Volume 1 Issue 2 Introduction

Introduction

The Columbia Undergraduate Journal of History is pleased to present its second issue. While we began by only publishing papers written by students at Columbia University, for the current issue the editors solicited nominations from universities and colleges across the United States and Canada. We thank the professors who nominated more than sixty papers from nearly thirty universities and colleges. The editors are excited by the progress in fostering critical intellectual dialogue and recognizing outstanding undergraduate scholarship in the field of history, a process we hope continues at the upcoming Herbert Aptheker Undergraduate History Conference. This issue includes five articles reflecting diverse historical interests and methods that both individually and collectively show the importance of the historical discipline. Jeffrey Martin of Brown University impressed the editors with his rigorous interpretative framework and careful reading of archival sources. Exploring the key historical topics of power and the process of class formation, Martin uses the temperance movement in Rhode Island to examine class relations and middle class legitimation in the age of the market revolution and an emerging capitalist society. Written while at Duke University, Barnes Hauptfuhrer’s article likewise reflects a wide and careful reading of published and unpublished primary sources. Exploring the politics of unionism and secession in North Carolina, Hauptfuhrer cautions against historical narratives that stress the ‘inevitability’ of secession by revealing the complex and contested local politics from the election of Lincoln to the Fort Sumter crisis. Hauptfuhrer effectively uses an intensive local focus to examine

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larger questions of Civil War politics. Keisha N. Benjamin of Binghamton University offers an insistent intervention in the historical literature with her attempt to restore the voices of rank and file women to the historiography of the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Only the perspectives of elite Garveyite women have been studied, Benjamin contends, and her use of the “Women’s Page” of the Negro World provides an interesting attempt to reconstruct rank and file feminist sentiment. In addition to publication in the journal, the articles by Jeffrey Martin, Barnes Hauptfuhrer, and Keisha N. Benjamin have been selected for the Herbert Aptheker Undergraduate History Prize. The combination of extensive archival research with attempts to ask and address important historical questions in their scholarship reflects the tradition of Herbert Aptheker, a Columbia undergraduate and pioneering historian of slavery whose work challenged generations of racist historiography. The editors eagerly anticipate the lectures that these scholars will give during the Herbert Aptheker Undergraduate History Conference at Columbia University on February 10, 2009. This issue of the journal includes two additional articles. Jason Zuckerbrod, of our own Columbia University, contributes an excellent paper on consensus politics in Britain during the Second World War. Zuckerbrod uses a small but carefully analyzed selection of newspaper articles in prominent journals to explore how different ideological orientations from the right to the left understood and came to support educational programs for the military. Against interpretations that emphasize the Labour’s post-war ascendancy, Zuckerbrod’s analysis cautions against simplistically equating agreement over particular policies with ideological consensus.* The editors are also eager to include Emma O’Brien’s article, written at the University of Minnesota. Its contemporary focus and use of interviews and other unique sources distinguish O’Brien’s work from the more traditional historical narratives published in this issue. Her study of the power of place within the hip hop scene in * The editors would like to note that while Jason Zuckerbrod was initially on the editorial board of the journal, during the middle and final stages of selection for publication and prizes, Zuckerbrod recused himself from all editorial decisions and participation in the work of the editorial board.

INTRODUCTION

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Minneapolis provoked fruitful discussion within the editorial board about the boundaries of the historical discipline. In deference to the impressive research and intellectual creativity that O’Brien’s research unquestionably represents, the editors include this article. However we also encourage our readers to reflect on how the historical discipline has in the past and should in the future define its boundaries and core practices of intellectual creation. The Columbia Undergraduate Journal of History is proud to publish these five articles, which are the very best undergraduate historical scholarship submitted from across the United States and Canada. The editors would like to thank all the departments, professors, and nominated authors for their assistance and collaboration in making the study of history a more collective, fulfilling, and rewarding endeavor. The next issue will commence the second volume of the journal, under new leadership and with great anticipation of growth. We look forward to continued support from the history faculty at Columbia and Barnard, the Columbia College Student Council, the Herbert Lehman Center for American History and others as we continue to build this important and exciting project. The Editors December 26, 2008 New York, New York