With generous support from BAAS and the Eccles Centre, I was able to spend five weeks in June and July 2016 at the British Library. The Eccles Centre Visiting Fellowship in North American Studies allowed me to conduct research that expanded on a chapter of my recently completed doctoral thesis, which I intend to write up as an article to submit for publication this year. The article focuses on the live displays of Chinese people at the Progressive Era world’s fairs on the West Coast, and argues that the fairs became key sites of battle for the ways in which the Chinese and China were represented in this period. While the thesis chapter concentrated on the role of white

Americans in organising and interpreting these displays, my research at the British Library aimed to further examine the significance of the world’s fairs to Chinese Americans, and to consider how this immigrant group used the Chinese exhibitions to negotiate the terms of their inclusion in American society.

The British Library holds many primary materials relating to this topic. The Western Americana microfiche collection contains documents on the early Chinese experience in the American West, including state legislature reports that contributed to the push for exclusion, and historical and fictional accounts of San Francisco’s Chinatown. Other resources include early studies on the causes and impact of nineteenth century Chinese immigration, reports on efforts to assimilate Chinese communities, and early twentieth century letters from a Chinese official on his views of Western civilization. These sources help to contextualise the significance of the world’s fairs as spaces in which white Americans, Chinese Americans, and Chinese foreign officials could compete over representations of ‘Chinese-ness’. As events that prized international participation and expressions of national pride, world’s fairs presented a unique opportunity for the Chinese immigrant community to celebrate their national heritage in front of a receptive American audience, and to shape representations of China and ‘Chinese-ness’ through the organisation of fair exhibits.

In addition, the British Library provides access to a range of new and specialised secondary literature that is unrivalled in any UK institution. Asian American Studies and the new discipline of Transpacific Studies are currently underrepresented in UK American Studies and History departments, which makes engagement with these topics challenging. During my fellowship, I was able to tap into this literature and broaden my understanding of the Chinese American experience at the turn of the twentieth century. In particular, scholars such as Shehong Chen and Mae Ngai point to the truly transpacific nature of San Francisco’s Chinatown, and the significant role played by the Chinese community in America in shaping events in both America and China. As China refused to contribute to many of the world’s fairs of this period in an official capacity, Ngai sees the Chinese Americans that did participate as ‘culture brokers’ that sought to improve their standing in American society by presenting a form of ‘Chinese-ness’ to American audiences. Regarding their home nation as internationally weak, Chinese Americans used American institutions to negotiate the terms of their inclusion.

During the period of my award, I was also able to participate in the Eccles Centre’s fantastic Summer Scholars programme, presenting my research to a public audience in the British Library’s conference centre. As an early career researcher based in the North West, the opportunity to research and present at such a well-resourced and supportive national institution has been hugely rewarding. Being able to undertake the fellowship shortly after the completion of my PhD, and in a period between academic posts (and the library access that comes with them), has been incredibly helpful. I am extremely grateful to BAAS and the Eccles Centre for creating these opportunities and supporting researchers at crucial stages in their careers, and to all of the staff at the British Library who made my fellowship so productive and enjoyable.

Emily J. Trafford is a University Teacher in the School of Histories, Languages and Cultures at the University of Liverpool.

Determined to make the most of my generously funded research trip, I set out early on Monday morning to ensure I would arrive at the British Library well in advance before its doors opened. To my great surprise I was already greeted by a long line of students, researchers and scholars, who were eager to enter this repository of knowledge. With excitement I realized that for the following two weeks of May 2016 I would join this information-seeking flock – an opportunity for which I am extremely grateful.

The Eccles Centre Visiting European Postgraduate Award 2015 allowed me to delve into the Library’s collection on American print culture, which proved invaluable for the progress of my paper.

Being a PhD student of English linguistics at the University of Salzburg (Department of English and American Studies), I am currently writing my doctoral thesis on the textual evolution of advertisements. The aim of my empirical project is to outline the thematic, structural and stylistic changes that have shaped this particular genre from the late seventeenth century to date. As I intend to correlate these linguistic transformations with the economic and sociological conditions of their occurrence, my results will present a novel perspective on the motivations for such genre modifications. Thanks to the Eccles Award I was granted access to an abundance of key material, which would have otherwise been unobtainable. Following the framework of Hallidayan functional grammar (Halliday 1994, Halliday/Matthiessen 2014 and Thompson 2014), an approach which has hardly been applied to investigate highly persuasive texts[1], my interdisciplinary dissertation project examines the interpersonal as well as experiential meanings conveyed in consumer goods advertisements. Despite the wealth of advertising research, especially in regard to history, social and communication/media studies, the diachronic systemic functional development of ad copies remains largely unexplored. The majority of linguistic research has so far concentrated on the most overt textual metamorphoses such as sentence length, integration of humor, or use of adjectives within a specific newspaper or period e.g. Leech (1966), Gieszinger (2001), Görlach (2002). Due to the financial support of BAAS, BACS and Eccles I am now one step closer to filling this gap apparent in the current research situation.

Dedicating the first half of my research stay to the study of text linguistic and sociohistorical sources, I browsed through various handbooks on systemic functional linguistics and multimodality – both of which are academic disciplines that have been studied more extensively in the United Kingdom and in particular in London than in Austria. The theoretical insights gained from these works helped deepen my methodological understanding in several aspects. Still more beneficial was the input provided by the Library’s holdings on the printing history of the United States. Contrasting the rhetorical strategies used in American, British and Australian print ads, my research traces the visual-verbal development of promotional discourse across continents and cultures. Its assessment of the preferred tactics of each region will thus not only advance current knowledge on the variation in argumentative techniques, but further allow reflections on societal norms and values. The great extent of information on American advertising practices as well as its rapid availability propelled my writing immensely. The most exciting finds, however, were those unplanned and completely unexpected treasures that landed on my reading desk simply because I had the time and resources to follow bibliographic references. Having recently presented some of my preliminary findings on sweets advertisements, I was ecstatic to stumble upon several compendia on the history of chocolate and cocoa. These documentations will be a perfect complement to my chapter.

During the second half of my research period, I focused on expanding the basis of my textual analysis: my corpus data. Compiled from a variety of historical newspaper and advertising archives, public and private collections as well as advertising anthologies e.g. Heimann (2001), my US sample had thus far contained a number of gaps, particularly for the early years of American advertising. Access to the Library’s electronic archives as well as its Newsroom, providing a substantial collection of microfilm, digital and print newspapers, enabled me to complete my corpus – an accomplishment which would not have been possible without the Library’s rich periodical collections and wealth of advertising literature.

Words can hardly express how grateful I am for the opportunity to pursue research as one of the ten recipients of The Eccles Centre Visiting European Postgraduate Award 2015. The generosity of BAAS, BACS and the Eccles Centre, the amazing support of the Library’s staff as well as the excellence of its resources deserve utmost praise. And as if that was not enough, the Eccles Centre brings a wide range of marvelous events and lectures for everyone to enjoy – including me.

Referenced works:

Gieszinger, Sabine (2001) The history of advertising language: the advertisements in The Times from 1788 to 1996. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.

Görlach, Manfred (2002) A linguistic history of advertising, 1700-1890, in: Fanego, Teresa; Méndez-Naya, Belén and Seoane, Elena (eds.) Sounds, words, texts and change. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 83-104.

Halliday, M.A.K. (1994) An introduction to functional grammar (2^nd ed.) London: Arnold.

Halliday, M.A.K. and Matthiessen, Christian (2014) Halliday’s introduction to functional grammar (4^th ed.) London: Routledge.

Heimann, Jim (ed.) (2001) 40s – all American-ads. Köln: Taschen.

Leech, Geoffrey (1966) English in advertising: a linguistic study of advertising in Great Britain. London: Longman.

Purba, Jasawitten B. (2013) Thematic realization of car advertisements in Kompas newspapers [unpubl. MA thesis] Medan: University of Medan [WWW document].

<http://jurnal.unimed.ac.id/2012/index.php/LTBI/article/download/1185/948> [6 Aug. 2014].

