The 43rd American Journalism Historians Association annual convention running October 3-5, featured an expanded program that introduced a high density session to the conference and celebrated exemplary members with 13 different awards.

Returning to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the convention kicked off in the Kimpton Hotel Monaco in downtown with a welcome message from AJHA president Tracy Lucht who recounted attending her first AJHA convention. Lucht highlighted important steps the organization has taken over the last year to create a balanced budget while reiterating a commitment to fund research microgrants for graduate students, early career members, and under-researched topics. Lucht also spotlighted the important role AJHA holds in supporting all members who face external challenges to the topics they teach or research, especially related to race in journalism history.

Attendees gathered throughout the convection to honor dissertation, life-time achievement, and book of the year award winners. The 2024 Margaret A. Blanchard Dissertation Prize session featured Christopher Schaefer’s award-winning dissertation “Covering the World with the International Herald Tribune” chronicling the transnational history of the publication over the last two centuries. Honorable mentions for the award went to Anna E. Linder’s research on news coverage of rebellions in Spanish colonial Cuba, Karen D. Russell’s project uncovering the identities of popular Nashville radio DJs in the mid-twentieth century, and Carey Kelley’s examination of pioneers of gender equality in broadcast newsrooms starting in the 1960s.

In remarks accepting the 2024 Sidney Kobre Award for Lifetime Achievement, Joe Campbell referred to the friendships and acquaintances he forged among AJHA members over the years, recalled having attended his first AJHA convention in London, Ontario, in 1996, and thanked the organization and its awards committee for granting him an “exceptional honor.”

Campbell, a professor emeritus at American University in Washington, DC, also offered the following seven recommendations for “enhancing high-quality research in journalism history”:

1. keep in mind the critical importance of addressing the “so what?” question in scholarly research;
2. know there is no shame in gentle if persistent self-promotion.
3. strive to share your research with popular audiences;
4. inject even-handed rigor in your work, and avoid the temptation to treat research papers as polemics;
5. embrace and encourage viewpoint diversity in research and in the classroom;
6. impose, or self-impose, a limit of 150 words in writing negative reviews about convention research papers; and,
7. support the AJHA endowment, as a way to help ensure the organization’s longer-term financial health and stability.

The AJHA Book of the Year Award session featured a talk from 2024 winner Aniko Bodroghkozy for “Making #Charlottesville: Media from Civil Rights to Unite the Right” which examined the resurgence of White supremacy amid the 2017 “Summer of Hate” in Charlottesville, Virginia, by comparing events to key moments in the Civil Rights movement. Katherine Rye Jewell, Josh Shepperd, and Ken Ward all received honorable mentions for their newly published monographs.

Amidst those award sessions, the program offered nine panels and 11 paper sessions including a new high density paper session. Key panels included the president’s panel on “Effective Leadership in Times of Turmoil” exploring best practices for faculty and administrators during difficult cultural or political times. A second panel on current issues facing academia discussed the opportunities and challenges artificial intelligence poses to accurate and ethical scholarship, especially when working in digital archives.

Two panels highlighted the role of Pittsburgh journalists in shaping modern news coverage in the twentieth century and The Pittsburgh Courier’s reporting on Black activism in the city and beyond. The Donna Allen Roundtable Luncheon featuring a conversation with Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporter Paula Reed Ward and the Local Journalist Award Reception honoring Rod Doss, publisher of the New Pittsburgh Courier, and Pittsburgh sports broadcaster Bill Hillgrove introduced attendees to contemporary Pittsburgh journalists. The reception also included a live auction facilitated by auctioneer David Davies supporting the Mike Sweeney Graduate Student Travel Stipend which raised over $1,600 across the live and silent auction.

Between sessions, attendees explored Pittsburgh during a tour of the Heinz History Center, a walk through and dinner in the Strip District, and mini-tours from many of the local convention goers and former Pittsburgh residents.

In closing remarks during the annual business meeting, Lucht thanked outgoing board members Erin Coyle, Matthew Pressman, and Yong Volz along with outgoing American Journalism editor Pamela Walck. She thanked new convention sites manager Aimee Edmondson and new research chair Jennifer Moore for their work organizing the convention alongside local hosts Walck and Katrina Jesick Quinn. Walck and Lucht celebrated incoming American Journalism editor Amber Roessner. Lucht led a video message on behalf of all attendees welcoming incoming AJHA president Debra van Tuyll.

