Department of
History		   West Virginia
University

 

Holt Conference

 

The 2007 U.S. Senator Rush D. Holt History Conference at West Virginia University, April 13-14, 2007

“Transforming Appalachian Scholarship: A Conference Honoring the Contributions of Professor Ronald L. Lewis”

The seventh annual Holt Conference will take its major themes from Professor Lewis’s work during his tenure in the History Department at West Virginia University.  These themes include African-American workers in Appalachia, industry and labor in the Appalachian region, the industrial transformation of West Virginia, immigration and ethnic diversity within Appalachia, and West Virginia regional history.  Panels and speakers will be based around these themes.  We especially invite his former doctoral students to participate in the conference, both to demonstrate the depth and breadth of Professor Lewis’s impact on the scholarship of the region and to honor Professor Lewis as a mentor, as well as a scholar.

Transforming Appalachian Scholarship will pay well-deserved homage to a respected scholar and bring attention to Professor Lewis’s accomplishments and varied services to Appalachian and West Virginia regional studies organizations and activities.  As well, it will highlight the History Department’s, the Eberly College’s and the University’s continuing commitment to Appalachian Studies, bringing together scholars from throughout the region in celebration of Professor Lewis’s career as one of the foremost scholars in Appalachian history.

U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd has been invited to the conference, and the final event of the conference will be the 2007 Callahan lecture, which will be given by noted Appalachian scholar and sociologist Dwight Billings of the University of Kentucky.

 

 

Callahan Lectures

The Callahan Lecture series was established in 1964 in honor of the eminent historian James Morton Callahan, who served as Department Chair from 1902 to 1929, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences from 1916 to 1929, and University Research Professor from 1929 to 1956. A student of Herbert Baxter Adams, Callahan received his Ph.D. from the John Hopkins University and is considered one of the founders of modern diplomatic history. He wrote numerous works, including The Alaska Purchase and Americo-Canadian Relations, American Foreign Policy in Mexican Relations, American Relations in the Pacific and Far East, 1784-1900, Cuba and International Relations: A Historical Study in American Diplomacy, and The Diplomatic History of the Southern Confederacy.

The Callahan Lecturers 1964 to 2005

1964 - Samuel Flagg Bemis, Yale University

1965 - Dexter Perkins, University of Rochester

1966 - Julian P. Boyd, Princeton University

1967 - Arthur Link, Princeton University

1968 - Roy Nichols, University of Pennsylvania

1969 - Bell I. Wiley, Emory University

1970 - John Hope Franklin, University of Chicago

1971 - Frank Freidel, Harvard University

1972 - James W. Silver, University of South Florida

1973 - Dean Rusk, University of Georgia

1974 - Walter Rundell, University of Maryland

1975 - Jack P. Greene, The Johns Hopkins University

1976 - Richard B. Morris, Columbia University

Merrill D. Peterson, University of Virginia

1977 - James B. Rhoads, Archivist of the United States

1978 - Dewey W. Grantham, Vanderbilt University

1979 - David F. Trask, The Historian, Department of State

1980 - Richard G. Hewlett, The Historian, U.S. Department of Energy

1981 - Robert F. Byrnes, Indiana University

1982 - Elizabeth A.R. Brown, Brooklyn College

1983 - Richard W. Leopold, Northwestern University

1984 - Philip D. Curtin, The Johns Hopkins University

1985 - Eric Foner, Columbia University

1986 - John L. Gaddis, Ohio University

1987 - Walter LaFeber, Cornell University

1988 - Jane De Hart-Mathews, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

1989 - Stanley Nider Katz, Princeton University

1990 - Paul Gaston, University of Virginia

1991 - Yvonne Haddad, University of Massachusetts

1992 - Rudolph Vecoli, University of Minnesota

1993 - David C. Lindberg, University of Wisconsin

1994 - Gabor S. Boritt, Gettysburg College

1995 - Peter Hayes, Northwestern University

1996 - Dwight T. Pitcaithley, Chief Historian, National Park Service

1997 - Paul Finkelman, Hamline University

1998 - John Edward Bodnar, Indiana University

1999 - Peter N. Stearns, Carnegie-Mellon University

2000 - Linda Grant DePauw, George Washington University

2001 - No Lecture in 2001

2002 - E.S. Atieno Odhiambo, Rice University

2003 - Joe William Trotter, Carnegie Mellon University

2004 - Mary Lindemann, Carnegie Mellon University

2005 - Niall Ferguson, Harvard University

2005 - Geoff Eley, University of Michigan