Penn State Dickinson Law will be hosting Dr. Rachel Shelden, @richardscenter.bsky.social director for a talk, "The Political Supreme Court: Ethics, Partisanship, and Power in Early America," Tuesday, April 21, 12:45-1:45 pm, Lewis Katz Building, Room 249
image of Joshua Strayhorn, Cathleen Cahill, Hannah Hicks, Alison McCann and Tony Frazier
Penn State History Faculty are making us proud at #OAH2026!
Cathleen Cahill chaired and Tony Frazier presented on the panel, "Rights, Revolutions, and Remembering: Anniversaries and the Mobilization of Historical Memory in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries," yesterday!
Congratulations to Mary E. Mendoza, whose monograph, Deadly Divide: How Insects, Pathogens, and People Defied the US-Mexico Border, has been published by the University of North Carolina Press: uncpress.org/978146969540...
In today's Muster, Brook Thomas reflects on Birthright Citizenship and postbellum debates around the idea of allegiance www.journalofthecivilwarera.org/2026/04/birt...
Congratulations to graduate affiliate Annalise Walker, who was awarded a short-term residential fellowship at the Linda Hall Library for 2026-27!
Don't delay -- application materials should be sent to RichardsCenter@psu.edu by TOMORROW, April 15!
The @richardscenter.bsky.social and @jcwe.bsky.social
announce a journal article workshop for advanced graduate students, recent PhDs, assistant professors, and independent scholars.
In today's Muster, William Horne examines the harrowing story of Margaret Cathrine Murphy, a woman who posed as a man to enlist in the Union Army www.journalofthecivilwarera.org/2026/04/i-wa...
Good news!! The transcript of our interview with Jonathan S. Jones, former former Richards Center Postdoctoral Scholar, is now available! You can access it via this link: richardscenter.la.psu.edu/news/intervi...
Congratulations to Nicole Viglini, Asst. Professor of History, UNC-Charlotte and former Richards Center postdoc fellow, who has received a John L. Nau III Center for Civil War History short-term fellowship to conduct research on the U.S. Civil War era!
Dr. Cathleen Cahill and Dr. Christina Snyder stand together smiling for a photo in the foreground.
Congratulations to our affiliated faculty Dr. Christina Snyder on a wonderful community workshop this week. We discussed her project American Abolitions: The Slow Death and Many Afterlives of Slavery.
This is an advertisement for a talk in Foster Auditorium on Thursday, April 9th. The event is titled "The Age of the Borderlands" and the featured guest is Dr. Andrew Isenberg.
Join the PSU HGSA who are hosting Dr. Andrew Isenberg next Thursday, April 9th at 4:00pm in Foster Auditorium at Pattee & Paterno Library. The talk is co-sponsored by the History Department, the College of Liberal Arts, the Richards Civil War Era Center, and the Africana Research Center
Penn State Dickinson Law is hosting a roundtable and discussion of the constitutional status, historical background, and lived experience of birthright citizenship.
Wednesday, April 1, 6:00 p.m., Foster Auditorium, 102 Paterno Library, Penn State.
image of Barbara Price, PSU undergrad student
Congrats Barbara Price! 🎉 Barbara has been awarded a 2026 Erickson Discovery Grant to conduct research for her undergrad thesis “The Grange be Apolitical: Agrarian Political Identity in 19th Century Newspapers.” The Erickson Grant is the most prestigious research grant available to PSU undergrads.
Book cover for "Histories of Disability in Latin America". Features two black and white photos. In one photo, individuals are pictured holding hands. In the second photo, a child sits in the foreground, squatting to the ground. In front you see two disabled men with an amputated leg.
Congrats to our faculty affiliate Martha Few on her chapter “Gender, Colonialism, and Disability in the Aftermath of Natural Disasters: Medicalized Trauma and the 1773 Guatemala Earthquake,” in Heather Vrana and David Carey, Jr., Histories of Disability in Latin America.