After recent conventions in the midwest and on the east coast, the event is headed to the west coast next year with Long Beach, California playing host to the convention starting September 25, 2025.

By: Peter Joseph Gloviczki

I am honored and delighted to share an update about ongoing research toward a third scholarly book. My research program considers news narratives and representation during and immediately following major media events, with a particular emphasis on the aftermath of school shootings. 

The research is supported in part by a Joseph McKerns Research Grant, generously provided by the American Journalism Historians Association in 2021. Because of the COVID-19 public health pandemic, my research trip was delayed until 2024. Specifically, I visited the Vanderbilt Television News Archive (VTNA) at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. I first came to the VTNA in 2015 and I knew I wanted to return. The McKerns Research Grant made that return possible.

During my visit to the VTNA, I watched a host of long- and short- news narratives spanning the 1990s through the present-day, beginning with the Columbine School Shooting in Littleton, Colorado (1999), and continuing through the Robb Elementary School Shooting in Uvalde, Texas (2022). My work at the archive helped reveal similarities and differences in media coverage of school shootings across the last three decades. I am interested in legacy construction of and for victims of school shootings. 

Methodologically, I use interpretive, reflexive qualitative research methods. Data guide research questions in an inductive, ground-up approach. I diligently listen to news narratives. My chosen research methods include the case study research strategy, popularized by Robert K. Yin and Robert E. Stake, and autoethnography, as popularized by Norman K. Denzin, Carolyn Ellis and Art Bochner, and textual analysis, as popularized by Earl Babbie. In theoretical terms, I have been inspired by uses and gratifications theory, as well as changing conceptions of the media audience during our more mobile and social digital era. 

The VTNA provided a treasure trove of news and information spanning 1968 to the present day. The opportunity to sit with these narratives and think deeply lets me consider how and why events are (or are not) braided together in major media coverage. What themes are repeated across time, space and place? When certain themes do not endure, for what kinds of reasons might those themes fade? Archives like this are valuable for researchers who care deeply about media culture. Here, the stories of the past truly come alive. 

My first book is Journalism and Memorialization in the Age of Social Media (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). My second book is Mediated Narration in the Digital Age (Nebraska, 2021). I expect to submit my third book for consideration to University of Nebraska Press, when it is ready. This research trip to the VTNA helped me make significant strides toward that goal. Where my first two books considered the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting and the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, respectively, I expect that my third book will consider the 2018 Parkland, Florida, shooting and the 2022 Uvalde, Texas, shooting. 

I went to the VTNA with the desire to spend time listening closely to as many stories of victims’ families as possible, to listen for how families remember their loved ones. Over time, I am noticing how individuals who lost loved ones sometimes publicly speak about horrendous and seemingly unimaginable losses. What I heard when I listened was deeply moving, especially hearing the presence of deep and understandable anger in the voices of victims’ famil

ies. These testimonies also give voice to profound loss and trauma. I feel grateful for the opportunity to engage in this research, helping understand reportage about tragedies in American media culture. 

Peter Joseph Gloviczki (Ph.D. Mass Communication, University of Minnesota, 2012) is a tenured professor at Western Illinois University in Macomb, Illinois. From July 2022 through June 2024, he chaired the Department of Broadcasting and Journalism. He is past president of the Carolinas Communication Association and past head of the Cultural and Critical Studies Division in the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

1. How did you become involved with AJHA?

I learned about AJHA from Dr. Patrick Washburn at the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University while I was a graduate student there in the early 1990s.

 I attended my first conference in Pittsburgh in 2000, and I was hooked because of the  the camaraderie and the excellence of the research presentations.  

1. How did you become involved with AJHA?

I became a member of AJHA because of my interest in media history and in joining a community of like-minded scholars. I am excited to be presenting at my first AJHA conference in October! 

2. How did you develop your interest in journalism or media history?

My interest in media history stems from my scholarly background: my bachelor's degree is in history, and I have carried over that interest to my work in the journalism field, looking particularly at early women journalists and media coverage of women and minorities. I have published two articles that I am particularly proud of: "'A True Newspaper Woman': The Career of Sadie Kneller Miller," published in Journalism History, is the first article-length analysis of the career of a trailblazing journalist from the turn of the twentieth century; and "Race Films and the Black Press: Representation and Resistance," published in American Journalism, which examines Black press coverage of 'race films' in the early twentieth century. I am excited to continue producing media history scholarship—at the upcoming AJHA conference, I will be presenting a co-authored paper on Black press coverage of the pioneering Black figure skater Mabel Fairbanks.  

