara Hill, Ireland, as her favorite places in the world, and we feel fortunate that she has agreed to separate herself from them for the benefit of our students and our university.
Professor Brandon travelled to San Antonio in June 1993 to serve as a faculty consultant to the Educational Testing Service's Advanced Placement Reading in U.S. history. She chaired the Simkins Award Committee of the Southern Historical Association and continues to chair the University of South Alabama Writing Committee.
Professor RICH BROWN was promoted to the rank of assistant professor in September 1993. He received his Ph.D. in history from Tulane University in August 1993, where his dissertation was entitled "Family, Business, and Politics in Bourbon Central America: The Rise of Juan Fermín de Aycinena, 1750-1796."
Professor Brown will present a paper on "Juan Fermín de Aycinena and the Origins of the Conservative Elite of Guatemala" at the Southern Historical Association annual meeting in Orlando in November 1993.
In the summer of 1993, Professor CHEN-KUAN CHUANG made a study and research tour of the People's Republic of China. He visited historical sites, archives, museums, and university libraries in and near the cities of Shanghai, Hangchow, Nanjing, Beijing, Xian, Kweilin, Kwangchow, and Hong Kong.
This winter Professor GEORGE DANIELS will be teaching the Department's graduate course on "American Historiography" for the first time. He is continuing his research on Robert Jemison, a nineteenth-century Alabama industrialist, businessman, and political figure. He has penned numerous book reviews over the past year, and his articles on American inventors continue to appear in the World Book Encyclopedia.
Professor Daniels is a member of the board of directors of the Gulf Coast History and Humanities Conference, of the University of Alabama Press Committee, and he serves as the executive editor of the Gulf Coast Historical Review.
Professor AARON FOGLEMAN developed and taught a new course on "Religion in Early America" (to 1865) and taught the Department's course on colonial America for the first time. He served as the chapter adviser to Phi Alpha Theta, organizes the Humanities/Social Sciences Colloquium, and continues as the Department's Graduate Coordinator.
Professor Fogleman completed work on his book manuscript, Hopeful Journeys, on German immigration and settlement in colonial America, and has reviewed books and article manuscripts for Pennsylvania History and Eighteenth- Century Life. He has just delivered a paper at a conference in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, entitled "The Contest for Pennsylvania: The Origins of the `Moravian Threat' and the German Great Awakening in Colonial America."
Professor Fogleman has been named the director of a grant received from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and will supervise a project to be conducted by Sheila Wright, a graduate student in the Department. It will be an environmental history of Weeks Bay in southeast Mobile Bay. He also was called upon to discuss the meaning and importance of the 500th anniversary of the Columbian Encounter last October for Bay-TV and WKRG-TV.
Professor LARRY HOLMES returned in August 1993 from almost a year in Russia. While there he taught "History of the USSR" and "Social History of Soviet Russia, 1917-1941" at Rostov State University. He is now writing a book entitled School No. 25: An Essay on Stalinism, 1931-1937, for which he continued archival research in Moscow and Rostov begun in 1989.
He co-authored Teoriia i praktika trudovoi shkoly v Rossii (1917-1932 gg), (The Theory and Practice of the Russian Labor School), published in 1993. His book, Russian Social History, 1917- 1941, will soon appear in Russian from Rostov State University Press. He has published articles and chapters on the following: "Magic into Hocus-Pocus: The Decline of Labor Education in Soviet Russia's Schools, 1931- 1937," (Russian Review, October 1992); "Fear No Evil: Schools and Religion in Soviet Russia, 1917-1941," (in Religious Policy in the Soviet Union, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993); "Shatsky: Reformer and Realist," and "Legitimizing the Soviet Regime: School No. 25, 1931-1937," both in School and Society in Tsarist Russia (St. Martin's, 1993). He translated from the Russian Feliks Aronovich Fradkin's "Soviet Experimentalism Routed: S.T. Shatsky's Last Years" for the same work, and N.V. Kotriakhov's "Labor Polytechnical Training of Elementary Schoolteachers, 1921-1937," for East/West Education (Fall 1992). He published two articles in Russia last year: "The Soviet Elite School in the Period of the Stalin Cult, 1931-1937," and "The Stalinist Administration of School Education: The Paradox of Power." In addition, he has reviewed books for the Russian Review.