Michael Schoeppner, Cathleen Cahill, and Jacob Lee stand together for a photo on the day of the event.
Thank you again to Dr. Michael Schoeppner for work-shopping a number of chapters from his book manuscript, Living Illegally: Deportation, Belonging, and the Anti-Black Origins of American Crimmigration, 1790-1870 with us today.
Congratulations to William S. Cossen (Ph.D. 2016)! Dr. Cossen just signed a contract with LSU Press for his second book, Soldiers and Sacraments: The Lived Catholic Civil War!
The @richardscenter.bsky.social and @jcwe.bsky.social announce a journal article workshop for advanced graduate students, recent PhDs, assistant professors, and independent scholars.
Application materials should be sent to RichardsCenter@psu.edu by April 15, 2026!
To honor Women's History Month, we are drawing attention to the Women's Suffrage Collection. This archive includes booklets, pamphlets, and editorials produced by the women's suffrage and women's rights movements in Pennsylvania. Learn more: libraries.psu.edu/about/collec...
Halee Robinson with Brandi Brimmer and Martha Escobar standing together and smiling.
Congratulations to our Post-Doctoral Fellow Halee Robinson on her workshop today with special guests Brandi Brimmer and Martha Escobar. We read and considered her phenomenal manuscript “They Taken Him Away: Race, Punishment, and the Intimate Histories of the Texas Prison System, 1865-1912.”
Citizen Historians for the Smithsonian www.citizenhistorians.org invites you to RAISE YOUR VOICE FOR THE SMITHSONIAN: A WORKSHOP ON WRITING AND PLACING OP-EDS this Monday, March 9 at 6:30 EST. You can register to attend here: georgetown.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
picture of Secretary Janet Napolitano and Cathleen Cahill
It was an honor to meet Secretary Janet Napolitano last week during The McCourtney Inst for Democracy lecture, "Higher Education and Democracy." (A recording of the lecture is now available on their YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlZo...)
We encourage interested community members to explore the option of volunteering some of their time to the Transcribe Harper virtual event. You can participate by following this link: www.zooniverse.org/projects/dou...
A professional head shot of Dr. Mary Mendoza in black and white.
Congratulations to our affiliated faculty Dr. Mary Mendoza for her talk at Villanova for their “Albert LePage Center Annual Series.” Congrats to our affiliated grad students Morgan Haller and Elyse Conley who presented at the NCAIS grad student conference and the Conference on the Americas.
“What Is To Be Done: Historians of Crisis in a Moment of Crisis” is available online now here: muse.jhu.edu/issue/56406 Thanks to UNC press, the full issue will be available for a short time without paywall.
DEADLINE EXTENDED TO MARCH 15!!
Apply TODAY for one of the 2026-2027 Predoctoral Fellowships!
Please help share this amazing opportunity to be a part of the Richards Center Community!!
More information can be found at: richardscenter.la.psu.edu/fellowships/...
Deadline Extended to March 15!! Apply TODAY for one of the 2026-2027 Predoctoral Fellowships!
Please help share this amazing opportunity to be a part of the Richards Center Community!!
More information can be found at: richardscenter.la.psu.edu/fellowships/...
The SCWH Grad Student Connections Comm is pleased to announce a discussion with @jcwe.bsky.social co-editor @gregdowns.bsky.social. Dr. Downs will discuss publishing your article with the JCWE, article publishing tips, and take questions: us06web.zoom.us/j/8857214479...
We’re grateful to our Graduate Affiliate Keon Burns for bringing his compelling chapter, “Storefront of Resistance: Black grocers and enterprise amid Jim Crow Violence, 1930-1954,” to our workshop today. Congrats, Keon!
The Richards Center invites applications for the Mark & Ann Persun Visiting Scholars Program for tenured history faculty at the rank of Assoc Prof. For the 2026-27 academic year, the fellowship is open to scholars of the Civil War Era, broadly conceived, who study military or political history.