Stöckl, Hartmut (2014) “He begs to inform every person interested” – a diachronic study of address and interaction in print advertising, Anglistik: International Journal of English Studies 25.2, 81–106.

Thompson, Geoff (2014) Introducing functional grammar (3^rd ed.) London: Routledge.

Endnotes

[1] Only Purba (2013) and Stöckl (2014) have yet used a systemic functional framework to analyse advertisements.

Sonja Molnar is a PhD student of English linguistics in the Department of English and American Studies at the University of Salzburg.

This programme contributes considerably to fostering talent among the American Studies community in the UK.

It depends for its funds entirely on public contributions, and can only have a long term impact if BAAS members and other interested persons continue to be generous with donations. The Treasurer of BAAS welcomes contributions small and large, and invites anyone wishing to support BAAS in maintaining its work in this area to contact her.

The resources available are normally modest. It is envisaged that grants will be supplemented by funds from other sources.

The maximum of each grant will be £1000. Although there is no specific time limit for the duration of the awards, and it is recognised that awards under the scheme may need to be supplemented, it is not intended that they should be used to supplement or extend much longer-term awards.

The duration of the award would typically be up to c. twelve weeks. Applications are invited from persons normally resident in the UK, and from scholars currently working at, or registered as postgraduates at, UK universities and institutions of higher education. Preference will be given to those who are planning to do reserach in the USA, have had no previous opportunities for research-related visits to the USA, and to young scholars, including postgraduate students. BAAS particularly welcomes applications from postgraduates needing to visit the USA for research purposes.

Closing date

The closing date for applications is Friday 25 November 2016.  Travel must take place between 1 April 2017 and 31 March 2018.  Awards for travel will not be made retrospectively.

Awards for travel will not be made retrospectively. Successful candidates are required to provide a brief report of their research trip for publication in American Studies in Britain, and they are requested to acknowledge the assistance of BAAS in any other publication that results from research carried out during the tenure of the award. Membership of BAAS is mandatory in order to be eligible to receive these awards.

Enquiries

For enquiries about the awards, contact awards@baas.ac.uk

Applications for these awards should be submitted electronically to awards@baas.ac.uk using this form.

Funds for these awards come entirely from private contributions and donations in any amounts are always welcome. Please consider adding a donation to your annual BAAS subscription, or send a donation separately to the Treasurer using this form.

BAAS is a registered charity (No. 1002816)

Named after the founders of BAAS, these awards offer assistance for short-term visits to the United States.

The awards are offered to scholars in the UK who need to travel to conduct research, or who have been invited to read papers at conferences on American Studies topics.  It is intended that the grants be awarded for the study of subjects where the principle aim is the study of American history, politics, society, literature, art, culture, etc., and not subjects with other aims, the data for which happen to be located in the USA.

Up to four awards of £1000 are available. Although there is no specific time limit for the duration of the awards, and it is recognised that awards under the scheme may need to be supplemented, it is not intended that they should be used to supplement or extend much longer-term awards.

The duration of the award would typically expect to be twelve weeks. Applications are invited from persons normally resident in the UK, and from scholars currently working at UK universities and institutions of higher education.

Closing date

The closing date for applications is Friday 25 November 2016. Travel must take place between 1 April 2017 and 31 March 2018. Awards for travel will not be made retrospectively.

Awards for travel will not be made retrospectively. Successful candidates are required to provide a brief report of their research trip for publication in American Studies in Britain, and they are requested to acknowledge the assistance of BAAS in any other publication that results from research carried out during the tenure of the award. Membership of BAAS is mandatory in order to be eligible to receive one of these awards.

Enquries

The application form can be downloaded here.

Funds for these awards come entirely from private contributions and donations in any amounts are always welcome. Please consider adding a donation to your annual BAAS subscription, or send a donation separately to the Treasurer using this form.

BAAS is a registered charity (No. 1002816)

You can view the Submission Guidelines here

Previous Winners

BAAS Founders’ Research Travel Awards 2014

• Joe Merton – University of Nottingham

• Alison Stanley -Independent Scholar

BAAS Founders’ Research Travel Awards 2013

• Stephanie Palmer – Nottingham Trent University

• Simon Newman – University of Glasgow

• Mark Newman – University of Edinburgh

BAAS Founders’ Research Travel Awards 2012

• Duffy, Nikolai – Manchester Metropolitan University

• Geraghty, Lincoln – University of Portsmouth

• Staniland, Emma – University of Leicester

• Terry, Jennifer – University of Durham

• Wright, Tom – University of East Anglia

BAAS Founders’ Research Travel Awards 2011

• Dr Jonathan Bell – University of Reading

• Dr Michael P Bibler – University of Manchester

• Dr Matthew Feldman – University of Bergen Norway

• Dr Martin Padget – Aberystwyth University

• Dr Laura Rattray- University of Hull

BAAS Founders’ Research Travel Awards 2010

• Dr Graham Thompson – University of Nottingham

• Dr Bevan Sewell – University of Nottingham

• Dr Anna Hartnell – University of Birmingham

• Dr James Campbell – University of Leicester

BAAS Founders’ Research Travel Awards 2008/9

• Dr Matthew Frank, University of Leeds, “U.S. occupation of Czechoslovakia at the end of World War II”

• Dr Douglas Field, StaffordshireUniversity, “Tamiment library and Robert F. Wagner Archives in New York”

• Dr Mark Rawlinson, NottinghamUniversity,”New Topographics Reconsidered’ project which explore the impact of 1970s U.S. photography on subsequent practice”

• Dr Jenel Virden, University of Hull, “U.S. Army Chaplains in World War II”

• Professor John Kirk, Royal Hollway, University of London, “Global responses to the presidency and assassination of JFK”

• Dr Sam Edwards, University of Lancaster, “Collective memory and commemoration with specific emphasis on U.S. Air Force”

BAAS Founders’ Research Travel Awards 2007

• Susan Forsyth, University of Essex, “Biography of James Forsyth (1834-1907)”

• Edward Ragg, Independent Scholar, “Exploration of Wallace Steven’s work”

• Deniz Ertan, University of Nottingham, “Bearing News, Born Music: Contemporaneous Approaches to American Art Music (1912-1920)”

• Charlie Whitman, University of Wales Institute Cardiff, “Hidden Hands: Organised Business and American Post-War Economic Planning, 1939-1949”

• Caroline Blinder, Goldsmith’s University of London, “Articulating the Depression: Two Contesting Visions”

BAAS Founders’ Research Travel Awards 2006

• Howard Cunnell, Kingston University, Surrey, “Jack Kerouac”

• Elizabeth Jacobs, Rothermere American Institute, “Women and Race Relations: From Civil Rights to Multiculturalism”

• Catherine Morley, Oxford Brookes University, “A Comparative Study of Willa Cather and John Dos Passos”

• Mark Newman, University of Edinburgh, “The Catholic Church in the South during Civil Rights”

• David Anderson, University of Dundee, “Southern Christmas Celebrations during the Civil War”

At the centre of the recent ‘Academics in the Classroom’ workshop, organised by Dr Catherine Redford with funding from a British Academy Rising Star Engagement Award, were two large questions: what does successful outreach with schools look like, and how can academics work together with teachers to deliver it?

The workshop, held at Hertford College, Oxford on August 15th and 16^th, brought together Early Career Researchers in English and allied departments, and teachers of GCSE and

A Level English Literature and English Language. As a specialist in nineteenth-century American writing, I attended in order to find out how academics might support the teaching of American Literature in schools, especially in the wake of curriculum reforms under Michael Gove that removed the teaching of American texts at GCSE. More broadly, I wanted to get ideas about how to inform and get students enthused about topics that they might not necessarily encounter in the classroom – a challenge that also faces those in American History, Politics, and Studies when trying to recruit students and guarantee the future health of their subjects.

The workshop was structured around talks on different aspects of outreach. Professor Emma Smith of Oxford University opened by demonstrating how academics can support the teaching of historical and literary contexts, and critical interpretations. Context and interpretation cover two of the five Assessment Objectives at A Level, and are areas in which teachers, who often have no access to online databases, struggle to find accurate and up-to-date resources.