3. How has your current position as a president’s postdoctoral fellow at the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota supported your research and/or teaching goals?

I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to be a President's Postdoctoral Fellow, which provides scholars two years of protected research time before transitioning into faculty positions. I have been able to advance my research agenda during this time, presenting several papers at conferences and entering them into the publication pipeline. The Hubbard School has been extremely supportive, providing both mentorship and financial assistance in supporting my research goals. 

4. What question(s) do you wish fellow researchers or colleagues would ask about your work?

I always appreciate being able to discuss the practical implications of my work. Whether it's historical scholarship or another kind of qualitative analysis, I think it's very important to examine how my scholarly contributions connect to, and provide insight about, journalism and media in contemporary contexts, and what real-world problems they address. Talking this through with colleagues helps me articulate the "so what" of my research.

5. What hobbies or activities do you enjoy outside of academia?

I am an avid sports fan and love attending baseball games and tennis tournaments. I'm also a film buff and often go to the movies to watch the latest releases. Finally, I have just started learning to play the guitar and am enjoying it so far!

Carolina Velloso is the President's Postdoctoral Fellow at the Hubbard School of Journalism & Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota. Her research interests include the professional experiences of women and minority journalists and the representation of women and minorities in media.

By: Jason Lee Guthrie

My research project explores the intriguing case of Leigh v. Warner Bros., Inc. (1997). This case is centered around photographer Jack Leigh’s iconic image “Midnight,” which features the “Bird Girl” statue in a Savannah cemetery. Commissioned for John Berendt’s book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, this photograph became the subject of a significant copyright dispute when Warner Bros. produced a film based on the book. The question at issue in the case is whether copyright law can protect something as intangible as a “mood.” This issue is particularly relevant in today’s entertainment industries, where the boundaries of copyright are continually tested by new technologies and creative expressions. 

My interest in this case comes from my primary research agenda on the history of copyright law. I discovered Leigh v. Warner Bros., Inc. (1997) while researching the well-known Williams v. Bridgeport Music, Inc. (2015) case, commonly referred to as the “Blurred Lines” case. In that instance, Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke were found liable for infringing Marvin Gaye’s “Got to Give it Up.” The outcome of the Williams case was unprecedented in copyright law and had the potential to disrupt established practices within the entertainment industry. Although the subsequent Gray v. Perry (2018) case somewhat mitigated its chilling effect, it has nonetheless introduced further ambiguity and potential litigation concerning the copyrightability of a creative work’s intangible qualities, such as its aesthetic, vibe, or “mood.”

My favorite aspect of this project so far has been the chance to work with University of Georgia doctoral student Lexie Little. The funds from the McKerns grant were primarily to hire her as a research assistant. Anyone acquainted with her work will not be surprised at all to learn that she has been fabulous to collaborate with. Her meticulous attention to detail and insightful analysis have been invaluable. To date, we have completed extensive primary source research, focusing on the legal history of the case and the comprehensive collection of Jack Leigh’s papers housed at the University of Georgia’s Special Collections Libraries. This collection includes 200 linear feet of material, providing a rich source of information on Leigh’s work and the legal battle that ensued. 

Our research also examines how the case was covered in contemporary news media and the entertainment industry trade press. This dual approach helps to contextualize the legal proceedings within the broader cultural and technological shifts of the late 1990s. By analyzing articles, editorials, and industry reports, we gain a multifaceted understanding of the case’s impact and the public discourse it generated.

Some key findings thus far are that Leigh’s lawsuit against Warner Bros. was only partially successful, highlighting the complexities that copyright law encounters when it seeks to address rapid technological change. The case occurred during the early days of the internet, a period marked by significant changes in how creative works were produced, distributed, and consumed. Our research explores how these technological advancements influenced the court’s handling of the case and the evolving legislative logic surrounding copyright. By examining cases that have cited Leigh v. Warner Bros. in the past 25 years, we hope to shed light on its lasting impact on copyright law. This historical perspective is crucial for understanding current debates about the copyrightability of increasingly ephemeral, digital works.

