39th Annual AJHA Convention
Virtual Conference   |   Oct. 2-3, 2020

Convention contacts

Convention Coordinator
Caryl Cooper
University of Alabama

Registration Coordinator
Ken Ward
Lamar University

Program Coordinator
Mike Conway

Indiana University

 

Conference Program

Questions about the schedule should be directed to 2nd Vice President Mike Conway

Access information was emailed to registered participants on Sept. 28. If you need assistance, email ajhaconvention@gmail.com

Go to: Saturday

Friday, October 2

All sessions are one hour unless otherwise noted
30-minute break between each session

11 a.m. E/10 a.m. C/9 a.m. M/8 a.m. P Choice of Two Sessions

Paper Session: Defining Acceptability: Boundary Work of Journalism
Room A

Moderator: Carolyn Edy, Appalachian State University

Patrick Walters, Temple University/Kutztown University, “Boundaries and Journalistic Authority in Newspaper Coverage of the Hutchins Report

Ashley Walter and Karlin Andersen, Pennsylvania State University, “All the President’s Media: How the Traditional Press Responded to New Communications Technology Adopted by U.S. Presidents

Autumn Lorimer Linford, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, “‘They’ll Never Make Newspaper Men’: Early Gendering in Journalism, 1884-1889

Panel Session: Black Women, Black Media and the Legacy of Women’s Suffrage
Room B

Moderator: Meta G. Carstarphen, University of Oklahoma

Panelists: Felecia Jones Ross, Ohio State University; Rachel Grant, University of Florida; Earnest L. Perry Jr., University of Missouri

12:30 p.m. E/11:30 a.m. C/10:30a.m. M/9:30a.m. P  Choice of Two Sessions

Paper Session: Portrayals and Production: Blacks as Creators and Focus of 20th Century Journalism
Room A

Moderator: Brenda Edgerton-Webster

Thomas Terry, Utah State University, “Its Racist Plunder: Opposing Agendas and Representations of the Elections of 1898 and 2008 through White and Black Press Political Cartoonists

Jon Bekken, Albright College, “Relations of Production at the Chicago Defender: Union-Busting, Contingent Labor, and Consolidation in the Black Press

Owen V. Johnson, Indiana University,  “That’s All We Did for Him: The Story of Ernie Pyle and His Relationship to Blacks

Panel Session: Keeping History in Our Curriculum: Incorporating Historical Material into Non-History Courses
Room B

Moderator: Meghan Menard McCune, Louisiana State University

Panelists: Melita M. Garza, Texas Christian University; Sheryl Kennedy Haydel, Louisiana State University; Erin Coyle, Temple University; David J. Vergobbi, University of Utah

2 p.m. E/1 p.m. C/12 p.m. M/11 a.m. P Choice of Two Sessions

Paper Session: New Programming Directions in Media Platforms
Room A

Moderator: Nathaniel Frederick, Winthrop University

Julien Gorbach, University of Hawaii at Manoa, “No Monsters and No Heroes! How the Realism of The Front Page Changed the Movies

Nicholas Hirshon, William Paterson University, “Bowling Headliners (1948-1950): The Creation of a Spectator Sport in Television’s Emergent Years

Madeleine Liseblad and Greg Pitts, Middle Tennessee State University, “Breaking the Billboard Magazine Mold: The Barbara Streisand, Michael Jackson and Julio Iglesias Super Specials

Panel Session: Presidential Attacks on Journalism as a Democratic Institution Since Nixon
Room B

Moderator: Aimee Edmondson, Ohio University

Panelists: Thomas A. Mascaro, Bowling Green State University; Amber Roessner, University of Tennessee; Jon Marshall, Northwestern University

3-3:30 p.m. E/2-2:30 p.m. C/1-1:30 p.m. M/12-12:30 p.m. P

COFFEE BREAK: Meet up with AJHA friends in Room C for a chat between sessions

3:30 p.m. E/2:30 p.m. C/1:30 p.m. M/12:30 p.m. P Choice of Two Sessions

Paper Session: Women’s Role in Society: Public Relations and Journalism Interpretations
Room A

Moderator: Carolyn Kitch, Temple University

Tracy Lucht, Iowa State University, “Amelia Bloomer, The Lily, and Early Feminist Discourse in the U.S.