Professor Smith also emphasised that, rather than being “stardust”, academics should always support the day-to-day work of teachers. Her talk was followed by reflections on outreach projects from Dr Laura Varnam, Dr Natasha Alden and Dr James Castell, who talked about University-based initiatives at Oxford, Aberystwyth and Cardiff, and from Michael Amess, a teacher from Hampstead School.

A panel on the new GSCE and A Level curricula detailed their opportunities and challenges for teachers and academics. At GSCE and A Level, the volume of work has increased substantially, while, in some places, the breadth of texts studies has narrowed. Jane Adams, Head of English at The Barclay School, explained that GSCE students will study a canon that is exclusively British, and overwhelmingly white and male. Dr Calum Mechie, Head of Key Stage 5 at Brentford School for Girls, suggested there are more opportunities for studying American and non-white texts at A Level, but that the sheer numbers of possible set texts makes it difficult for academics to know where their expertise might be useful. Also in this panel, PhD researcher Ushashi Dasgupta, and Dr Kate Ash-Irisarri discussed successful outreach projects around Dickens and Chaucer. Next was a session by Dr Velda Elliot, researcher in English Education at Oxford University, on Active Pedagogies, which encouraged academics as well as teachers to reflect on classroom strategies by asking them to participate in a lesson that taught interpretations of Shakespeare through drama.

Dr Gary Snapper, a former English teacher and researcher in English education, then shared his enlightening research on transitions to University. Snapper argued that although changes in expectations placed on students and in the scope of literary study at University are necessary, they can leave first years feeling lost and frustrated. The talk has encouraged me to carve out time in the first semester to discuss with students how they think studying literature has changed from A Level, and what they think we’re talking about when we talk about texts. Such discussions might be especially useful in American Studies programs, where students are being introduced to new sub-disciplines that they may not have studied at A Level, as well as a new interdisciplinary field.

Day two opened with Dr Lesley Paterson, Senior Facilitator and Co-Ordinator for Public Engagement at Oxford University, discussing public engagement with research, including, but also moving beyond, outreach in schools. She encouraged academics to think of who they wanted to engage and why before planning events, and showed that engagement could be as fruitful a path to impact as

economic or public policy outcomes. She was followed by a roundtable from representatives from the Globe Theatre, the Bronte Parsonage Museum and the British Library, as well as an academic blogger, Dr Eleanor Parker, who talked about their work engaging the public. BAAS Members interested in outreach might consider teaming up with a local cultural institution to offer workshops, especially as American history and literature have often left rich footprints on this side of the pond.

Providing a case study of academic-teacher collaboration, Dr Marcello Giovanelli of Nottingham University and Dr Andrea McRae of Oxford Brookes University shared their experiences of running the Integrated English blog and conferences. Their talk anticipated the keynote by Adrian Barlow of the English Association, who addressed what might happen to English in schools and universities under the new curriculum. Barlow suggested that universities should consider whether they have a responsibility toward the future teaching of school English. GCSE students now have to study early nineteenth-century poetry, yet in university curriculum engineered to give high levels of student choice, students can avoid studying poetry – sometimes altogether. Whether or not university courses give sufficient subject knowledge for secondary teaching may be a particular problem for American Studies, in which students are balancing an interdisciplinary course load.

The most useful part of the workshop was, however, its opportunities for discussions between teachers and ECRs. What arose from these discussions has relevance beyond literary studies. Although most academics came to the workshop with the idea of outreach as direct student engagement, the teachers suggested that resources and workshops aimed at teachers could be more useful. An academic can work with a single class, but a teacher who works with an academic can share resources and information amongst an entire school.

Teachers said they would particularly welcome resources and training around literary and historical contexts, and new approaches to texts, and also that podcasts and videos were particularly useful. Ideas about ways to better direct teachers to open access research, and for organising a Sixth Form conference also emerged.

BAAS does successful outreach work with schools, thanks to the dedicated work of the Schools Representative on the Exec. As well as running our own schools’ conferences, we support the Congress to Campus initiative, and smaller schools events run by members. We have started to post talks from these events on our web channel, making them a useful resource for teachers. But there is much more we could do, particularly using the BAAS website as a platform for podcasts, discussion groups, and resources. I would welcome responses from teachers, or other members of the BAAS Community who have further ideas.

Tweets from the conference and ongoing discussion are under the hashtag #EnglishOutreach. Podcasts and Videos from the Workshop are available here.

Katie McGettigan is a Lecturer in American Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London and sits on the BAAS Executive Committee.

BAAS is pleased to announce the launch of a new school essay prize.

We are looking for essays that explore any aspect of the American experience, from the perspective of history, literature, film, politics or any other related or inter-related discipline. Essays may be adapted from coursework or ongoing research projects that students are engaged in, but they must conform to word length and the appropriate presentation style required by the judging panel for each award.

In addition, we request that each entry for the School Essay prize should be accompanied by a signed letter from the student’s teacher, certifying the applicant’s status.

The award for the winning author will be £250
The essay must not exceed 1,500 words in length (excluding footnotes and bibliography).
Authors will gain credit for using an appropriate bibliographic referencing system.

Essays and supporting letters certifying the applicant’s status should be sent by e-mail to: awards@baas.ac.uk by 20 January 2017

You can view the Submission Guidelines here.

BAAS is committed to promoting best practice in matters of equality and diversity, and will be attentive to issues of equality and diversity when judging applications.

For enquiries about the awards, contact awards@baas.ac.uk

BAAS is pleased to announce the launch of a new undergraduate essay prize.

We are looking for essays that explore any aspect of the American experience, from the perspective of history, literature, film, politics or any other related or inter-related discipline. Essays may be adapted from coursework or ongoing research projects that students are engaged in, but they must conform to word length and the appropriate presentation style required by the judging panel for each award.

For the undergraduate essay prize, we request that no more than six essays per undergraduate department or programme should be submitted, each with a signed note by the Head of Department or tutor certifying the applicant’s registered status.

The prize for the winning author will be £500.
The essay must not exceed 2,500 words in length (excluding footnotes and bibliography).
Authors should use an appropriate bibliographic referencing system.

Essays and supporting letters certifying the applicant’s status should be sent by e-mail to: awards@baas.ac.uk by 20 January 2017

You can view the Submission Guidelines here.

BAAS is committed to promoting best practice in matters of equality and diversity, and will be attentive to issues of equality and diversity when judging applications.

For enquiries about the awards, contact awards@baas.ac.uk

BAAS welcomes proposals from Postgraduate and Early Career Researchers in any field of American studies for its new Public Engagement and Impact Award.

Recognizing the diversity of public engagement and impact projects by its Postgraduate and Early Career members, this award seeks to encourage and enhance good practice.

One award of up to £750 will be made available to a project the purpose of which is to either i) disseminate new research to non-academic audience or ii) work collaboratively with an external organization.

Please note that the award is not primarily intended to defray routine research costs such as archive trips or attendance at academic conferences. Awards may be used to cover the costs of meetings including organizing workshops or conferences designed to bring together project partners and to showcase the project.

This award is open to all Postgraduate and Early Career Researchers who are BAAS members at the time of application.

BAAS is committed to promoting best practice in matters of equality and diversity and applicants are expected to demonstrate similar consideration when submitting bids to this scheme.

Closing deadline: 1 February 2017. The project should take place within one year of the 1 February deadline.

You can find the application form here

For enquiries about the awards, contact awards@baas.ac.uk. Applications for these awards should be submitted electronically to awards@baas.ac.uk.

The generosity of BAAS in awarding me the 2016 John D. Lees Award was very important in enabling me to undertake a four week research trip to the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics in Lawrence, Kansas between March and April of 2016. My thesis examined the political life of Senator Bob Dole as a way to understand his impact on the Republican Party, as well as using his career in Congress as a lens on to the changing GOP during the last quarter of the twentieth century. The Dole Institute holds one of the biggest US political archives outside the presidential library system and receiving the John D. Lees Award enabled me to extend my trip from my original plan of three weeks to four, allowing more time to explore the vast collections.