Professor Holmes serves as one of the associate editors of East-West Education and as a referee/reader for the National Endowment for the Humanities, for the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX), the Slavic Review, and D.C. Heath. And he has found time to buy a new house and move.
Professor W. ROBERT HOUSTON began teaching a new course, History of Military Aviation and Airpower, this fall term. He continues his research on the British regimental system, and has reviewed books in the Journal of Mississippi History. Again this year he shared the Phi Alpha Theta Teacher of the Year Award.
Professor Houston has been much in demand with the local media as an expert on contemporary conflict. He was an hour-long guest on WKRG-AM's call-in show on Bosnia, and has given presentations on that subject or terrorism to the Fairhope Unitarian- Universalist Church and Spring Hill Avenue Temple. He serves as a Humanities Scholar in the Auburn University-Alabama Humanities Foundation Program "World War II: A Time Remembered," and in this connection has led over a dozen discussions at various public libraries so far.
Professor MICHAEL L. MONHEIT is continuing his research on problems of language and interpretation in Roman law, a project springing from a larger study of Calvin's formative years.
In addition to his Reformation Europe and Western Civilization courses, he will be offering two new courses this year: a special topics class on "Witchcraft and Magic in Early Modern Europe," and "Religious Change in the Sixteenth Century."
Professor JOSEPH A. NIGOTA spent two months in London in the summer of 1993 conducting archival research in the Public Record Office on Chancery Lane. Plowing through the Plea Rolls and other records of the mid- fifteenth century Court of King's Bench, he investigated litigation based upon the venerable "anti-papal" statutes of Provisors and Praemunire. He was searching for (and has found) precedents for the Tudor government's later use of these statutes to limit and then end the Pope's authority in England and also to curtail the jurisdiction of English church courts.
Professor Nigota shared the Phi Alpha Theta Teacher of the Year Award with Professors Houston and Macaluso. This marked his fourth receipt of the award.
Professor MAUREEN OGLE joined our faculty in September 1993 (see separate story, p. 2). Her book, tentatively titled All the Modern Conveniences: American Household Plumbing, 1840-1900, has been accepted for publication by Johns Hopkins University Press. She will publish "Domestic Reform and American Household Plumbing, 1840- 1870" in Wintherthur Portfolio in November. Last year she benefitted from a grant from the Studies in Science, Technology, and Society division of the National Science Foundation to expand research begun in her dissertation. She will travel to San Francisco in January to present a paper entitled "American Plumbing Technology and the Culture of Science, 1870-1900" to the annual meeting of the American Historical Association.
Professor DAN ROGERS continues to offer courses on recent European history, and has been developing a new course on the Holocaust (to be taught for the first time in the spring of 1994, with the assistance of a grant from the Holocaust Educational Foundation). He has just returned from a second conference on teaching the Holocaust, this one at Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio.
Professor Rogers published "Transforming the German Party System: The United States and the Origins of Political Moderation, 1945- 1949" in the Journal of Modern History (September 1993). He has reviewed books for that same journal, and is continuing work leading towards a book manuscript tentatively entitled Reshaping German Politics After Hitler. He received a grant from the USA Research Council to travel last summer to archives in Washington, D.C., and in Frankfurt and Koblenz, Germany, for a new project on Americanization and democratization of West German television after World War II. In February 1993 he presented a paper to the Alabama Association of Historians' annual meeting in Montgomery on "European Economic and Political Unification."
Professor Rogers continues this year his service as editor of this newsletter, and has taken on the additional responsibility of becoming faculty adviser to our chapter of Phi Alpha Theta.
In Spring Quarter 1993, for the first time in ten years, Professor MICHAEL THOMASON offered the Department's History 261 course, African History. He continues his research in photographic history, and lately has been working on the Aliceville World War II POW camp for a group there seeking to establish a museum. He prepared a separate major exhibit of photographs, "The Cemeteries of Talladega County," for Heritage Hall Museum in Talladega.
