News From CPH

Faculty Honors

The Center for Public History and the Tenneco Lecture Series join the UH History Department in sponsoring a symposium to honor of Dr. Raúl Ramos and his book, Beyond the Alamo: Forging Mexican Ethnicity in San Antonio, 1821-1861 (University of North Carolina Press), on May 4, 2009 at 3:30 p.m. in the Rockwell Pavilion of the M.D. Anderson Library. Dr. Ramos is an associate professor of history at the University of Houston. Dr. Karl Jacoby of Brown University and Maria Montoya of New York University will offer commentary on the book during the symposium.

 

 

Martin Melosi received the 2009 Distinguished Service Award from the American Society for Environmental History at its annual meeting held this year in Tallahassee, Florida in March, 2009. The organization presents this award every other year to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the organization and community for distinguished service. Melosi served as president of the ASEH from 1993-1995. He funded the EV and Nancy Melosi Travel Grant and helped to organize two conferences in Houston, the only city to host the event twice. His fundraising efforts have made these events successful, and he continues to provide advice on fundraising and other matters to the organization. Melosi won ASEH’s best book award in 2001 for The Sanitary City and was recognized for his continued work inspiring environmental historians, as well as combining environmental and public history to help students recognize potential opportunities.

Appearances, Lectures & Events

The Center for Public History and the Tenneco Lecture Series join the UH History Department in sponsoring a symposium to honor of Dr. Raúl Ramos and his book, Beyond the Alamo: Forging Mexican Ethnicity in San Antonio, 1821-1861 (University of North Carolina Press), on May 4, 2009 at 3:30 p.m. in the Rockwell Pavilion of the M.D. Anderson Library. Dr. Ramos is an associate professor of history at the University of Houston. Dr. Karl Jacoby of Brown University and Maria Montoya of New York University will offer commentary on the book during the symposium.

Professor Martin Melosi delivered a presentation on water supply systems at the Water and Sustainability Symposium sponsored by the National Academy of Environmental Design and the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, in February 2009. The symposium was meant to develop policy positions for use by federal officials. Melosi also presented a paper entitled, "Houston: Energy Capital" at the “Cities in the Americas” workshop, part of the America’s Initiative at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. in March, 2009. Melosi will host a follow-up workshop at UH in March 2010 and serve as co-editor of a volume based on papers at the workshop.

Helen K. Valier, a CPH affiliate and professor in the UH Honors College, presented a paper, “The U.S. Cancer Business: A View from Texas,” at a conference on How Cancer Changed: Expanding the Boundaries of Medical Interventions at the Centre de Recherche Médecine, Santé et Société in Paris, France in April 2009.

Ph.D. student David Raley presented a paper, "Six Months in Texas and Louisiana: The Civil War Diary of Joseph Patterson Underwood" at the East Texas Historical Association conference in February 2009 in the other Paris.
Ph.D student Jason Theriot attended the 25th Minerals Management Service Information Transfer meeting, New Orleans, in January 2009 where he presented a paper, “The History of the Gulf Coast Shipyards and Fabrication Industry.” He also presented a paper, “Misguided Oil Policy: Nigeria and the Oil Crisis, 1980-1984,” at the Science, Technology, and Environment in Africa conference in Austin, Texas, in March.

The CPH was well represented at the February meeting of the American Society for Environmental History. Theriot discussed “Energy and Environmental Crossroads: The Impact of Petroleum Pipeline Canals on Coastal Louisiana’s Shrinking Wetlands.”
MA student Jeffrey Womack offered a paper, “Pipe-Dreams for Powering Paradise: Solar Power Satellites and the Energy Crisis.” CPH affiliate Tyler Priest of the Bauer School of Business, presented “Peak Oil Prophecies: Cassandras, Cornucopias, and Oil Supply Predictions in U.S. History.”

At the Organization of American Historians meeting in Seattle, Womack presented a well-received paper, “Mutants in the Desert: The Impact of Nuclear imagery on Science Fiction Films.” 

MA student Debbie Harwell took part in the “Wednesdays Women in Black and White” conference sponsored by the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee in March 2009, presented a paper, “‘Like a long-handled spoon’: How Wednesdays in Mississippi United Women across Regional and Racial Lines.”

Alumni News

Elizabeth (Scout) Blum (MA, 1997, PhD, 2000), currently Associate Professor of History at Troy University, published Love Canal Revisited: Race, Class, and Gender in Environmental Activism (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2008).

Amy Bacon (MA, 1996) will publish Living Memorial, Living Tradition: The Memorial Student Center at Texas A&M University by Texas A&M University Press in 2009.

In Memoriam for Two Public History Students

Major William Stevenson (M.A. 1998) passed away at his home in Houston on March 15, 2009. A native Houstonian born on September 28, 1948, Major graduated from Jack Yates High School. He earned his B.A. in history at St. Edwards University in Austin and taught at Houston’s Woodson Middle School. After receiving the James Madison Memorial to study the U. S. Constitution Fellowship in 1995, Major completed his M.A. in U.S. History at the University of Houston in 1998 before returning to the classroom to teach government and history at Willowridge High School in the Fort Bend I.S.D. He received commendations from former President George W. Bush, former Congressman Kenneth Benson, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson, and former HISD Superintendent and U.S. Secretary of Education Ron Paige, and multiple awards for teacher of the year. Major and his wife Beverly received the Houston Proud and Good Brick Visionary Awards for their work with the City of Houston Parks and Recreation Department, Houston Endowment, and Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission and Historical Society to develop the E.R. and Ann Taylor Park on his family’s original homestead south of downtown Houston.

Priscilla Benham (Ph.D. 1987) died March 9, 2009 at the age of seventy. A descendent of Ulysses S. Grant, she was born in Houston on July 30, 1938 and grew up in the Baytown area where she graduated from Robert E. Lee High School. She received her B.A. at Baylor, and M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Houston, writing her dissertation on the explosion of the French freighter, “Granchamp,” that exploded in Texas City on April 16, 1947 killing at least 468 people. Priscilla taught U.S. History at the University of Houston, Cy-Fair College, and North Harris Country Community College, and for twenty years at the University of Houston-Downtown before retiring in 2006. An active member of the East Texas Historical Society, Priscilla published several articles, contributed to history textbooks, and is remembered for making history “come alive” to her students.

 

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