The scale of the collected material at the Dole Institute reflects Senator Dole’s long political career as well as his life and work outside the political sphere, including his service in World War Two and his life in Kansas before entering politics. It was notable how the archives also offer opportunities for research across a number of topics not directly connected to Senator Dole – other researchers visit the archives to conduct research into the World War Two era, the Vietnam War and the state politics of Kansas. The impressive building which houses the Dole Institute also has many exhibits on display which place Senator Dole’s life and career in the context of American political history throughout the 20^th century.

In addition to receiving very friendly, knowledgeable and patient assistance (considering my countless requests for boxes of material) from the archivists and other staff at the Dole Institute, I also had the opportunity to interview the Institute’s director, Bill Lacy. As a former campaign strategist for Bob Dole and advisor in the Reagan White House, Mr Lacy provided me with insights into Bob Dole’s personality, his political outlook and impact, and the reasons why his campaigns for president in 1988 and 1996 were ultimately unsuccessful. Bill Lacy’s thoughts on his personal relationship with Senator Dole – and the Senator’s relationships with figures such as Ronald Reagan – were fascinating and allowed me some understanding of the political character of a man who has often been viewed as enigmatic.

In addition to the lengthy interview I conducted with Mr Lacy, I returned from Kansas with thousands of photographed documents relating to Senator Dole’s Congressional career. Unfortunately, after spending time reviewing the material I had gathered, I came to the decision that it did not contain enough of the insight I required to enable me to continue with my political biography of Senator Dole. While the material was valuable in tracing Senator Dole’s Congressional career in areas such as media interviews and his voting record, I did encounter a lack of personal opinions and thoughts. This was reflected in the brevity of personal correspondence with other political figures and relative absence of internal memos discussing policy and decision making. This is perhaps a consequence of Senator Dole’s political and personal way of working. In Congress he was a man who much preferred holding meetings in person – sometimes moving between multiple meetings at a time – and in his personal life he did not keep a diary. As I learned from Bill Lacy, Senator Dole always prioritised action and hard work over theorising and ideology. Sadly, the lack of personal insight and comment in the documents I photographed has meant that I have had to change the focus of my thesis. However, I remain committed to studying the evolution of the Republican Party during the latter half of the 20^th century, as I believe it is a fascinating subject which can reveal much about the current political landscape in the United States. Although my research trip was not as successful as I originally hoped it would be, I am extremely grateful to have received the John D. Lees Award from BAAS and for the opportunity it provided to spend four weeks conducting archival research at the Dole Institute.

Jonathan Bartho is a PhD student at the University College London.

The postgraduate fellowship from the Eccles Centre has been instrumental in the development of my doctoral research on rhetoric on “the family” in American politics from the 1960s to the present. My dissertation looks at the ways that familial language has changed during this time period, and the fellowship provided me the opportunity to reconstruct the history of the late-20th century using both primary archival documents and secondary scholarly sources. Over the course of the last year I have made three separate trips to the British Library, taking advantage of both the main library in London as well as the reading room on the sprawling library campus in Boston Spa,

Yorkshire (note to future fellows: spending a day at the latter provides a fascinating glimpse into the inner workings of this world-class institution).

on the sprawling library campus in Boston Spa, During my time at the library I conducted research on two projects, each comprising chapters from my doctoral thesis. The bulk of my time at the library was spent reconstructing the history of Anita Bryant’s 1977 campaign against protections for gays and lesbians in Dade County, Florida. Bryant, a spokeswoman for Florida Orange Juice, became the face of anti-gay activism in the late 70s as she successfully petitioned to have a county ordinance protecting people from homophobic discrimination overturned. Her “Save Our Children” campaign mobilized a rhetoric that portrayed gays and lesbians as inherently dangerous to children, giving rise to a major theme in conservative “family values” discourse. Using the library’s extensive collection of materials from the era, including her cookbook Bless This Food, I determined the particular mix of religious conviction and public activism that made Bryant such a transformational figure. In the decade following Bryant’s campaign, American conservatism would become synonymous with protecting families from the dangerous and immoral encroachment of an activist government.

Using this research I constructed a comparative analysis between Bryant and Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who made headlines in 2015 for refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, citing her religious beliefs. The British Library had a number of useful sources for considering religious freedom arguments in American history, including Thomas Jefferson’s “A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom.” Comparing Bryant and Davis demonstrates how conservative anti-gay rhetoric has shifted from a public moral crusade to a matter of individual personal conscience.

The second project I undertook through the Eccles Centre fellowship was a history of the American welfare system. Scholars have written volumes on the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) welfare system, which Bill Clinton famously campaigned to end in 1992. For this research I treated secondary sources as primary documents, determining how scholars write about welfare and how their approach to the topic changed over the course of the 20th century. This research revealed a number of interesting findings about the role of familial discourse in changing attitudes around welfare both in the scholarly community as well as in the broader public. For example, mid-century experts argued forcefully for welfare reform from a liberal perspective. Culminating in Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s The Negro Family: The Case for National Action, the liberal case against AFDC was transmogrified by conservatives in the 1970s as a justification for gutting welfare entirely. The British Library’s collections were essential for documenting this historical transition.

Over three trips to the British Library I immersed myself in the intellectual and cultural construction of American conservatism during the 1970s. This research provides important background for understanding contemporary uses of familial language. President Barack Obama has made family a central element of his political persona, and my research provides a genealogy of these familial invocations. Using the Library’s vast collection, I charted shifts in language, emergence of new concepts, and co-optation of themes by various actors in American politics. I am very grateful to the Eccles Centre for the opportunity to conduct this research.

Howell Williams is a PhD candidate in Politics at the New School for Social Research.

This HOTCUS postgraduate conference focused on the construction of national identity throughout US history. The first half of the day took a conventional conference format, with themed panels of two or three twenty-minute papers. These panels fostered diverse discussions about different manifestations of national identity, including American norms in the 1950s and 1960s, ideas of Americanism during the Vietnam War era, and the manifestation of American identity in the face of annihilation narratives. This part of the day thus facilitated a wide-ranging and varied discussion of American identity as an ever-adaptive construct.

The second part of the day consisted of developmental roundtables, which delivered practical and applicable advice to postgraduate and early career researchers as they continued on their PhD journey and beyond. Dr Peter O’Connor (Northumbria University), Dr Simon Cooper (Newcastle College) and Dr Emily Trafford (University of Manchester) spoke on topics pertinent to postgraduates: namely VIVA preparation, seminar teaching, and applying for fixed-term teaching posts, respectively. In a second, more advanced, session, Dr Molly Geidel (University of Manchester) gave advice on approaching American university presses, while Dr Randall Stephens (Northumbria University) spoke about writing op-eds for non-academic audiences. Finally, Dr Mike Cullinane (Northumbria University) advised early career researchers interested in applying for the AHRC ECR Fellowship Scheme. This facet of the day thus enabled attendees to gain practical advice from experienced scholars, something which complemented the intellectual knowledge gained from the traditional panels of the first half of the day.

Finally, Professor Simon Hall (Leeds University) who has published widely on manifestations of American national identity, particularly with relation to unrest in the 1960s era, gave a keynote address entitled “Leonard Matlovich: Military Heroism and the Making of a Gay Rights Icon.” This paper helped tie together many themes discussed throughout the day, as Prof. Hall reflected on the oftentimes-ambiguous nature of patriotism as a facet of national identity. As such, it proved a fitting way to end a lively and thought-provoking conference.

Generous support from BAAS meant that we were able to offer travel bursaries to assist postgraduate attendance, as well as supporting travel for our ECR speakers Dr Molly Geidel and Dr Emily Trafford. We were able to acknowledge this support and include the BAAS logo on all CFPs, programmes and other forms of publicity. Individual sessions are currently under review for USSO, where we hope to inspire further conversation on many of the day’s themes. We were also able to publicise the Journal of American Studies and the upcoming BAAS PG event at the University of Leeds, the CFP for which was distributed within conference packs.