Professor Thomason studied nineteenth-century photography in Mobile for the Gulf Coast History and Humanities Conference (held October 8-9, 1993, in Mobile, with the theme "The Gilded Age on the Gulf Coast"). His research resulted in a conference paper on "Commercial Photography in Mobile's Gilded Age," and may lead to an article in the Gulf Coast Historical Review (if, as Professor Thomason hopes, the editor likes it).
Professor Thomason serves as a member of the Alabama Humanities Foundation Speakers Bureau, and has delivered talks on twentieth-century Alabama at locations throughout the state. He is a member of the Alabama Historical Association exhibition committee, a member of the executive committee of the Mobile Museum Board, and a member of the Alabama Historic Records Commission. And he continues to serve as the editor of the Gulf Coast Historical Review.
In the summer of 1993, along with Professors Daniels and McKiven, Professor Thomason organized a "Summer Seminar for Teachers of Alabama History," for which they received a grant from the Alabama Humanities Foundation.
Eric Arnesen of the University of Illinois at Chicago was the featured speaker following a banquet at the Radisson Admiral Semmes Hotel, headquarters for the event. Dr. Arnesen's talk, an extension of his recent work on New Orleans dock workers, will appear with other conference papers in a special Fall 1994 Proceedings issue of the Gulf Coast Historical Review.
This was the fourteenth in a series of conferences on regional issues that began in 1970 in Pensacola sponsored by the University of West Florida and Pensacola Junior College, and the second held in Mobile since the University of South Alabama became a co-sponsor in 1989. Like the earlier ones, the quality of the papers was high and a more diverse group of papers and participants would be hard to imagine. Previous volumes dealing with the Civil War, maritime history, and discovery and exploration have been very popular issues of the GCHR, and the editor, Michael Thomason, believes that this one will be of at least equally high quality.
We give special thanks for the success of the conference to Michael Thomason, who served as coordinator, to the long- suffering and devoted work of Departmental secretaries Ellen Williams and Jerry Dixon, and to a group of graduate students headed by Teresa Bowers who put in a great many hours both before and during the conference to insure its success.
Financial support for the conference came from the University of West Florida, Pensacola Junior College, the Florida Historical Society, the Columbus Quincentennial Commission of Pensacola, the Alabama Humanities Foundation, and the University of South Alabama.
Stephen Morris, Political Science, "Political Change and Continuity in Mexico"
Aaron Fogleman, History, "German Peasant Immigrants in Colonial America"
Pamela Long, Foreign Languages and Literatures, "Theater and Music in Colonial Mexico"
John Coker, Philosophy, "Beauty and the Grand Style in Nietzsche's Human All-Too- Human"
Larry Holmes, History, "Part of History: Moscow's Model School No. 25, 1931-1937"
In 1985, Dale founded InfoGraphics Information Services, an information management consulting firm. With InfoGraphics, Dale raised nearly $1 millon in grant funding for archives and library related projects. He served as a consultant to the Mobile Municipal Archives, the Mississippi Newspaper Project, the United States Sports Academy Archives, the Lauderdale County Department of Archives and History, and the National Park Service Blue Ridge Parkway Archives.
After briefly pursuing academic interests again at Harvard University's Summer School, Dale joined the faculty of the University of South Alabama Library in 1990 as Coordinator of Online and CD-ROM Search Services. Since returning to Mobile, Dale has been actively engaged in radio and television production, having produced programs for WABB-AM, BAY-TV, and Alabama Public Television. Dale has published in numerous journals and magazines, including the American Archivist, the Gulf Coast Historical Review, Mississippi Libraries, and Flight Training Magazine. He has also authored or co- authored three reference books. Dale received research grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and from the DIALOG Information Services. He recently made his big-screen acting debut as a gunman in the action film "Good Cop, Bad Cop." His current interests are writing film scripts, producing radio programs, and trying to keep up with his seven-year-old daughter, Cierra.
Dale's favorite history related experience? Getting a call from noted historian Kenneth Stampp asking him to do some research (for pay!). His worst nightmare? Bumping into Peyton McCrary in the National Archives.
