News

The Programming Committee is working on creating new online programs and would like your input! Please fill out this form to help them determine where they can be most useful. 

The Nominating Committee of the Urban History Association is seeking nominations for our board of directors. The next board election will take place in fall 2022, at which time UHA members will elect a slate of seven individuals to serve on the UHA board for three-year terms beginning January 1, 2023.

To submit nominations for these leadership positions, please email the following information to Heather Ann Thompson, UHA Nominating Committee Chair and immediate past president of the UHA, at hthompsn@umich.edu:

1. Name and contact information for the person(s) you are nominating.
2. A rationale, at least 100 words long, supporting your choice of nominee(s). 

All nominations must be received by Monday, August 8th. Nominations may only be submitted by UHA members in good standing. 

Call for Papers for the Dumbarton Oaks Garden and Landscape Studies Symposium in partnership with the Mellon Initiative in Urban Landscape Studies, Washington, DC.

Theme - Environmental Histories of the Black Atlantic World: Landscape Histories of the African Diaspora

For full detail, click HERE.

Deadline: September 1, 2022

The Organization of American Historians will offer residencies in Germany and Japan in 2023.

Application Deadlines: October 1, 2022

2023 Germany Residency: https://www.oah.org/awards/residencies/germany/

Thanks to a generous grant from the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, the OAH International Committee is pleased to announce the continuation of the Residency Program in American History—Germany (Germany Residency Program) at the University of Tübingen. The International Committee seeks applications from OAH members who are established scholars affiliated with an American or Canadian University interested in leading an advanced undergraduate/graduate student seminar in Tübingen.

2023 Japan Residencies: https://www.oah.org/awards/residencies/japan/

In cooperation with and support from the Japan-United States Friendship Commission, the OAH and the Japanese Association for American Studies (JAAS) plan to send two American scholars to Japanese universities for two-week residencies in the summer of 2023 (pending funding). The committee seeks applications from OAH members who are established American scholars affiliated with an American or Canadian university interested in teaching advanced undergraduates and graduate students in seminars and courses focusing on the U.S. History topics requested by the host institutions.

The Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference is accepting submissions for the Arline Custer Memorial Award! 

DEADLINE: July 31, 2022

The Arline Custer Memorial Award is presented by the MARAC Arline Custer Memorial Award Committee. This award honors the memory of Arline Custer (1909-1975), MARAC member and editor of the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections.

Eligibility

The Arline Custer Memorial Award recognizes the best books and articles written or compiled by individuals and institutions in the MARAC region – the District of Columbia, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia.

Works under consideration include, but are not limited to: monographs, popular narratives, reference works and exhibition catalogs using archival sources.

Individuals or institutions may submit up to two works published between July 1, 2021 and June 30, 2022.

Evaluation

Works must be relevant to the general public as well as the archival community. They also should be original and well researched using available sources. In addition, they should be clearly presented, well written and organized. Visual materials, if used, should be appropriate to the text.

Preference will be given to works by archivists.

Award

Up to three awards may be given, with a maximum value of $200.00 for books and $100.00 for articles. The 2022 award(s) may be announced at a fall 2022 MARAC business meeting or shared with MARAC members via another means.

For submission instructions, additional information about this award and a list of previous award winners, see the Arline Custer Memorial Award site: http://www.marac.info/arline-custer-memorial-award. 

The UHA is excited to introduce some new faces to our team! We are headed into summer with a new Membership Director and an Operations & Special Projects Assistant. 

New Membership Director

Amanda Boston

Assistant Professor of Africana Studies

University of Pittsburgh

We’re excited to have Amanda Boston as our new membership director! Amanda Boston is an assistant professor of Africana studies at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research, writing, and teaching focus on twentieth-century and contemporary African American urban history, politics, and popular culture. Her current projects explore gentrification’s racial operations in her hometown of Brooklyn, New York, and their role in the making and unmaking of the borough’s Black communities. Prior to joining the Pitt faculty, Boston was a Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellow at New York University. She earned her Ph.D. in Africana studies from Brown University. Welcome to the UHA team, Amanda!

We would also like to thank Kara Schlichting, our outgoing membership director, for all of the work she has done and for her dedication to the UHA. Thank you Kara, you’ll be missed!

Operations & Special Projects Assistant

Daniela Bohórquez Sheinin

PhD Candidate 

University of Michigan

Daniela Bohórquez Sheinin is our new operations & special projects assistant! Daniela is a PhD candidate in History at the University of Michigan. She specializes in urban, cultural and oral history. Her dissertation, “Staging Neighborhood: Making Queens in the Construction of New York’s Last Great Park” details the complex histories of material, ethnic, social and political neighborhood change around Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens, New York. She was co-founder and first host of the historical podcast, Reverb Effect, and her work has appeared in the Journal of Transnational American Studies, the Gotham Center for New York City History Blog, and Perspectives Daily. She also has served as co-chair for the UHA’s Early Career Committee. 

This position is made possible through funding from the AHA–NEH Grants to Sustain and Advance the Work of Historical Organizations.

The Living New Deal has opened submissions for their 2022 New Deal Book Award. Click here for more details about how to submit. 

The Metropole is now accepting submissions for its annual Graduate Student Blogging Contest. The 2022 theme is The Senses, and we are looking for stories about any time, topic, person, or place in urban history that foregrounds sight, sound, smell, taste, or touch. The full description of the theme and the contest guidelines can be found on the blog. 

If you are a graduate student, we encourage you to enter the contest! If you work with graduate students, please let them know about this great opportunity to practice writing for the web and learn from experienced editors. The winner will receive a certificate and a $150 prize!

The deadline for entries is Friday, July 1.

The Urban History Association is hiring a new Operations & Special Projects Assistant! The position is a year-long position beginning June 1st, 2022 and ending May 31st, 2023. Click the link below to view the full job description. 

Operations and Special Projects Assistant Position Description.pdf

Please send in your application no later than May 22nd. To apply, or if you have any questions, email your resume and cover letter to amoralez@urbanhistory.org.

This position is made possible through funding from the AHA–NEH Grants to Sustain and Advance the Work of Historical Organizations. 

We are excited to announce that the UHA has been awarded funding from the American Historical Association’s Grants to Sustain and Advance the Work of Historical Organizations Program, which provides relief to institutions adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, an opportunity made possible with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) through the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. With this support, the UHA will be able to put into effect a multi-pronged effort that includes rebuilding services disrupted by the pandemic, introducing new efforts to help the UHA more fully take advantage of the opportunities for engaging and promoting its members online, and adopting new initiatives intended to strengthen and diversify the UHA’s revenue streams.

The UHA would like to express our deepest gratitude to the AHA and NEH for awarding us this grant. We also send a special thank you to the previous UHA Executive Director, Hope Shannon, for all of her dedication and amazing work writing this grant.