Dear Alumni and Friends of the History Department:

Here at Miami, fall has come and gone as in a flash. But that impression is just a measure of how busy our students and faculty have been these past few months. Classes were full and the hallways of Upham were once again pulsing with the heavy traffic connecting classrooms and offices. I am happy to share some glimpses of the work that was done. 

I end with a note on an invaluable opportunity several of our students enjoyed during the summer. At that time we were able to inaugurate a new history internship program, made possible by the generosity of History alumnus Robert Slee ’80. Three rising history seniors spent weeks gaining essential professional experience in a field of their choice – in a U.S. courthouse, a Civil War museum, and at a large strategic communications firm. We are tremendously grateful for the support and hope to expand the program in the years to come. We already know that our alumni thrive in many different professional pursuits. It is more important than ever to help them get where they want to be. 

How many objects does it take to write the history of Miami University? In 2019, two groups of history seniors, enrolled in professor Steven Conn’s capstone course, set out to answer that question. The result is a book, entitled The History of Miami University in Forty Objects, that appeared this fall. 

The students were challenged to do several things. First, they dove deep into Miami’s history, reading published and unpublished histories that have been written over the years. On this basis they decided on six themes they wanted to explore – the six chapters in the book. Next, they had to learn to ‘think with objects’ – to use material culture as an historical source. Then they began to explore Miami’s amazing collections, from the Havighurst Special Collections in King Library to the Art Museum, to the McGuffey House and the Hefner Natural History Museum, and more. Finally, they chose specific objects they wanted to write about.

While the course was designed and taught by Dr. Conn, the W. E. Smith Professor of History, the project was student-driven. The students – now alumni – had free rein to frame the book and the essays in it. When you read the richly illustrated book, you will hear twenty-four voices telling you stories they thought you needed to know about their alma mater: about the hat of Miami’s first African American employee Peter Bruner, about Charles Barrows’ 1860 painting of the Four Mile Creek at Bonham Road, about William Holmes McGuffey’s First Eclectic Reader, about the Old Main building, about Miami’s role in training female navy recruits, about the university’s relations with the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, about Miami’s Victory Bell, and much more.  

All proceeds from the book go to the department’s Andrew R.L. Cayton Memorial Fund, which supports the research and professional development of history students. To obtain a copy of the book, please contact the Department of History.

This fall, the History Department Charles R. and Elizabeth C. Wilson Lecture was delivered by Miami alumnus Michael Evans ’93, senior Latin American analyst at the National Security Archive (NSA) in Washington, D.C., where he works to secure, digitize, and interpret declassified documents related to U.S. foreign policy.

His lecture, “Forensic History: Unearthing National Secrets about Human Rights in Latin America,” traced a documentary trail that connected the banana company Chiquita with the funding of terrorist groups in Colombia. Evans and his team relied on a strategic application of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to secure a trove of previously-secret documents that came to be known as the Chiquita Papers, and made them available to the Colombian Truth Commission as part of the evidence base used to restore justice for crimes committed against the civilian population in the country’s fraught banana and narco cartel territories. Evans’ “forensic” approach to interpreting often heavily-redacted documents requires sophisticated understanding of the material conditions of document classification and archiving, but carefully piecing together the puzzle yields important “human rights evidence.”

Prior to his public lecture, Evans visited Dr. Elena Jackson Albarrán’s class Revolutions and Social Movements in Latin America, in which the students had been studying the Colombian case. He was joined by a former student in a previous iteration of the class, History major Matthew Brunn ’23, who conducted a summer internship at the NSA in the summer of 2022 under Evans’ supervision. Brunn talked about the excitement of being able to have hands-on access to documents, learning the ins and outs of filing FOIA requests, and navigating the network of D.C. repositories in the quest for hidden archives.

The lecture hall was bursting beyond capacity. Students from History, Latin American Studies, Social Justice Studies, International Studies, Political Science, and American Studies (and a thrilled cohort of librarians) spilled out into the hallway to listen to this compelling story of how access to documents from our past can redress some of history’s legacies in the present.

Students reflected on how Evans’ lecture illuminated the current-day relevance of the work that archivists and historians do. One student confessed, “I usually think of archivists as people who like to sit, read, and file old documents while writing books about their findings. After the Evans lecture, however, it made me realize that the work archivists do can extend beyond writing yet another paper about the War of the Roses. Looking through declassified documents can help to bring light to the past of people and of countries, especially the more unsavory history that tends to be covered up by those in charge.”

Another noted, “[Evans] truly seems to be advancing human rights and global justice forward with his work, something that many probably wouldn’t expect from someone who just ‘reads old documents.’”

Others spoke of the democratizing effect of putting the archival history of state and private interests into the hands of the people. Evans’ visit showcased both the thrills and importance of applied history in the realm of policy and human rights.

Faculty Spotlight: Kimberly Hamlin

Donations can be made by clicking the red button below. Please reference “Andrew R.L. Cayton Memorial Fund” in the memo section.