Jason McDonald, assistant professor of history, won the Lawrence O. Christensen Award for his article “‘Watch Adair County Klan Grow’: The Second Ku Klux Klan in Kirksville, Missouri, 1923-25,” which was published in the Missouri Historical Review in October 2023. The Christensen prize is awarded to the best article on a Missouri history topic published during each calendar year. The award was presented to McDonald at the Missouri Conference on History in Columbia, Missouri, 15 March 2024.

Students present and one wins a prize

History major Elizabeth Nahach won the annual Lynn and Kristen Morrow Prize for best student paper at the recent Missouri Conference on History held in Columbia on 15 March 2024.
Besides Nahach History majors Nathan Dowell, Véla Lightle, Logan Kammerer and history/anthropology major, Micaela Reiss, also represented Truman at the conference. The five students by participated in two panels moderated by Jason McDonald, assistant professor of history.
On the panel, “Challenging Traditional Perceptions and Projections on Identity and Hierarchy,” Nahach and Dowell delivered presentations on research they conducted during the TruScholars program in summer 2023. On the same panel, Reiss presented on research during her time as a Schwengel Scholarship intern at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum in Independence, Missouri. Dowell’s paper discussed the German immigrant experience in 19th-century St. Charles County and Reiss’s paper discussed the role of religion in Harry S. Truman’s political life.

 

 

Recent History Excursion

On August 30, 2023, Dr. Jason McDonald’s HIST 3085 Global World War I class visited the National World War I Memorial and Museum in Kansas City, Missouri. The field trip examined artifacts from the First World War and the ways in which the conflict is preserved in historical memory.

Judicial Archives Project Interns Visit State Archives in Jeff City

Truman students Bryce LewinLucah McCulloughAustin Newton and Mary Wilkinson visited the Missouri State Archives in Jefferson City, Missouri, Nov. 4. This field trip is part of the Judicial Archives Project internship they are completing this semester under the supervision of Mary McIntosh, local records field archivist, and Jason McDonaldassistant professor of history.

Pictured left to right: Bryce Lewin, Lucah McCullough, Mary McIntosh, Austin Newton and Mary Wilkinson in the microfilm storage room.

2022 Outstanding History student

Amaris Garber was the History department’s outstanding undergraduate student this year.Amaris Garber

 

TRUMAN STUDENTS AND PROFESSOR PRESENT PAPERS AT MISSOURI CONFERENCE ON HISTORY

Students John Jones (BA History/BS Linguistics, 2022), Cameron Massieon (BA History, 2024), Kendall Tarantino (BA Anthropology, 2023) and Eric Allison (BS History, 2024) represented Truman at the Missouri Conference on History on March 17, 2022, in Jefferson City, Missouri, by participating in a panel entitled “Public History Point of Entry: Student Reflections on Internships in Museums and Archives.”

picture of students

The papers addressed and reflected upon aspects of internships that the students completed in the summer of 2021. In “Promoting Engagement with Exhibits,” John Jones discussed his work at the Special Collections Department of the Duane G. Meyer Library in Springfield, Missouri. Cameron Massieon’s presentation, “Navigating a Cataloging System,” examined his internship at the St. Joseph Museums, which was funded by a grant from the Missouri Humanities Council. Kendall Tarantino spoke on the topic of “Social Media and Museum Work,” based on her internship at the National Railroad Museum in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Eric Allison’s internship at the Field House Museum in St. Louis was covered in his presentation “Managing Educational Uncertainty in a Global Pandemic.” The panel was moderated by Dr. Jason McDonald, Assistant Professor, Department of History.

Dr. McDonald also participated in the panel “Nativism and Extremism in Middle America.” His paper, entitled “‘America First, Last and Forever’: The Second Ku Klux Klan in Kirksville, Missouri,” examined the origins, character, and decline of Adair County Klan No. 132 in the 1920s.