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.

Truman students Bryce Lewin, Lucah McCullough, Austin 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 McDonald, assistant professor of history.

Shannon Fetzner was the MAE Secondary outstanding graduate student of the year.

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

 

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.”

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.

 

Check out Professor Nudell on the Alliterative Podcast, episode 102, 22 Feb 2022, “Baking Greek Bread.”

 

On Tuesday October 19, 2021, Dr. Jason McDonald (Assistant Professor, Department of History) featured in “Prop A in the Context of Race and Policing in Austin, Texas: An Urgent Forum.” This event, sponsored by the Institute for Historical Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, brought together a panel of experts on the history of racism in Austin, Texas. Dr. McDonald spoke on the subject of race and policing as covered in his book Racial Dynamics in Early Twentieth-Century Austin, Texas. You can watch the discussion and get more information on Dr. McDonald’s book by clicking on the above links.

Students Shannon Fetzner (BA History), Nick Pruett (BA History), and Alexandra Miller (BA History) represented Truman at the Missouri Conference on History on March 11, 2021, by participating in a panel entitled “Regulating Class, Race and Ethnicity in Early Twentieth-Century America.” Due to the pandemic, the conference took place online this year. The panel was chaired by Dr. Jason McDonald, Department of History. The presentations delivered by Fetzner—“Pauperized and Degenerated: Eugenicists’ Perceptions of Native Americans in the Early Twentieth Century”—and Pruett—“‘Gentlemen with Few Peers’: Harry Laughlin’s Working Relationships with Select Eugenics Movement Leaders”—were both based on projects first started on a history course with Dr. McDonald in fall 2019. In summer 2020, Pruett completed the research for his paper thanks to support from the Office of Student Research’s Grants-in-Aid of Scholarship and Research program. Miller’s paper, entitled “‘The Making of Useful Citizens’: Social Engineering in Kansas City Parks, 1893–1923,” was based on archival research completed during summer 2020 as part of the TruScholars Summer Undergraduate Research Program sponsored by the Office of Student Research.

The Index recently ran the following piece on the History department’s Museum and Archives Internships

https://tmn.truman.edu/blog/lifestyle/museums-and-judicial-archives-internship-provides-opportunity-for-more-than-just-history-majors/