Benny Booker (B.A., 1986, M.A.,1988) is currently employed in the USA Department of Medical Genetics as a medical photographer. He reports great satisfaction from the opportunities the position offers to meet people and work in the field of photography.
Joe Brent (M.A., 1988) lives in Versailles, Kentucky, and is the Historic Sites Data Coordinator for the Kentucky Heritage Council in Frankfort, Kentucky. The National Park Service -- Southeast Regional Office presented him with an award for his work with the Civil War Sites Advisory Commission's Civil War Sites Survey. He has published several book reviews, presented papers at history and historical preservation conferences, and published "The Civil Works Administration in Western Kentucky: Work Relief's Dress Rehearsal" in the Filson Club Historical Quarterly. Most recently, he has been accepted into the Ph.D. program at the University of Kentucky.
Patsy Busby Dow (B.A. 1971, M.A., 1993) entered Tulane Law School in August 1993 after completing her master's thesis on former Mobile mayor Joe Langan.
George Ewert (B.A., 1991, M.A., 1993) delivered a paper at the Gulf Coast History and Humanities Conference in October 1993 on "The Politics of Food: Mobile's Public Markets in the Gilded Age." He worked last summer to help produce the Summer Institute for Teachers of Alabama History conducted by the USA History Department.
George began a contract with the Weeks Bay Estuarine Research Reserve System to compose a historical exhibit in Baldwin County. He was asked to join the Weeks Bay Reserve Guest Lecture Series and delivered a lecture in September in Fairhope on the history of the Weeks Bay area. He has also been inventorying the archives of the Government Street United Methodist Church, is producing a guide to its holdings, and has arranged for the special collections division of the Samford University library to undertake the microfilming of the church's records.
Angela Powell (B.A., 1993) was awarded a graduate assistantship to study history at Auburn University and presented the runner-up paper at the Phi Alpha Theta regional conference.
Dr. Philip Theodore (M.A., 1992), manages the University of South Alabama Recreation center and is teaching American history to 1865 at Faulkner University this fall. He has taught Western Civilization I for the USA History Department, and served as Discipline Hearing Officer for USA from 1991 to 1993.
Thekla Wilkinson (B.A., 1993) has continued her studies of history by entering the graduate history program at USA and also continues her service as president of our chapter of the Phi Alpha Theta history honorary.
Sheila Wright (B.A., 1993), a current graduate student in the Department, completed her work for the B.A. by taking courses in the British Studies Program this summer. She is currently conducting research sponsored by a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in collaboration with Professor Fogleman.
Lacy Ann Bodden, B.A.
Chatman Thomas Ellis, B.A.
Barbara F. Asmus, B.A.
Virgel F. Christian, B.A.
Jana Kay Julian, B.A.
Graeme R. Manning, B.A.
Michelle Anne Meads, B.A.
Marc Jeffrey Miguez, B.A.
Stephanie S. Nash, B.A.
David Andrew Parra, B.A.
Angela Annette Powell, B.A.
Kimberly D. St. Andrie, B.A.
Thekla Erika Wilkinson, B.A.
Jonathan C. Williams, B.A.
Kimberley L. B. Cotten, B.A.
Derrick J. Strelow, B.A.
Holmes: I grew up primarily in Kansas, although I was born in Chicago. I went to primary and secondary school in Kansas, and received a bachelor's degree from McPherson College, a four-year church affiliated institution in Kansas.
R: After your undergraduate years, why did you choose to go on to graduate school in history? Was it an immediate decision? Was history your favorite subject as an undergraduate?
H: History was my favorite subject as an undergraduate, but my grades were not particularly good. I had to work forty hours a week and I tried to enjoy life as well. My overall GPA was not particularly high, something like 3.37. I didn't even think about applying to graduate school in history, but rather applied to enter law school at the University of Kansas and was accepted. I wasn't sure how to pay for it, but I had faith that a scholarship or money would show up somehow. And then suddenly Eastern New Mexico University indicated to McPherson College that it would give one of its history graduates an assistantship. The first two people in line turned it down -- I was third and they rejected me initially because my GPA was 2.37. Then they realized that we were on the three-point grade scale. And they accepted me. Instead of going to law school I went to Eastern New Mexico University to get a masters in history. Quite accidental.