Lexie and I look forward to presenting our findings at a conference and ultimately submitting an article to an academic journal. The case of Leigh v. Warner Bros., Inc. offers a fascinating lens through which to explore the boundaries of copyright law. By examining the legal, cultural, and technological contexts of this case, our research could contributes to a deeper understanding of how copyright can—and cannot—protect the intangible qualities of creative works. This historical perspective is essential for navigating the complexities of copyright in the Digital Age.

Jason Lee Guthrie is an assistant professor of communication and media studies at Clayton State University. Within media history, he studies creative industries and intellectual property law. He received a Joseph McKerns Research Grant in 2023.

By: Natascha Toft Roelsgaard

The American Journalism Historians Association 2024 conference in Pittsburgh is fast approaching, and so is the chance to participate in our annual auction event to support graduate student travel. Maybe you are finally ready to part ways with an old bottle of whiskey collecting dust in the dark corners of your office, or you want to donate a signed copy of your latest book. 

Every year, AJHA members near and far donate treasured items to the cause, from books, magazines, and newspapers to antique cameras, newspaper totes, and original artwork. The money raised will help fund student travel to our annual conferences through the Sweeney Graduate Student Travel Stipend. 

Academic conferences present rich opportunities for networking and sharing research, both essential to graduate students as they advance in their academic careers. At the 2023 conference, six students received a travel stipend. One of them was Claire Rounkles, a doctoral candidate at the University of Missouri and assistant professor at the University of Memphis.

“The opportunity the conference provides students to engage with scholars and to learn how to present is invaluable. While receiving the travel stipend, I presented papers, work in progress, and served on a panel,” Rounkles wrote in an email. “Besides the opportunity to advance my research, I have also fostered connections that have helped me in the job hunt.”

Over 60 items were donated last year, and the auction raised $2,358. The committee hopes to surpass $3000 this year to help even more students attend the conference. If you want to donate an item, please fill out the form before Sept. 20. Uploading a photo and description of your item only takes a few minutes. Items will be up for bids during the week of the conference. Donated items must be brought to the conference in Pittsburgh, Pa.

The travel student stipend, named after the late Professor Michael S. Sweeney, ensures the inclusivity of graduate students at future conferences. “Any effort to continue the Sweeney Travel stipend will help future scholars and advance the legacy Mike Sweeney held of promoting students to be the best they can be,” Rounkles wrote in an email.

The auction website opens the week of Sept. 23 and will accept bids until just before the annual business meeting on Saturday, Oct. 5.

The AJHA Board of Directors is proposing an amendment to the constitution and by-laws officially assigning the awarding of the Hazel Dicken-Garcia Grant to the Education Committee.

As explained in this 2022 announcement, then-president Aimee Edmondson tasked an ad-hoc committee with determining the parameters of a grant to be named after benefactor Hazel Dicken-Garcia. At the AJHA Board's 2022 meeting, the Education Committee was tasked with deciding the grant's annual winner. However, that charge had not been codified.

At the 2023 annual meeting, the Board voted to add the Hazel Dicken-Garcia Award to the Constitution and By-Laws.

Addendum B, comprising the last two pages of the document, outlines which AJHA committee is responsible for deciding each AJHA Award, divided according to whether the award is for Service, Teaching, or Research.

This amendment proposes that the Hazel Dicken-Garcia Grant be added as item E under part III (Research Awards) in Addendum B. The wording would be consistent with other items in the addendum, as follows:

E. Education Committee - Hazel Dicken-Garcia Grant: The research grant is intended to provide financial assistance to graduate students and junior faculty conducting research in media history, with preference given to scholars researching 19th- and 20th-century journalism standards, equity issues and the media, gender, identity and the media, media and journalism ethics, international communication, Civil War journalism, and/or free expression/First Amendment issues.

This amendment will appear on the annual election ballot, to be distributed to AJHA members via email in September.

By: Philip M. Glende

I worked as an editor at Knight Ridder newspapers for nearly a decade, concluding with three-plus years at the Akron Beacon Journal, just steps from the office occupied by the late John S. Knight. For more than a decade after getting my doctorate at the University of Wisconsin, I had been thinking that I would like to a do a full-scale biography of Knight, who was active from the 1930s to the 1970s and built Knight Ridder from the little Akron paper to what was once the largest newspaper company in the nation. 