Sophie Roberts and Megan Hunt are PhD students at Northumbria University.

As the recipient of the 2016 BAAS Barringer Fellowship, I was fortunate enough to attend the week-long Monticello Teacher Institute in Charlottesville, Virginia this July. The institute, based at Monticello and the University of Virginia (both designed by Thomas Jefferson), aims to provide an immersive experience for school History and Social Studies teachers, primarily in the US. However, thanks to BAAS, each year a British fellow joins around fifteen other teachers to enhance their teaching of early US history and add to Monticello’s vast set of online resources for teachers

(https://www.seaofliberty.org and http://classroom.monticello.org, though the two sites are currently in the process of being merged).

On arrival in Charlottesville, the group was soon whisked up the hill to Monticello for a guided tour of Thomas Jefferson’s house, with the rare opportunity to take plenty of photographs (something usually prohibited). After this, we retreated to the garden (which showcases heritage vegetables of the type grown by Jefferson, himself a keen horticulturalist), for a drinks reception as the sun set behind neighbouring Montalto – quite a spectacular start to a busy and immensely enjoyable week.

In the week that followed we were tasked with using our various site tours and library visits to create lesson resources that will be placed online for future use by those teaching Thomas Jefferson and early US history. Each participant focused on something quite different – from Jefferson’s role in the conflict with the Barbary pirates to his relationship with the (suddenly very fashionable) Alexander Hamilton. My focus was American imperialism, and how Jefferson managed to reconcile his dreams of expanding the United States to create an “Empire of Liberty” while himself maintaining a plantation that exploited enslaved labourers. Jefferson felt that slavery was an issue for the next generation to deal with and, though he expected the institution would eventually die out, in later life he supported the spread of slavery into US territories.

During the week, my thoughts about what my lesson plans would focus upon and the key themes they would address developed immensely. Among the many excellent activities we participated in, the session with Professor Peter Onuf was particularly useful, allowing me to pick his expert brain on the concept of an “Empire of Liberty”. His responses were incredibly valuable in shaping my reading during our study periods at the International Center for Jefferson Studies across the rest of the week. Another particularly useful activity was our Hemings family tour of Monticello, led by Brandon Dillard. This proved invaluable in helping me to understand Jefferson’s complex and contradictory views on slavery (the Hemings being one of the enslaved families).

In addition to these activities, we were also given an introduction to highlights of UVA’s special collections, a presentation from archaeologists working at Monticello, a guided tour of the UVA campus, and a visit to Montalto to discuss our ongoing projects with Gary Sandling, another Jefferson specialist from Monticello. On the final day each member of the group presented their finished lesson plans and resources (while being streamed online), and I was amazed at how much the group had achieved in so short a time – a very diverse and creative set of lessons on Jefferson that will hopefully be of use to a good number of teachers in the future.

In terms of professional development, the Barringer Fellowship allowed me not only to create a set of three fully-resourced lessons on Jefferson’s Empire of Liberty, but also to share ideas and experiences with great teachers from across the US, and benefit from the expertise of the many helpful scholars at Monticello. Alongside the formal sessions, the chance to talk with the other teachers more informally in the evenings was also a huge boon, and the group were incredibly supportive of one another across the week. The MTI was expertly run by Jacqueline Langholtz, Melanie Bowyer, Lora Cooper and Anna Barr and they really did help to make our trip a truly memorable one. I would like to take this opportunity to thank BAAS and the MTI for giving me the chance to participate in the teaching institute this year and would very much urge other school teachers who focus on US history or politics to apply for this fellowship in 2017.

Adam Burns is currently the Head of History and Politics at Queen Elizabeth’s Hospital in Bristol, and his book, American Imperialism: The Territorial Expansion of the United States, 1783-2013, is scheduled for publication early next year as part of the BAAS Paperbacks series.

Enabled by an Eccles Centre Postgraduate Fellowship, I completed a research trip to the British Library in May 2016. The main purpose of this visit was to gain access to the library’s extensive collection of U.S. women’s magazines, particularly the Ladies’ Home Journal, which are crucial to the completion of my PhD project, “Imagined Women: Consumerism, Nationalism, and Gender in the Ladies’ Home Journal and Canadian Home Journal of the 1920s”.

My research is situated firmly within American Studies, and forms part of a larger AHRC-funded research project,

“Magazines, Travel and Middlebrow Culture in Canada, 1925-1960”. My comparative study of magazines from the U.S. and Canada—considering these periodicals as collaborative literary texts, cultural artefacts, and commercial products—offers an original contribution to the fields of American Studies and Periodical Studies. An increased scholarly focus on print culture and the increasing availability of magazines and newspapers in digital form has led to an expansion of periodical studies within a North American context.

However, the specific titles I focus on have not, as of yet, been digitised. Accordingly, the material which informs my research was collected through an extensive research trip in January 2014 from the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, the Toronto Reference Library, Library and Archives Canada, and the New York Public Library. Given the ephemeral nature of magazines, in that they were created to be read then disposed of, the collections available in these libraries were often lacking. This was particularly true of the Ladies’ Home Journal, where many pages and even full issues were damaged or missing. Of course, this is to be expected with early-twentieth-century magazines, in that relatively cheap paper and imaginative readers are often both causes of incomplete issues.

As my project requires the consideration of these magazines as complete literary texts, it is vital that I am able to minimise the amount of missing material. The growing field of periodical studies has been characterised as inherently interdisciplinary. With this in mind, a vital part of my methodology lies in bringing together literary perspectives with aspects of consumer culture theory – namely content analysis. This method will ensure the consideration of all elements of the magazines, including those often overlooked in other studies such as recipes, advertisements, advice columns, and fashion editorials. This is of vital importance in considering these magazines as collaborative texts in which the seemingly disparate, and at times contradictory, features influence and shape each other.

It was with great relief, then, that I discovered the British Library’s copies of this magazine following my far-flung research trip. Perhaps surprisingly, the British Library’s versions of the magazine are far better preserved and more complete than those available at the New York Public Library. Being a monthly publication, and considering my research period of a decade, this amounts to a substantial archive of one hundred and twenty issues each averaging around two hundred pages. The fellowship allowed extended access to this vast quantity of material, and has been of tremendous benefit to my project, which relies on the reading of magazines as complete texts, as opposed to containers of discrete elements. The Eccles Centre Postgraduate fellowship has undoubtedly facilitated the completion of my PhD project, for which I am incredibly grateful.

Rachael Alexander is a PhD candidate at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.

*

It was with immense sadness that I, along with more than forty of Chris Brookeman’s former colleagues and friends across the world, learnt of his final weeks and death on December 1^st, 2016 after a lengthy and brave battle with Parkinson’s Disease. Chris’s wife Hazel wrote moving daily reports which brought together many stories and anecdotes about this remarkable person and his extraordinary contribution to American Studies in Britain over many years.

Chris was instrumental in many BAAS projects as well as being a prolific writer and inspiring lecturer. All those who knew him will have their own stories to tell but here I have tried to say what Chris Brookeman meant to me.

I first met Chris in the late 1970s after he became a leading light in the introduction of the GCSE American Studies and established the American Studies Centre at PCL. At the time I was teaching in an FE college and American Studies became part of our programme. It was clear to me right from the start that here was a person totally committed to seeing an important and relevant (as well as wonderfully stimulating) subject introduced into the curriculum at school and FE level. During those early years I would regularly bring student groups down to London to research in the AS Centre and to be guided in their work or given short lectures by Chris. He also produced and fronted a series of excellent educational videos on American history and culture for this new audience. It was Chris who got me involved with BAAS and set my career on a path that he, in many ways, illuminated for me. He was in fact also one of my referees when I successfully applied for a Fulbright teaching exchange to a college in California in the early 80s; something for which I will be eternally grateful. Some years later Chris was again a driving force and great supporter of my successful attempt to set up a sister organisation to the University of Westminster ASRC in Liverpool.