R: Did you immediately start focusing on Russian history? Did you have Russian language training already?
H: No, this was all quite unintentional. It was a general masters program just as we have here, so there was no focus on Russian history. As a matter of fact there was no one there teaching Russian history. Please remember this was a long time ago, the late 1960s. There was less focus in general. You didn't have to specialize as early as you do now.
At the Ph.D. level, I had to pick a focus and decided that it would be Russian history for two reasons, neither of them particularly scholarly. First I thought there would be plenty of jobs in the field (it was already evident that there would be a surplus of historians of American history) and I had taken some Russian by accident at McPherson College. My roommate had enrolled in Russian and had done very well, so I indicated to him that I could do just as well and took it for fun.
R: How much Russian did you have as an undergraduate?
H: I had just a year of Russian as an undergraduate. At the University of Kansas I enrolled in more courses, but essentially taught myself how to read it. I started cramming immediately because my professors expected their students to read some Russian -- not a lot -- but some for seminar papers right away. Again, it's important to note that the requirements then were not as stiff as they are now. If we were to transfer the requirements of the 1990s back to the 1960s, I could not have pursued the same course. It would have been impossible.
R: Was Kansas your main choice for a Ph.D. program because it was in your home state?
H: Yes, I had the possibility to go to several other institutions that offered assistantships, but chose Kansas because it was home and I realized that I could pursue Russian history there.
R: Did Kansas have any special advantages in Russian history?
H: It had several professors teaching Russian history. One was Professor Oswald P. Backus, who taught medieval Russian history (Russian history prior to the time of Peter the Great). He was a marvelous teacher -- very difficult, demanding. Most students who specialized in modern Russian History with an emphasis on the Soviet Union avoided him altogether. There was no requirement that they have a field in medieval Russian history (again a sign of those times). I thought it important to complete a field in medieval Russian history. Moreover, Backus was a challenge. He had an enthusiastic love for scholarship that was certainly infectious. I owe him a great deal.
He was one of several instructors who appreciated the kind of research I enjoyed doing -- digging it out, getting the information. Research is still the most enjoyable part of my work -- sitting in the library, or better yet, in the archives, discovering for my own benefit.
At the University of Kansas, Herbert Ellison taught modern Russian history. He was a marvelous teacher: a polished, skillful lecturer who emphasized not so much the act of research, although that was important to him, but the importance of expression, the importance of saying something new, of saying it well. I received surprisingly good instruction at Kansas. I'm very fortunate, because my decision to go there was not an entirely professional one.
R: This graduate training wasn't taking place in a vacuum. It was the late 1960s, after all, and I assume Kansas was as active as many other campuses in the politics of the day. How did you respond to that environment? Did you take a full part in campus politics and protests?
H: No, I wasn't involved in the protests -- although I was involved in politics, of the mainstream sort. I wasn't in the SDS or any of the other radical organizations, although I was certainly affected by what was going on and became increasingly sympathetic toward protest against the war in Vietnam, and against social injustice. I campaigned in 1968 first for McCarthy and then, when Robert Kennedy entered the race, for him -- not because I disliked McCarthy, but because I thought Kennedy had a much better chance of winning.
R: Did you work for Humphrey in the fall?
H: No, I was disgusted as many were. I was in Mobile by the fall and refused to participate. "A pox on both your houses, Democratic and Republican" was my attitude. I didn't vote, though I was a Democrat. It was the wrong decision, an emotional, angry decision -- reached out of frustration.
R: Why did you come to the University of South Alabama in 1968?
H: That was inadvertent, too. Several institutions were interested and at first I didn't show any interest in the University of South Alabama. I had an interview, I think, at the American Historical Association meeting in Toronto. Howard Mahan and perhaps Taber Green interviewed me. Later they sent a letter saying "we're interested in you; would you be interested in coming down?"
