Belatedly, we are posting the schedule for the annual meeting of the Society for History in the Federal Government, which took place April 24-25, 2015, at the Robert C. Byrd Center for Legislative Studies, Shepherdstown, West Virginia.
Friday, April 24
Digital History Workshop
Chair, James Wyatt, Director of Programs and Research, Robert C. Byrd Center for Legislative Studies
Micki Kaufman, CUNY Graduate Center, “Everything on Paper Will Be Used Against Me: Quantifying Kissinger”
Billy Wayson, “Making Sense of Digital Information Using Qualitative Analysis Software
Tom Faith, Office of the Historian, Department of State, “Mapping the Foreign Relations of the United States Series”
James Wyatt, Robert C. Byrd Center, “Rethinking Congressional History on the Web through Collaborative Digital Exhibits”
Opening Session & Trask Lecture
Roger R. Trask Lecture: Victoria A. Harden, former Director of the Office of NIH History and the Stetten Museum at the National Institutes for Health
Saturday, April 25
Unpacking the Life Cycle of the Foreign Relations of the United States Series
Chair, Mandy Chalou, Office of the Historian, Department of State
Alexander Wieland, Office of the Historian, Department of State, “Conceptual and Methodological Challenges in Compiling the Foreign Relations Series.”
Kristin Ahlberg, Office of the Historian, Department of State, “The Foreign Relation Series and Human Rights: Documenting the Carter Administration"
Carl Ashley, Office of the Historian, Department of State, “Declassifying the History of U.S. Foreign Relations in FRUS”
Erin Ford Cozens, Office of the Historian, Department of State, “From Page to Book: Publishing the Foreign Relations series”
Internships and Fellowships in the Federal Government: Experiences in History Offices
Chair, Anne Musella
Danielle Dulken, American University, “National Coalition for History”
Michael Goodwin, Florida Atlantic University, “US Senate Historical Office”
Julie Prieto, Army Center for Military History, “The Presidential Management Fellowship (PMF)”
Public/Private Partnership: Ancestry.com and the National Archives
Quinton Atkinson, Senior Director of Global Content Acquisition and Partner Development, Ancestry.Com
Central Intelligence Agency Historical Review Program: Declassifying the Agency’s Past
Chair, Carl Ashley, Office of the Historian, Department of State
Peter Nyren, Historical Programs Coordinator
Celia Mansfield, Foreign Relations Coordinator
PANEL V: Photographic Research in the Digital Age, A Roundtable Discussion
Chair, Erin Cozens, Office of the Historian, Department of State
Sarah Barksdale, Department of Defense Vietnam War Commemoration Commission Joel Christenson, Office of the Secretary of Defense Historical Office
Eric Boyle, National Museum of Health and Medicine
Christopher Semancik, Chief, Collections Branch, Center for Military History
Institutional Histories: Lessons From the Past and Directions for the Future
Chair, Kristina Giannotta, Society for History in the Federal Government
Gregory Martin, Naval History and Heritage Command, “The Business of History”
Robert Adcock, George Washington University, “The Increase and Diffusion of Knowledge”: Constructing the Relation of the Smithsonian Institution of Politics, 1835-1866”
Christopher Donohue, National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), “Capturing Genome History at the NHGRI: An Archival and Scholarly Initiative
PANEL VII: "What is the Value of a Secret? Challenges Encountered in the Declassification and Release of Special Collections," Roundtable session
Amanda Weimer, National Archives, National Declassification Center
Jennifer Halpern, National Archives, National Declassification Center
Joshua Mason, National Archives, National Declassification Center
Brewer Thompson, National Archives, National Declassification Center
Battlefields, Wars, and Interpretation from the American Frontier to the Nuclear Age
Chair, Elizabeth Charles, Department of State
Michael Binder, Air Force Declassification Office, “Cold War Amnesia: Losing Historic Places, Losing Our History.”
James McNaughton, “History of the Cold War”
Nathan Wuertenberg, George Washington University, “Relics of Barbarism: Memories of Frontier Violence: Federal Indian Policies and the Indian Removal Act of 1830”
David Goldman, US Army Center for Military History, “The Big Lift, 1963—Model for the Cold War”
On Being a Historian for versus a Historian of: The Relationship between Historians and their Agencies
Chair, Emily Swafford, American Historical Association
Edward Balleisen, Associate Professor History and Public Policy, Duke University
Jessie Kratz, National Archives and Records Administration
Karen Kruse Thomas, JHU Bloomberg School of Public Health
Tom Wellock, Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Water, Infrastructure, and Emergency Operations: Three Case Studies in the History of the Army’s Civil Work ProgramChair: John C. Lonnquest, Chief, Office of History, US Army Corps of Engineers
Charles A. Camillo, Historian, Mississippi River Commission, USACE
Jeffrey Mitchell Brideau, Post-Doctoral Researcher, IWR, USACE
Matthew T. Pearcy, Historian, Office of History, USACE
Comment: Joe Manous, Program Manager, Institute for Water Resources (IWR), USACE
Data Collection and Documentation in the Digital
Chair, Joshua Botts, Office of the Historian, Department of State
Michael Lawson, Morgan Angel & Associates, “Close Attention to Detail: The Challenge of Collecting, Imaging and Interpreting Historical Documents in the Contemporary Digital World of Litigation”
Dana John Stefanelli, Smith Library, Mount Vernon, “Federal City Studies: Digital Research and Data Sharing About Early Washington, DC.
Jody Brumage, Robert C. Byrd Center for Legislative Studies, “Reevaluating the Archivist’s Role in Appraisal: Necessary Steps to Face the Issues of Born-Digital Collections”