Knight left an extensive collection of personal and business papers at the University of Akron. I started working with the online portion of the Knight collection several years ago. The Joseph McKerns Research Grant allowed me to travel to Akron last fall to begin working with parts of the collection not available online, including correspondence with Basil L. Walters, his top editor while he owned the Chicago Daily News from 1944 to 1959. The collection also includes many photographs of Knight’s professional life, such as those documenting the unscheduled visit of President Lyndon Johnson to the Beacon Journal after the paper endorsed Johnson over Senator Barry Goldwater in 1964. (Knight, a Republican who was a consistent critic of U.S. policy in Vietnam, thought Johnson was “best qualified by experience and temperament” to deal with the problems facing the nation.) The collection also includes scrapbooks containing the more than two thousand columns Knight wrote under the heading “The Editor’s Notebook,” which established Knight’s credentials as a working journalist in addition to a newspaper chain builder. Though one could go through the Beacon Journal for forty years to read his columns, the scrapbooks provided a convenient opportunity to skim the entirety of his work. 

Knight was active during a period of dramatic change in the newspaper industry in the twentieth century. He built Knight Newspapers into a vast chain that included prize-winning papers such as the Philadelphia Inquirer, Miami Herald, Detroit Free Press, Charlotte Observer, San Jose Mercury News, and the Beacon Journal. Knight believed in good newspapers as a business model, and he was an early advocate of readability, visual appeal, lively writing, human interest stories, and interpretive reporting. He also believed newspapers had a civic responsibility, and he repeatedly warned against treating newspapers as little more than cash registers. Knight was an industry leader as the business evolved from independently owned local newspapers to vast publicly owned corporations. When Knight retired in the mid-1970s, newspapers, especially those in the Knight Ridder chain and other respected groups, were better in many ways than in earlier years, but the industry was already on the way to its demise. Newspaper groups went public in the 1960s and 1970s, in part for greater access to capital, but that committed newspapers to prioritize investors over readers or long-term sustainability, it gave analysts and profit-focused institutional investors a role in newspaper management, and it set the stage for the gutting of the industry when advertising and circulation revenue declined in the twenty-first century.

My trip to the Archives and Special Collections at the University Libraries in Akron was a great opportunity to immerse myself in Knight’s professional life. I want to thank the American Journalism Historians Association, former research chair Gerry Lanosga, and the research committee for approving my application. The grant was a significant boost as I was in the early stages of this project. I hope to be able to share this research with other scholars soon.

Philip M. Glende previously served as the director of student media at Indiana State University and worked as a journalist and newsroom manager.

By: Karlin Andersen Tuttle

Walking through Target last month, I was surprised to see aisles jammed packed with binders in a variety of sizes, locker organizers, and rainbow packs of crayons spilling out from the seasonal section and encroaching on the laundry detergent and electronics department. While I was enjoying a few calm days in the midst of summer travel and endless sunny days, small groups of parents and children were debating the strengths of pencil brands and if they really needed six glue sticks for a single school year. I felt thankful that I was many years past searching for the elusive package of highlighters in the correct quantity and colors my school list required, but I was also reminded of another group of students who spent their summer piecing together resources for the year ahead. 

I belong to a group chat of fifteen current and former mass communications graduate students who spent much of the summer months strategizing and planning how they could attend national and international conferences. Many of them are impressive scholars who regularly present top papers, win prizes often given to more seasoned researchers, and bring new ideas or interdisciplinary approaches to established areas. Yet those accolades do not solve their biggest hurdle: affording the registration, travel, and board expenses associated with conferences.

On average, attending a single conference cost members of that group chat $850. While some of their institutions and programs paid for at least part of that cost, they mentioned that their yearly conference funding rarely covered two conferences. That reality often pushes graduate students to attend fewer specialty conferences and skip conventions in which they are not presenting.

As a recent PhD graduate I faced those same challenges but, due to receiving a Sweeney Graduate Student Travel Stipend, attending the AJHA convention was never in question. The money raised during the auction helped bridge the gap between travel funding from Penn State and the full convention costs. Presenting at least year’s convention gave me an opportunity to receive feedback on my dissertation research, network as I entered my first year on the job market, and witness a level of scholarly comradery I had not experienced in other spaces.

For many of us, purchasing scratch and sniff markers or TI-84 graphing calculators never factors into our syllabi prep and finalizing lectures or class activities. However, most of us can remember the difficult years spent balancing limited financial resources with departmental expectations and personal desire to attend conferences. Donating to the Sweeney fund or bidding during the auction lessens those concerns for all graduate students attending the annual AJHA convention.