Pete Smith, Mississippi State University, “‘To Be Up and Doing’: Kate Markham Power’s Crusade Journalism and Case Against Woman Suffrage in the Post-Civil War South

Brian Carroll, Berry College, “Isabella Goodwin: Gendered Newspaper Coverage of New York's First Female Detective

Panel Session: Solving the Fake News Problem!
Room B

Moderator: Teri Finneman, University of Kansas

Panelists: Nathaniel Frederick, Winthrop University; Michelle Ciulla Lipkin, National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE); Lisa Parcell, Wichita State University; David Bordewyk, South Dakota Newspaper Association

5 p.m. E/4 p.m. C/3 p.m. M/2 p.m. P

Blanchard Dissertation Award session 
Room A       

Winner: Amie Marsh Jones, University of Georgia, “The Forgotten Children of Bath: Media and Memory of the Bath School Bombing of 1927” (Dissertation Chair: Janice Hume, University of Georgia)

Honorable Mentions:
John Haman, University of Dubuque, “Faith, News, and Truth: The Kingdom’s Crusade for Social and Economic Justice in 1890s America” (Dissertation Chair: Frank Durham, University of Iowa)

Caitlin Cieslik-Miskimen, University of Idaho, “City of Destiny: Print Culture, Modernity, and the Struggle for a City’s Future” (Dissertation Chairs: Sue Robinson, William J. Reese, and James L. Baughman, University of Wisconsin-Madison)

Moderator: Dale Zacher, St. Cloud State University 

7 p.m. E/6 p.m. C/5 p.m. M/4 p.m. P

Julie Hedgepeth Williams talk/performance: Carrie Ingalls, frontier newspaperwoman
* Followed by Historical Figure Happy Hour - Come dressed as your favorite historical figure or use a picture of one as your Zoom background! *
Room A

Since joining AJHA in 1992, Julie Hedgepeth Williams has served as president and a member of the board of directors. She was honored to win AJHA's first Dissertation Award.  She is also involved in AJHA's Southeast Symposium. Julie has taught media history in the graduate school at University of Alabama and teaches at Samford University.  She has published a number of books, including the award-winning A Rare Titanic Family, about her great-uncle on the Titanic. Meanwhile, Wings of Opportunity, Three Not-So-Ordinary Joes, and Little Newspapers on the Prairie all started life as AJHA papers.

Little Newspapers on the Prairie is the story of Carrie Ingalls' career as a frontier journalist.  If you grew up reading Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books, you'll recognize Carrie as the third of the four Ingalls sisters, the one immediately younger than Laura. In the books, she's depicted as worry-worthy -- Laura is often concerned for Carrie's health. But as an adult, Carrie was the maverick of the Ingalls girls. A biographer of Laura mentioned briefly that Carrie grew up to run newspapers all over the West. When Williams read that as a teenager, it was merely interesting. Then she took media history in grad school and realized Carrie was the prototypical frontier press worker. Her career came together at the nexus of women's expanding roles and the frontier press movement in the late 1800s/early 1900s.


Saturday, October 3

All sessions one hour unless otherwise noted
30-minute break between sessions

11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. E/10–11:30 a.m. C/9-10:30 a.m. M/8-9:30 a.m. P

Research in Progress: Choice of Two Sessions


1 p.m. E/12 p.m. C/11 a.m. M/10 a.m. P  Choice of Two Sessions

Paper Session: Changing Perceptions Through Fact, Fiction, and Persuasion
Room A

Moderator: Andrea Ferraro, University of Mount Union

Amy Mattson Lauters, Minnesota State University, Mankato, “‘Giving Cheap Knowledge to the People’: Community-building Among the British Working-class Through the Poor Man’s Guardian, 1831-1835

Emily Muhich, Louisiana State University, “Before Scopes: God, Darwin and America’s First Anti-Evolution Campaign

Susan Bragg, Georgia Southwestern State University, “Emma Bugbee and the ‘Girl Reporter’: The Mid-Century Print Culture Politics of Juvenile Literature

Panel Session: National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Workshop on Media History Grant Proposals
Room B