I didn't answer the letter. I really wasn't interested in the South, especially the Deep South, because of my perceptions of the South, my politics at the time, and the knowledge that other institutions were interested in me. A week or two later, there were fewer institutions interested in me. I came in second, I think, a couple of times.
I had forgotten all about Mobile, Alabama -- and then another letter arrived: "we are interested in you -- would you come down for an interview?" I said, "what the hell, I'll go down and I won't shave my beard off" (I had a full beard). I came down, and told them I was a Unitarian, tried to put on a little act. But I noticed that I liked the Department -- I really liked the department.
R: How big was it then?
H: Oh, I don't know, 10, maybe 8 or 9 faculty. But I was very much impressed by the chairman, Howard Mahan. When an offer came rather quickly after the interview, although there were still other possibilities, I decided a bird in hand is worth two in the bush. And I thought that I would be happy in this department. That's the most critical thing. You can be in a situation that's not the best overall, but if the immediate working environment is a good one, then you'll be happy. I don't regret the decision. I'm very happy I came here.
R: How and when did you first get interested in the history of education in general and the history of Russian education in particular?
H: Well, that was accidental, too. My dissertation was in the field of intellectual history. It focused on the work of Soviet party historians on the 1917 Revolution, tracing their work from the 1920s to the 1960s. I continued that kind of work after I came here and published several articles on it. In the process I became interested in what Soviet party historians in the 1920s were saying about the teaching of history in the schools. They debated what to teach and how to teach it. But there was much that escaped my understanding, because I did not understand what was happening in the schools in the Soviet Union in the 1920s -- and there wasn't secondary literature available then that was helpful. In the process of conducting original research to tie up the loose ends, I became more interested in the loose ends than in the article under completion. That's led me in a completely different direction.
R: How Western historians examine Russian and Soviet history has probably changed radically in just a few years. Weren't you forced to study the history of the 1920s or 1930s through historiography, through seeing what current historians were writing about it? Is this still a proper avenue of research in 1993?
H: I think any avenue is a proper avenue if it is done well. I have a long lecture on why this was the case among historians in the 1950s and 1960s. It wasn't only that political and intellectual history dominated our concern, scholars in the U.S. had little chance of getting into the Soviet archives. Even many books in Soviet libraries were off limits to all historians, Western as well as Soviet. Historiography was one thing that we could do -- by examining published books and articles. They were available in the Soviet Union, and in most research libraries in the United States. The national inter-library loan system at the time (1960s) worked extremely well -- much better than it works now. Harvard and Yale weren't putting restrictions on what they would send. That's one reason I wrote on historiography -- I could get the material: the journals were available, the books were available.
Of course, there was also reluctance on our part to work in the archives even if they were open. As a profession, we didn't have the language skills and the wherewithal, indeed the desire, to work and to live in the Soviet Union, to put up with the difficulties. Historiography is still a legitimate field of research and scholarship, and I suspect some very good things will be done. If I have time in the future, I would like to return to the dissertation, rewrite and rethink it. Right now, that's definitely in the distant future.
R: I was interested in your reports on current living conditions in Russia in the sentence, "the country that I knew only two years ago is definitely dying and no one can save it. Whether something better is being born is difficult to say at this point." In Berlin about a year ago, I actually had a sense of sadness at seeing the only Berlin I had ever known -- divided, distinctly different in east and west -- disappearing. It was fun to be able to walk through the Brandenburg Gate and to walk in the former death zone where the wall used to be....But for some reason, I was saddened to see even the symbols of the old tyranny being torn down and replaced with glass and steel corporate headquarters; I had a sense of something that I had known being lost. Maybe it was just an odd nostalgia. Do you feel a certain sense of sadness? Is that one of the emotions you feel in seeing Russia change?
H: No, I don't feel sadness in the collapse of symbols of repression. Sadness comes with the present disorder and the threat of anarchy. One could see it in the university, in the relationship between the teaching corps and students, in hyperinflation, and in the introduction of uncertainty in the public as well as the private lives of people.
The fear of disorder invades one's private life. The decay of buildings is very depressing: buildings, almost all at this point public buildings, are in a state of deteriorating decay outside and inside. There's a definite sense that the country is dying and we still don't know what's going to take its place. I think there is more cause for concern now than several months ago.