After the AS Centre and I moved (from the FE college) to Liverpool John Moores University, Chris and I continued to work closely together on publishing ventures, teacher training programmes and conferences both for schools and wider academic audiences. Perhaps the peak of all this was in 1999 when along with Sue Wedlake at the US Embassy, we organised a conference on Muhammad Ali. The idea, as always, was Chris’s, as was the title ‘Muhammad Ali: Living Mythically; The American Hero.’  Chris gave one of the lectures that day and this was at a time when the Parkinson’s was beginning to take its toll on him. Only with a determination and commitment I could never in my imagination muster, Chris gave a masterful presentation, as provocative and rewarding as ever, driven on by an immense determination that had the Parkinson’s disease rolling backwards like one of Ali’s opponents. It took a lot out of Chris that day but it was one I will never forget.  And how touching is it that like his American Hero Ali, Chris fought the disease like the great boxer, ducking and weaving so that it could not hit him. I know he was proud of the signed photo he had of Ali and how they had both fought the disease together and now in the same year, they have both left us with strong memories and a smile.

One thing I learned about Chris from an early stage was on which side of him to stand when talking. He was, as many know, partly deaf in one ear following an injury playing rugby. It was a game he ironically described as ” ..a game for hooligans played by gentlemen..” I also knew that at conferences Chris would always find time to introduce me to colleagues who would be able to assist in the work of the AS Centre, or who would make excellent speakers for schools or academic conferences. He saw everyone involved in teaching American Studies, regardless of the academic level, as colleagues. I also spent many a night in university bars during BAAS conferences being regaled with stories that had me rolling in laughter with Chris; his mischievous laugh will be with me for ever.

Thank you Chris, for everything you helped me with, for showing me paths to follow, for introducing me to many interesting folk and steering me away or saving me from a few inveterate bores. Thank you for being an inspiration. Thank you for being a friend.

Ian Ralston is Director of the American Studies Centre at Liverpool John Moores University.

*

Chris Brookeman never lost sight of the importance of maintaining the teaching of American Studies in schools. The schools networks that he helped develop were unrivalled. In co-operation with BAAS he defended the viability of American Studies in teacher training, and contributed centrally to the establishment of an American Studies GCE, and to an effort to introduce A level American Studies that was eventually derailed only by the government’s sweeping changes to education in the 1980s. A small part of the outreach he achieved was an annual week-long summer term course that brought school pupils from all over London to the Polytechnic of Central London. During Wimbledon fortnight he filled the venerable (and at that time noticeably unrestored) with students and their teachers during the day, and took his guest lecturers home to watch the tennis in the evenings, generating a heady mix of cultural, political and sporting conversation that lasted for days on end.

His enthusiasm was infectious and magnetic. He was not much of a committee person, but his presence at BAAS conferences seemed to be accompanied by a small personal maelstrom wherever he went. He was always pleased to meet you. His friendships were deep, but freely shared. His reach was international, affecting teachers of American Studies in San Francisco and Texas as well as within the confines of Greater London. The links that he and Alan Morrison forged between PCL/Westminster University and the Smithsonian are valued today.

Chris’s energetic support for multidisciplinary American Studies was immensely valuable at a time when the subject was under threat and the community owes much to him. There can have been no better prize for Chris, though, than meeting Hazel through the work in which he invested so much of himself. Chris’s struggle with Parkinson’s started early and lasted for decades. Hazel and her family have maintained and loved him throughout.

Philip Davies is Director of the Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library.

The British Library is one of my favourite places to work. As one of the largest libraries in the world it has a remarkable range of material available – if it was ever printed or published, chances are the BL will have a copy of it. More than this though, the BL always has a sense of intellectual industriousness and energy to it. The reading rooms and seating on each floor are always filled with people working away, enjoying the productive atmosphere that seems to permeate the building. Thanks to the generosity of the Eccles Centre, I have been fortunate enough to receive both Postgraduate (2011) and Postdoctoral (2015) Visiting Fellowships in North American Studies, which have allowed

me to conduct extensive research at the BL. Both fellowships also happened to coincide with exhibitions on two of my great loves (apart from American Studies, of course): the Science Fiction ‘Out of this World’ exhibition in 2011 and this year’s 40^th Anniversary of Punk exhibition – yet another reason to love working at the British Library.

My current research project is interested in how the development, education and disease control programmes of philanthropic NGOs intersected with official American relations with developing countries during the Cold War. I focus primarily on the philanthropic Near East Foundation’s programmes in Iran from the late 1940s through to the Iranian Revolution in 1979, which saw the NEF end its involvement in the country. This period saw US policymakers, to varying degrees, engage with ideas of modernization, development and nation-building as effective means of fighting the Cold War. Non-state actors, including NGOs such as the NEF, Ford Foundation, and Rockefeller Foundation, both helped to shape and were shaped by official US foreign policy.

Among the many interesting things I managed to access while at the BL were a number of rare, old books that shed light on the NEF’s origins. The Lions of Marash: Personal Experiences with American Near East Relief, 1919-1922 by Stanley E. Kerr and Story of Near East Relief, 1915-1930 by James Levi Barton detail aspects of the NEF’s predecessor, Near East Relief, which was set up in response to the 1915 Armenian Genocide with a focus on immediate relief, instead of the long-term development programmes that typify the NEF. The BL also contains a wide range of documents detailing the activities of other philanthropic non-governmental organisations, including the Ford Foundation, Carnegie Corporation, and Rockefeller Foundation. The Annual Reports of the Rockefeller Foundation and reports made to the Rockefeller International Health Board and Commission offer useful context for and comparison with the NEF’s programmes.

Perhaps most valuable to historians of American foreign relations based outside of the United States are the Digital National Security Archive and Declassified Documents Reference System, which contain thousands of official documents detailing the decision-making processes of US policymakers. For this project, however, I was most interested in the Congressional Hearings Digital Collection, which was invaluable in demonstrating how the NEF’s work intersected with House and Senate debates surrounding the role of development and foreign aid in US foreign policy. Throughout the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, NEF Directors were called to give evidence before Congressional subcommittees, sometimes offering advice, sometimes advocating for the use of foreign aid.

My research at the British Library has shown that the connections between philanthropic NGOs and official US foreign policy during the Cold War were complex, dynamic and in a constant state of negotiation. The Eccles Centre Visiting Fellowship in North American Studies has given me an excellent foundation from which to expand my research by visiting the Rockefeller Archive Center, which houses the NEF’s own archival collection, the National Archives and Presidential Libraries across the United States.

Ben Offiler is currently Lecturer in History at Sheffield Hallam University. His first book, US Foreign Policy and the Modernization of Iran: Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and the Shah, was published in 2015 by Palgrave Macmillan.

Firstly, I’d like to express my gratitude to the British Association of American Studies and the Eccles Centre, for supporting my research at the British Library, which has proven to be very fruitful. I also appreciated the opportunity to speak as part of the Eccles Centre’s Summer Scholars series, especially considering this was the first chance I’ve had to speak to a more general audience about my research. I had some really interesting feedback, not least from a woman whose father had served as a commanding officer in an Army Medical Hospital during the Korean War.

I am currently a second year PhD candidate at the University of Glasgow, and my research focuses on American medical personnel who served in the Vietnam War. Now that I’m approaching the daunting third year of my PhD, the aim of this research trip was to read secondary literature and a number of psychological studies to support the theories I have developed so far about the manifestation of war-related trauma in medical staff. These theories are based upon my analysis of oral history interviews conducted after 2001, which I transcribed at the Library of Congress last summer. The research will inform the most important chapter of my thesis with the working title ‘About Trauma.’ It essentially places the post-war readjustment issues faced by medical veterans into the context of the socio-cultural and medical history of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

My research began with a series of texts from the Routledge Psychological Stress Series, including the work of American military veterans and psychiatrists Raymond Scurfield and Katherine Platoni, and renowned Vietnam veteran turned traumatology pioneer, Charles R Figley. One of the central research questions in my thesis is how and why have some medical veterans identified as traumatised, while others have remained resilient? I do not necessarily believe that these are rigidly defined conceptual frameworks, but rather that some medical veterans have been able to cope and recover from the horrors of war more effectively than others.