Anyone interested in donating an item to the 2024 auction should submit information about their donation before September 20 and bring their item to the conference in Pittsburgh. Bidding begins the week of the convention and winners must bring their items home after the conference.

Karlin Andersen Tuttle recently earned a dual-title doctorate in mass communications and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies from Penn State. She also received a stipend from the Sweeney Graduate Student Travel Fund which helped her attend last year’s AJHA convention and present her early dissertation research. She currently teaches at Penn State and serves as the editorial liaison for Mass Communication & Society.

How did you become involved with AJHA?

Following my graduation from the University of Texas in Austin, I received an appointment as Assistant Director of the Center for American History where I served as the Director of the American Media History Archives. The following year I received an appointment to the Journalism Program where I taught American news media history at the graduate and undergraduate level. I joined AJHA and attended my first conference in 2020 in Pittsburgh. I was elected to the Board of Directors and in 2005 became Chair of the AJHA Conference Committee in 2005. I served as the Chair until 2015 and directed our annual meetings in San Antonio, Richmond, Seattle, Birmingham, Tucson, Kansas City, Raleigh, New Orleans, St. Paul, and Oklahoma City. I have presented many papers, participated in programs and presentations at our AJHA meetings over the years and received two President’s Awards for Distinguished Service. 

How did you develop your interest in journalism or media history?

In 1976, I was the editor of the Wimberley View, a weekly newspaper founded that year by my family. We named our paper the View as a metaphor for the majestic hills, wildlife, and scenery in the Wimberley area and the divergent perspectives we wished our newspaper to provide. We covered many significant and controversial stories on political corruption, corporate and utility abuse, damaging actions to our environment and racial tensions and discrimination through in-depth news, analysis, features and provocative opinions. I am proud to say that within a few years the Wimberley View became a profitable and award-winning newspaper. This included many news, feature, and editorial awards, which culminated with the 1980 Texas Press Association Award for Best Weekly Newspaper in Texas.

At the Wimberley View we adhered to the longstanding newspaper tradition of supporting local businesses through news and advertisements. From our first publication forward, our policy was to provide all new businesses with a story and photo of their grand opening. One of these new enterprises we covered was the Feed Bag Restaurant. Their motto was: “Country-fied Country-fried chicken.” A typo on the photo caption to the Feed Bag debut in the View read: “Country-fied Country-fried children.” Of course, I was highly embarrassed and decided to go to the Feed Bag owner and offer my apologies. When I arrived, he said that they were expecting me and started laughing about my mistake. The owner thanked us for increasing his business. Curious, I inquired how that could happen. He replied that since the story came out many people stopped by and offered to drop off their unruly children for the Feed Bag menu. This was an important lesson for me to learn. Honest mistakes are acknowledged and forgivable, but conscious misinformation and errors should be promptly addressed and corrected. These memorable events and many other remarkable journalistic experiences prepared me for the challenges I would face in pursuing my Ph.D. in history and becoming an historian of the media, politics and culture.

What would you like others to know about your work with the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) and the connections with AJHA?

I served on the TSHA Board of Directors from 2019 to 2023 and as President from 2022-23. I am also a TSHA Fellow. Although it may seem as difficult as untangling barbed wire, our challenge as historians in all fields of history is to study and analyze people, events, values, and patterns in society from many perspectives. If we choose otherwise, then we will diminish and ultimately silence these alternative and noteworthy voices from our history.

As historians, we must remove the blindfolds and rise to the challenge of effectively and accurately communicating our history to present and future generations. History should not be written or communicated as a preordained and self-justifying myth or as an historical narrative written from the viewpoint of a single group of people. We must ask the difficult questions and seek the ignored, overlooked, and discounted voices and experiences from our past. As we enact our mission at TSHA and AJHA, our responsibility is to recognize, include, and preserve the histories of all peoples and cultures, whose stories are an essential part of our history. We must endeavor to provide the histories of all underrepresented and overlooked groups along with those whose stories are newly emerging.

Historians do recognize the value and influence that myth and memory play in history. There is an important difference in how historians shine a light into the darkness as we work to reinterpret the popular mythologies that are inaccurate or undeveloped. In addition, as historians and as an historical association, our duty is to provide leadership and support publications, educational materials, and scholarship that follow the principles and practices advocated by the professional historical community as we search for a more accurate past that is useful to all people. Separating the real from the imagined landscape of our past is our duty and our mission. In doing so, our history will provide everyone with a path of understanding and love for our state and nation.

