July, 2003
A Note from the Editors
Writing as the Newsletter's two co-editors, we want to thank everyone who participated in the production of issue #2! Also writing as co-editors, we want to reiterate Joe Hawes's invitation to get involved (Message from the SHCY President). We began this enterprise last fall with a small group of volunteers who had big ideas about what the Newsletter could and should be. The editors' meeting in Baltimore produced more ideas and our plans keep expanding. But we need help to create a rich, elegant, and very useful publication.
You'll find throughout the columns requests from the editors for suggestions about topics to discuss or newsworthy events to describe. Janet Golden and David Pomfret, who put together the "News from the Field" pages, invite SHCY members to write reviews of museum exhibits. Lisa Ossian and Kathleen Alaimo want your help with the Newsletter's pedagogy pages. We inaugurated a new feature in this issue; "Websightings" needs an editor, someone who will search out and review sites of interest to SHCY members. Miriam and Ilana have made "Girls' History: History of Girls" column the Newsletter's first topical column. We want to encourage others to develop similar specialized pages. Beginning with the Winter 2004 issue, we hope to include in each Newsletter a bibliographic essay. The first will be devoted to children and war -- volunteers to create essays for other topics? Another suggestion that came up in Baltimore: a "Notes from the Archives" column in which researchers could promote their favorite collection.
In the future we'd like to be able to publish more feature articles and commentary -- like the reports on the Baltimore conference from Joe, Melissa, and Sean.
And from the digital, production, appearance side of things -- we would like to make these pages "look pretty" with images, a more sophisticated layout, and perhaps a pdf format.
Perhaps it's the optimism of youth! This is an ambitious agenda, but one we believe can be accomplished with your help.
So, we encourage you to critique this issue; to make suggestions; and to volunteer your editorial services. The next issue of the Newsletter is slated to appear in January 2004. Let us know what you'd like to contribute!
Your Co-editors,
Jim and Kathy
james.marten@marquette.edu AND kjwj@vt.edu
Who We Are: THe SHCY Newsletter Editors and Contributors
Joe Austin an assistant professor in the Department of Popular Culture at Bowling Green State University, where he teaches courses on youth cultures. He is the author of Taking the Train: How Graffiti Art Became an Urban Crisis in New York City(Columbia UP, 2001) and co-editor of Generations of Youth: Youth Cultures and History in Twentieth Century America (NYU, 1998). He is currently co-editing an anthology on youth and popular cultures since 1945, and co-writing a textbook on popular culture. Email: JAustin@bgnet.bgsu.edu
Kathleen Alaimo, Professor of History at Saint Xavier University, Chicago, is co-editor and contributor to Children as Equals: Exploring the Rights of the Child (UPA, 2002). Her research interests are European adolescence, education, delinquency, and rights. Her latest work is on scientific ideas about female adolescence in England and France, 1880-1920. Kathleen teaches world history, European women's history, and a seminar on the history of children and youth. With Lisa Ossian she edits the Newsletter's teaching columns. Email: alaimo@sxu.edu
Miriam Forman-Brunell, Professor of History at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, teaches courses on the history of American girls, women, and gender. She is the author of Made to Play House: Dolls and the Commercialization of AmericanGirlhood (1993;1998) and the editor of Girlhood in America (2001). Her forthcoming book, Get a Sitter! Fears and Fantasies about Babysitters is due to be published by Routledge Press next year. With Ilana Nash, Miriam edits the Newsletter's columns on girls history. Emai: Forman-BrunellM@umkc.edu
Janet Golden is Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University-Camden and a Faculty Associate at the Rutgers Center for Children and Childhood Studies. She recently completed (with Heather Munro Prescott and Richard Meckel) on an editedvolume on ChildHealth in American History. Janet co-edits with David Pomfret the "News from the Field" column. Email: jgolden@crab.rutgers.edu. IEmail: jgolden@crab.rutgers.edu
Kathleen W. Jones coedits the SHCY Newsletter with Jim Marten. She is Associate Professor of History at Virginia Tech, where she teaches the history of medicine and a course on murder in America. She is the author of Taming the Troublesome Child: American Families, Child Guidance and the Limits of Psychiatric Authority(1999; 2002); at present she is working on a history of youth suicide. Email: kjwj@vt.edu
Melissa R. Klapper is an assistant professor of history at Rowan University. Her research interests lie in the intersection of gender,ethnicity, and youth. She is currently revising her dissertation on adolescent Jewish girls in America between 1860-1920, which will bepublished by New York University Press. Email: klapper@rowan.edu.
James Marten, Professor of History at Marquette University, coedits the SHCY Newsletter with Kathleen Jones. Jim is the author of The Children's Civil War, editor of Children and War: A Historical Anthology, and Director of the Children in Urban America Project. (The project can be found at http://academic.mu.edu/cuap) He is also Secretary-Treasurer of the Society for the History of Children and Youth. Email: James.Marten@marquette.edu
Sean Martin has taught courses in Jewish and East European studies and he is currently working on the history of Jewish child welfare in interwar Poland. Part of his forthcoming book, "Building Our Own Home: Jewish Civil Society in Cracow, 1918-1939," concerns the education of Jewish children in public and private schools. Beginning this fall, he will be teaching at the University of Phoenix in Cleveland, Ohio. Email: seanmartin1@juno.com
Ilana Nash has a PhD in American Culture Studies from Bowling Green State University. She is currently an Assistant Professor of English at Western Michigan University, where she teaches courses on youth, popular culture, and literature. Her book "Troubling Daughters: Teenage Girls in Popular Culture, 1930-1965," is forthcoming from Indiana University Press. Ilana co-edits, with Miriam Forman-Brunell, the Newsletter column on the history of girls and welcomes suggestions or comments. Email: ilana_nash@yahoo.com
Lisa L. Ossian completed her Ph.D. in agricultural history and rural studies at Iowa State University in 1998 with a dissertation titled "The Home Fronts of Iowa, 1940-1945." She is currently researching the early depression years in rural Iowa and is history and English instructor at Southwestern Community College in Creston, Iowa. With Kathleen Alaimo, Lisa edits the column on teaching. Email: LLOssian@aol.com
David M. Pomfret is Assistant Professor in Modern European History in the Department of History, University of Hong Kong. He teaches and publishes on the history of young people and adults' representations of young people in modern European cities. David co-edits with Janet Golden the "News from the Field" column. Email: pomfretd@hkucc.hku.hk
Luke Springman is Associate Professor of German and Chair of the Dept. of Languages and Cultures at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. He is currently Working on a monograph examining youth culture of the German Weimar Republic (1918-1933). Luke edits the "Recent Publications" column. Email:. Email: spring@bloomu.edu