In Healing War Trauma: A Handbook of Creative Approaches Scurfield and Platoni examine the limitations of the approach and treatments for PTSD and related disorders currently offered by the Veterans Administration (VA). Their critique helps to support my theories about why medical veterans, especially women who served as nurses, have found the VA difficult to approach and/or have not achieved a positive outcome from treatment geared towards soldiers. The book features a number of articles which review the successes and limitations of more creative and individualized treatments and self-help techniques, such advocacy as healing, understanding the content of traumatic dreams, and tackling guilt and feelings of excessive responsibility. These articles provided me with some quantitative evidence to support my qualitative analysis, which criticises the treatment of all veterans as a homogenous group.

Next, I wanted to further develop my psychological understanding of the concept known as ‘compassion fatigue,’ which is also referred to a Secondary Traumatic Stress Disorder (or STSD), in caregivers. Not to give too much away, but I do not think that medical Vietnam veterans’ trauma fits into this category as neatly as civilian medical and caregiving staff do. Figley has written about his own experiences and subsequent research into the traumatic effects of caring for the traumatized and suffering, particularly in an autobiographical essay featured in Trauma and its Wake. Secondly, I read Patrick J. Morrissette’s book The Pain of Helping, which further explores STSD as a construct and how it affects different populations.

Finally, I consulted psychological studies that delve into the relationship between the personal and situational variables, which affect the type of posttraumatic symptoms a person suffers. I argue throughout my thesis that whilst medical service could be just as traumatic as combat service in Vietnam, their work and responsibilities were distinct. Therefore the emotional repercussions of witnessing and participating in death and mutilation as a medic are surely experienced differently. For instance, I have found that some medics felt an acute sense of betrayal and guilt, but not for the same reasons as soldiers. These psychological studies have filled in some of the holes in my theories regarding emotions and traumatic stress with medical evidence and symptomology.

Going forward, I am now prepared to go back and write the next chapter of my thesis and I have also formed a research plan for this coming semester. I was able to consult the Veterans Administration’s Selected Bibliographic Guide on Post-Traumatic Stress IV and the Eccles Centre’s bibliographic guide on The United States and the Vietnam War during my time at the British Library. After consulting a number of the texts from my list I narrowed down the selection I will request via Inter-Library Loan this semester. Overall, I had a productive trip and it was well worth making the journey from Glasgow to enjoy my first visit to the library and some of London’s glorious summer sun!

Nicole Cassie is a PhD student at the University of Glasgow.

Thanks to support from the Eccles Centre I spent two months at the British Library in May and June 2016, with follow up visits in July and August. The time spent in London was a real luxury, partly because I was able to focus entirely on research in such convivial surroundings, but also because the project I was working on was in its very early stages, so every new discovery and shift in my thinking was a cause for excitement (rather than angst, backtracking, and endless rewrites). My research project explores the role of US officials in promoting the use of the pesticide DDT in Nicaragua. Between 1945 and 1980 US officials promoted

DDT as a means to spark a ‘green revolution’ in developing countries, including Nicaragua. All over the world this ‘excellent powder’ was used to boost crop production and combat malaria. However, in 1962 Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring led to widespread concern about the chemical, and DDT was banned in the United States in 1972. Nonetheless, USAID continued to support the use of DDT overseas. The effects of DDT use in Nicaragua were particularly pronounced – a survey in 1980 found that Nicaragua had the highest rates of DDT ingestion in the world.

I had originally intended to explore the way in which USAID officials justified the use of DDT overseas, even after it had been banned in the United States in 1972. There is material in the British Library’s collection of congressional materials which addresses this issue, but it suggests that US officials did not seek to reconcile the contradiction created by the US ban on DDT. Rather, they saw the law itself -which required attention to environmental impact in the US, but not overseas – as a justification for the continuing anachronism. Responding to a question from the Senate subcommittee on foreign assistance in 1975, one USAID official explained that a promised report on the impact of pesticides overseas had not been carried out “because of State and A.I.D.’s views that it is essential to distinguish between domestic projects having environmental effects and assistance activities in foreign countries which do not significantly affect the environment of the US.” In other words, there was no legal requirement to consider the impact of DDT abroad, so officials avoided doing so where possible, in spite of considerable opposition from Congress and environmental groups.

As I began looking at the collections though, I realised that the debates that took place in the early 1970s as a result of the DDT ban could not be studied in isolation. Questions about DDT were raised almost immediately after it was approved for civilian use in 1945, and indeed these early doubts were foreshadowed by conflicts over the use of arsenic as a pesticide in the 1920s and 30s. David Kinkela has argued that the promotion of DDT was emblematic of US confidence in the period after World War Two, a sign of triumphalist faith in the power of the United States’ scientific expertise to drive development overseas. There is much evidence of this in the archives at the British Library: in 1963 Albert H. Moseman of the Rockefeller Foundation told a United Nations conference on the use of science and technology in developing countries that the United States had much to offer, because “agricultural advances in the United States have been continuous from the time of the first settlement to its shores.” But the imagery of America’s past was also employed by those who were suspicious of DDT: it could be deployed as a justification for care and scrutiny, as well as a rhetorical device to crush all doubt. During a 1950 congressional hearing on the use of chemicals in foods, Dr Morton Biskind gave an early, impassioned statement about the dangers of DDT. Congressman James Delaney defended Biskind’s testimony when other representatives objected. He described Biskind as a pioneer, and noted that “pioneers have always been in the minority… Not only in scientific study, but I think in most other things.“

My time at the British Library has allowed me to take an initial look at the congressional papers on DDT, as well as USAID’s own publications and the extensive secondary literature on this topic, but much remains to be done. Thanks to the the Eccles Centre’s support, I was able to put together a successful application to the British Academy Small Grant Scheme. The British Academy award will fund further research on this topic at the US National Archive in College Park, between September and December 2016, and the Institute of Nicaraguan and Central American History in Managua between January and June 2017.

Hilary Francis is a postdoctoral fellow at The Institute of Latin American Studies at the University of London.

*

Louis Billington’s death sadly deprives the British Association for American Studies of a much-admired British pioneer of the study of American popular religion, its transatlantic context, and its implications for the social history of the United States. He was one of the youngest members of the first generation of BAAS, which he joined in 1958 as a 23 year-old research student at the University of Bristol. He helped to shape the intellectual profile of the American Studies community in Britain during those early years and contributed to the sense of excitement that inspired it (a subject he discussed with affectionate discernment in an essay for the Journal of American Studies in 2008: ‘Pioneering American Studies: Ten Years of the Bulletin, 1956-1966’.)

Louis established himself as a loyal and authoritative contributor to the Journal of American Studies over a period of four decades from its founding in 1967. He brought to its pages, as well as to BAAS conferences, his deep knowledge of religious revivalism, millennialism, varieties of sectarianism, women’s preaching, and the radical reform movements they inspired. His scholarly assurance and ability sympathetically to enter the worlds of these groups – and his determination to take them seriously – was founded on a mastery of sources, in particular the religious periodical and newspaper press, and first-hand accounts of the religious experience of ministers and lay-people. Louis was much influenced by Whitney R. Cross’s classic work, The Burned-Over District: The Social and Intellectual History of Enthusiastic Religion in Western New York, 1800-1850 (1950) and also by Frank Thistlethwaite’s The Anglo-American Connection in the Early Nineteenth Century (1959), which explored the intertwined relationship of British and American reform movements, including antislavery, temperance, and women’s rights – subjects particularly close to his heart.