How does your industry experience inform your teaching and research?

The role of the media is in all my ten published works and the many articles I have written over the years. In my book The First Texas News Barons (University of Texas Press, 2005), In this volume I wrote about how twentieth-century newspapers and newsmakers were prominent in our modern historical process. At times, Texas newspapers aggressively published articles and opinions on the importance of a more tolerant approach to society and culture and to embrace modernization. They were often in the forefront in promoting business expansion. Sometimes they took courageous stands and opposed the most extreme of the mythmakers, such as the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. However, all too often they silently acquiesced and supported those who wanted no change to the status quo. This was most evident in the ongoing struggles for civil rights, safer working conditions, providing equal access and opportunity, and preventing exploitation of people and the environment. Prior to the 1960s, very few mainstream publications challenged these assumptions, and one’s chances for advancement at any level depended on one’s race, gender, or class. Texas newsmakers remained comfortable as advocates for growth and economic expansion, and their voices perpetuated many of the myths and memories of our history.

One prime illustration of this phenomenon was the 1936 Texas Centennial. Journalism and history played a pivotal role in the Texas Centennial celebration that blended promotion, commerce, and chauvinism. The state’s newspaper publishers were a driving force in the creation and the campaign for the Centennial events and its legacy. In doing so, these publishers popularized the new western image of Texas. This legacy was based partly on history and on mythology, as the press promoted the rawhide-tough, independent cowboy. This new imagery for Texas did not replace the adherence to the South and the Lost Cause mythology that perpetuated the story that slavery was not a cause for the Civil War. The new idea of “Texanism” as an Anglo-centric historical narrative became popular during the difficult times of the Great Depression and the promotional opportunities presented by the Texas Centennial.

Journalists played a pivotal role popularizing this new image of Texas. Recognizing an opportunity for marketing and business expansion, the Texas Press Association (TPA) served as a booster and created an organization to aggressively promote the Centennial. In 1924, TPA selected Lowry Martin, the advertising manager for the Corsicana Daily Sun, to lead the Centennial charge. Martin’s committee included Houston’s Jesse H. Jones and other newspapermen. They developed a strategy and launched a campaign for the 1936 Centennial. They successfully drew support from the Texas newspaper industry that followed with the endorsement of the state’s business and political leadership.

Themes for the Centennial celebrations largely focused on individualism and the frontier spirit of nineteenth-century Anglo Texans. The publishers’ efforts to mark the 1936 Centennial were wildly successful. Millions of dollars in federal and state funds supported the events that attracted people from across Texas and the nation. Many businesses and local governments enthusiastically jumped on the bandwagon as they viewed this as a unique opportunity to receive the Texas Centennial brand to promote their own products and services.

What hobbies or activities do you enjoy outside of academia?

A sixth generation Texan, I am an historian, author, and ardent environmentalist. Brenda and I live in scenic arts community of Wimberley, Texas where our land is in a wildlife management and natural area. I am very grateful to family, friends, our teachers and all who provided inspiration, wisdom, and lessons from life over the years.

I received my Ph.D. and a B.A. in History from the University of Texas at Austin and my M.A. in History from Texas State University. My first book was a biography of Ralph W. Yarborough, the People’s Senator (University of Texas Press, 2001) which garnered many regional, state, and national awards. I have authored and edited ten books and hundreds of articles on U.S. and Texas history, biographies, oral histories, conservation, and sustainability. I am retired from the University of Texas at Austin and President of Patrick Cox Consultants LLC, a historical and nonprofit consulting firm.

I was honored to receive the 2014 Distinguished Alumni Award from Texas State University. I am a Fellow of the Texas State Historical Association, TSHA President from 2020 to 2021. I am a Distinguished Alumni of the Texas State University College of Liberal Arts and serve as Chair of the Council of Liberal Arts. I am Fellow and past board member of the East Texas Historical Association and a member of the Texas Institute of Letters, the Philosophical Society of Texas, and the Organization of American Historians.

I am a former President of the Wimberley Lions Club and the Wimberley Valley Watershed Association. I currently am an elected trustee of the Wimberley Village Library Board of Directors and the Trinity Edwards Springs Protection Association (TESPA)Board of Directors.