R: You mentioned the word "anarchy" and you referred to one of your students in Russia saying, "it's not freedom that we have -- it's anarchy." This leads me a question that you can't answer definitively, perhaps, but it's probably one of those questions that Russians have been absorbed with for a long time. Namely, what is the precise difference, in your opinion, between freedom and anarchy, with reference to the Russian experience?
H: Well, I think it's a cultural difference. One historian, Theodore Von Laue, has written perceptively on this subject. Freedom for many people (most people in the West) means citizenship, collective responsibility, and is part and parcel of a rather positive attitude toward the political process, of a belief that the political process can solve our socio- economic problems.
R: Didn't Ronald Reagan at one point say there was no Russian word for freedom?
H: Oh, there are several. "Vol'ya" is a word that is frequently translated as "freedom," but it really means "do what you want, when you want." It's an old- fashioned, perhaps pre-modern, version of freedom. Well, that may not be fair either; I think in the pre-modern era, even in Russia, there were certain restrictions. The commune set restrictions on what its members could do. Many Russians have a negative attitude toward the political process, a negative attitude toward authority, particularly in its public manifestation. It's Russian history speaking loudly and clearly. Russians have a long way to go before they understand that freedom involves self-discipline.
R: Can we talk a little bit more directly about your current research, which has focused on the middle part of the Stalinist era? Why is the history of Moscow's School No. 25 important?
H: The school itself was very important. It was the most important school in the Soviet Union from 1931 to 1937. It received the most print, won all the awards. Children of the elite attended, including the two children of Joseph Stalin. It symbolized institutional authority. Its public image legitimated the Stalinist regime because the school represented proper order, discipline, excellent education, superior teaching and study. The school achieved its wealth, fame, fortune, and awards through corruption and influence peddling. It was the focus of infighting at the Commissariat of Education where there was not a unanimity of opinion concerning the quality of its instruction, and whether the school should be so lavishly awarded for its order, discipline, clean toilets. It was also the subject of considerable infighting within the party and state bureaucracy. Thus this school's history tells us a great deal about the decision making process and how the bureaucracy works. This is micro-history, but I hope through it to learn a good deal about the broader Soviet ideological, political, social and educational context.
I will say a lot in this book about Stalin, because I think he paid close attention to what was happening at this school, partly because his children were there.
R: It's like he was in the PTA.
H: There is no indication that he ever went to the school, but there's hard evidence of his interest in what his daughter and son were doing there. There's considerable circumstantial evidence to indicate that his attitude about education was shaped by what he learned about this particular school. Stalin may not have written the major decrees on education in the 1930s (but I think he did), but he certainly edited them extensively. I've seen the editing in his own hand in the archives.
R: It's 1993, 25 years precisely after you came here. Looking back briefly on those 25 years, what are the particular strengths that you have seen in the University of South Alabama and what challenges still need to be addressed?
H: It seems to me that the major challenges facing the University are precisely those before its departments. The dual emphasis on good teaching and research are at once the greatest strengths and challenges facing this Department and the institution of which it is a part. It is difficult to do both well, and yet it is essential that we do so. It is important, in my opinion, to require essay exams of our students and to communicate with them. This requires much time on the part of the faculty. Yet to create and write something of significance requires considerable time, indeed hugh blocks of time. To serve both teaching and research creates tension, a creative tension.
It's important that the University has managed to maintain a travel budget. Some institutions have cut it out altogether. In addition, the Department and the College of Arts and Sciences have managed to improve long distance telephone and photoduplication services.
It is critically important that during the past 25 years a decentralization in decision-making has occurred. In day- to-day operations, more decisions are now reached at a lower level administratively than in the past. It is a positive development and represents the University's expansion and maturation.
The greatest strength has been the Department's faculty over the years. My colleagues have made and make the University an enjoyable and productive place in which to work.
R: That certainly makes me feel very good. Thank you very much.
Creative Consulting
Jerry Dixon
Ellen Williams
Photography
Michael Thomason
Production
Tuan Joseph Nguyen
Monica N. Ganjoo