Louis’s most significant published work appeared as scholarly articles in the Journal of American Studies: ‘The Millerite Adventists in Great Britain, 1840-1850” (vol. 1, no. 2: Oct., 1967); ‘British Humanitarians and American Cotton, 1840-1860 (vol. 11, no. 3: Dec., 1977); and ‘”Female Laborers in the Church”: Women Preachers in the Northeastern United States, 1790-1840’ (vol. 19, no. 3: Dec., 1985). Two other influential articles appeared in the Journal of Religious History: ‘The Churches of Christ in Britain: A Study in Nineteenth-Century Sectarianism’ (1974) and ‘Popular Religion and Social Reform: A Study of Revivalism and Teetotalism’ (1979). Louis was also an assured reviewer of books for the Journal of American Studies, the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, and the English Historical Review. His reviews were always discerning and fair. If his critiques could sometimes be trenchant (as I personally discovered, as a raw younger historian!), it was only because he measured other historians’ work against his own exacting scholarly standards. The high bar that he set might explain why he did not write the book on nineteenth-century sectarianism for which he was so well equipped. Yet the absence of a monograph from his oeuvre does not diminish the quality and value of his fine scholarly legacy. My own work would have been the poorer without it: thank you, Louis.

Professor Richard Carwardine is the current President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford

*

When I first came to the American Studies Department at the University of Hull in 1992 Louis Billington was my Head of Department.  Over the course of the next 24 years he became much more to me.  I arrived with my newly-minted PhD into a higher education system that was foreign to me and bore little or no resemblance in those days to the American education system that produced me.  Louis guided me through the ins and outs of university teaching and administration.  He gave me some of the most valuable career advice I had ever received.  Not only did he help me structure my teaching and my university committee work, he introduced me to BAAS where I went on to become a member of the executive committee, Secretary and Secretary General of EAAS.  I eventually followed in his footsteps into the role of Head of Department.  Throughout this journey Louis was always there – with advice, as a sounding board, as my own personal cheer-leader and as a good, faithful friend.

Louis was one of the smartest historians I ever met.  I often thought he forgot more history than most of us will ever remember.  Thankfully he seemed to think that I too had some knowledge of American history so he was willing to engage in long, thoughtful discussions of everything from colonial American race relations to the most recent presidential primary season.  His office at Hull was wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling books – all of which he had read at least once and I always enjoyed trying to find the most obscure title I could.  My favorite was The History of the Clam Bake.

Louis also took it upon himself to show me the countryside surrounding Hull.  Back in the ‘good old days’ we took off every couple of weeks, on a week day no less, and explored towns and villages within a day’s drive.  Whether we were visiting Fountains or Rievaulx Abbies, Stamford, Whitby, Goatland, the Dales, Boston Lincolnshire or even Blackpool I could be sure of two things: he would get us there using the most obscure backroads and once we arrived he would know the best pub for lunch.  I also got history lessons, both national and local, throughout the day.  I wouldn’t trade a single memory for any amount of gold, though his driving did often scare the pants off me.

Louis retired only a few years after my arrival but we remained close friends.  We met at least once a week for drinks and conversation and there were very few if any topics about which Louis did not have an opinion.  In the last few years he was invaluable to me in my research on US Army chaplains in World War II because of his vast knowledge of American religious history.  I would give him chaplain memoirs or diaries to read and we would discuss them over glasses of good quality wine.  The real trick was keeping Louis on track in the conversation.  I am sure many students remember Louis for his oft repeated statement – ‘but I digress’.

I retired in February 2016 and moved back to the US in March and rarely did a day go by that I didn’t think, ‘I would like to tell Louis about this’.  I missed him and now he’s gone, but I am sure he is regaling someone, somewhere with his stories.

Dr Jenel Virden is Senior Lecturer in American History at the University of Hull

I made two trips to the British Library in July and August 2016, thanks to the generous support of the Eccles Centre for American Studies. The purpose of these trips was to access a number of texts that I hoped would help me in my PhD project, which looks at the role of the body in the fiction of Don DeLillo. My central argument is that DeLillo’s prose locates specific anxieties of American culture at the site of the material body. I find that DeLillo’s writing reveals a peculiar interest in embodiment, and I am working to

understand the nature of the connection between grand social themes and individual embodied experience in his fiction. DeLillo’s interest in the body has become more explicit in his later works, particularly The Body Artist (2001) and Falling Man (2007), and from my research so far, it seems that the subject of the body only appears in criticism about his later works. However, my project hinges on the idea that the ‘bodily’ is — and always has been — central to DeLillo’s account of U.S. culture.

During my trips to the Eccles Centre I planned to look at a number of book chapters, articles, monographs, and PhD theses that I hoped would help me in better understanding the role of the body in DeLillo’s earlier fiction. In a journal article by Philip Nel from 2010 I found a useful perspective on the field of existing scholarship. Nel writes of the need to ‘deepen and expand the study of Don DeLillo’, asserting that critical focus has overwhelmingly favoured a number of recurring themes, and I am encouraged by this call for scholars to look beyond common critical frameworks. Nel goes on to examine gender roles in two of DeLillo’s novels, a subject in which the body plays an important part. Further reading revealed a similar interest in gender in several other of DeLillo’s works — I came across a book chapter by Ruth Helyer in which she looks at portrayals of the male body in DeLillo’s 1985 novel White Noise, and an article by Anne Longmuir on genre and gender in two novels from the 1970s. I also found a short piece from 2007 by Randy Laist, which explores the link between masculinity and physical stature in Americana, DeLillo’s 1971 debut novel. I have not encountered such an approach to DeLillo’s fiction before and I had not considered looking at the body in his work with a specific attention to gender, but I found some really useful ideas in these works that have inspired me to develop my own approach. Significantly, these texts also reveal an interest in the gendered body in DeLillo’s fiction that looks all the way back to his debut novel.

I gained a particularly valuable insight into the kinds of questions I am thinking through in my research in a journal article by Katrina Harack, published in 2013. Harack outlines some really interesting ideas about what she terms an ‘ethics of embodiment’ in two of DeLillo’s novels, one from 1985, the other from 2007. For Harack, both novels demonstrate a central concern with the body and its vulnerability. Her argument that the two texts are connected by a common investment in the body is a significant finding – this the first piece of scholarship I have found that reads the body as a continuing concern throughout DeLillo’s work, rather than something that is evident only in the later texts. I was also able to access some other really interesting sources beyond the print journals, and found a few lesser known interviews with the author in literary magazines, as well as a fascinating sound recording from 1998 in which DeLillo speaks about his life and work for the Radio 4 program ‘Kaleidoscope’. Beyond these specific findings, It was helpful to look more broadly at the range scholarship on the author. There is a large amount of critical work written on DeLillo’s fiction, which is reflected in the number of works available in the Eccles Centre’s North American collections. An overview of the many titles available helped to confirm my sense that criticism tends to favour a few recurring subjects, and that discussion of the body in DeLillo’s earlier work is largely absent. It was really useful to see the texts that particularly interest me in context, and to see, for example, how unusual Katrina Harack’s approach is. Had I found a large number of scholars making similar claims I would have had to rethink my own approach, so it is reassuring to find that I am not repeating arguments that have already been made.

My main objective in looking at the Eccles Centre’s collections was to gain a fuller understanding of how DeLillo’s treatment of the body has been addressed in existing criticism, and I also hoped to improve my knowledge of the field of DeLillo criticism more broadly. In my archival research I found a few key texts that will no doubt play an important role as I develop my own arguments. The works of literary criticism that I read offered alternative readings of DeLillo’s fiction, and suggested ways of thinking about the body in his work that I have not yet considered. I really enjoyed having the opportunity to conduct my research in the beautiful surroundings of the British Library. I will need to carry out further archival research, and plan to visit the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas which houses the majority of DeLillo’s own notes, research materials, drafts, and correspondence. During my time at the British Library I gained experience in finding relevant sources from a large body of material and in planning and carrying out archival work, and this will be of great use to me in continuing my research in the future. I was also invited to share the findings of my research as part of the Eccles Centre’s Summer Scholars series, which was a great opportunity to speak about my project to a mixed audience group. Presenting my work in this format really helped me to clarify and formulate my findings, and discussing my work with people from a range of academic backgrounds in the question and answer session was particularly productive, as it gave me ideas about how to develop my project from a diverse range of perspectives.

Rebecca Harding is a PhD student in the English department at the University of Sussex.