Moderator: Robby Byrd, University of Memphis

Panelists: Joshua Sternfeld, National Endowment for the Humanities; Mike Conway, Indiana University

2:30 p.m. E/1:30 p.m. C/12:30 p.m. M/11:30 a.m. P  Choice of Two Sessions

Panel Session: American Journalism Panel—The Press and Protests: Black Oppression and Resistance
Room A

Moderator: Vanessa Murphree, University of Southern Mississippi

Panelists: Ford Risley, Pennsylvania State University; Bernell Tripp, University of Florida; Sid Bedingfield, University of Minnesota; Kathy Roberts Forde, University of Massachusetts, Amherst          

Panel Session: Infusing Historical Consciousness in Journalism
Room B

Moderator: Michael Fuhlhage, Wayne State University

Panelists:  Jennifer Hart, Wayne State University; Jennifer Moore, University of Minnesota-Duluth; Candi Carter Olson, Utah State University; Carly Goodman, La Salle University and Washington Post’s “Made by History” 


3:30-4 p.m. E/2:30-3 p.m. C/1:30-2 p.m. M/12:30-1 p.m. P

COFFEE BREAK: Meet up with AJHA friends in Room C for a chat between sessions

4 p.m. E/3 p.m. C/2 p.m. M/1 p.m. P Choice of Two Sessions

Paper Session: Descriptions of Destruction: How Journalists Approached 20th Century Carnage
Room A

Moderator: Melissa Greene-Blye, University of Kansas

Raymond McCaffrey, University of Arkansas, “The Oklahoma City Bombing, 25 Years Later: Institutional Values and Professional Practices Employed by Journalists on the Biggest Story of Their Lives

Michael S. Sweeney, Ohio University, “The ‘Exactest’ Color and Situation: James Cassidy’s Two Radio Voices in World War II

Thomas Mascaro, Bowling Green State University, “A Journalist’s Guernica: With 'East Pakistan, 1971,' NBC’s Robert Rogers Introduces Rhonda Schwartz to Documentary Method in a Haunting Critique of U.S. Policy in the Pakistani Civil War

Panel Session: Talking Theory: New Scholarship in Journalism’s Legal History
Room B

Moderator: Patrick File, University of Nevada, Reno

Panelists:  Jared Schroeder, Southern Methodist University; Victoria Ekstrand, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Eric Robinson, University of South Carolina; Dean C. Smith, High Point University

5:30 p.m. E/4:30 p.m. C/3:30 p.m. M/2:30 p.m. P Choice of Two Sessions

Paper Session: Media Portrayals and Historical Memory
Room A

Moderator: Rachel Grant, University of Florida

Matthew Cikovic, Pennsylvania State University, “Mister Rogers: The Public Broadcasting Champion  

Brendon Floyd, University of Missouri, “From Nationalism to Imperialism: Musgrave, Burk, and the Irish Rebellion of 1798

Michael Fuhlhage, Anna Lindner, and Keena Neal, Wayne State University, “From Empire Builder to Failed Despot: News Framing of William Walker’s First Nicaragua Filibuster Campaign, 1855

Panel Session: “Did That Really Happen?”: Historical Fiction as “Gateway Drug” to Historical Research
Room B

Moderator: Nancy Roberts, State University of New York, Albany

Panelists: Amy Mattson Lauters, Minnesota State University, Mankato; Erika Pribanic-Smith, University of Texas at Arlington; Kate Roberts Edenborg, University of Wisconsin-Stout; Ashley Walter, Pennsylvania State University 

7 p.m. E/6 p.m. C/5 p.m. M/4 p.m. P

Book Award Session
Room A

Winner: Mike Conway, Indiana University, Contested Ground: ‘The Tunnel’ and the Struggle Over Cold War America (University of Massachusetts Press, 2019)

Honorable Mentions:
Kimberley Mangun, University of Utah, Emory O. Jackson, the Birmingham
World, and the Fight for Civil Rights in Alabama, 1940-1975 (Peter Lang, 2019)

Michael S. Sweeney and Natascha Toft Roelsgaard, Ohio University, Journalism and the Russo-Japanese War: The End of the Golden Age of Combat Correspondence (Lexington Books, 2019)

Moderator: Michael Stamm, Michigan State University

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