Twenty-Seventh Annual Student History Conference
February 23, 2024
L.A. Pittenger Student Center
All conference events are free and open to the public.
This conference is organized by the Ball State Department of History with generous financial support from the Department of History, the Center for Middletown Studies, and the Honors College
8:45-9:00 a.m.
Music Lounge
Welcome, Opening Remarks, and Refreshments
Kevin Smith, Associate Dean, College of Sciences and Humanities, & Bruce Geelhoed, Chair of History
First Panel Session
9:10-10:45
Cardinal Hall A
World War II and Its Aftermath
Bruce Geelhoed, Department of History, Chair & Comment
Mabel Gardner (Western University, Ontario), German and Free French Propaganda during World War II
Zachary Long (Ball State), The Phantom Fifth Column: A Historiography of the Japanese American Internment Decision
Ciera Boyes (Ball State), Nuclear Test Sites: The Decisions, Testing, and Aftermath that Made U.S. History
Cardinal Hall B
Public History Internship Showcase
Wendy Soltz, Department of History, Chair & Comment
Lars Arceneaux* (Ball State), Prairie Creek Reservoir/City of Muncie
Kathleen Donoho* (Ball State), Minnetrista Museum and Gardens
Zoe Olesker* (Ball State), Michigan Maritime Museum
Katrina Partlow (Ball State), Children’s Museum of Indianapolis
Halle Pressler (Ball State), St. Joe County Public Library
Cardinal Hall C
Perspectives on the Automobile Industry: Media, Research, and Discussion
Ronald V. Morris, Department of History, Chair & Comment
Kenneth Deetz (Ball State)
Owen Norton* (Ball State)
Elijah Sturges* (Ball State)
Forum Room
New Approaches to the History of War and Society
Scott Stephan, Department of History, Chair & Comment
Hunter Clark (Ball State), Sherman’s Anxiety
Raymond Wyatt (Ball State), The War Mothers of Delaware County
Jalyn Henke (University of Southern Indiana), The Blood is on Their Hands: Acknowledging the Female Perpetrators of the Nazi Regime
Keynote Address
11:00-12:00
Student Center Ballroom
Dr. Max Fraser, Assistant Professor of History, University of Miami
Finding Traces of the Hillbilly Highway on the Road to Middletown
Introduced by Jim Connolly, Department of History
12:00-1:00
Lunch Break
Second Panel Session
1:00-2:20
Cardinal Hall A
Gender and Criminality in the 20th Century
Carolyn Malone, Department of History, Chair & Comment
Kendall Brandeburg (Indiana University, Bloomington), The Progressive Era Response to Prostitution: The Conflicting Legacy of the Chicago Vice Commission
McKenna Love (University of Southern Indiana), Male Bonding and the Inconsistent Persecution of Homosexual Offenses in Nazi Organizations
Madison Bartoo (Ball State), The Game within the Sport: Tonya Harding and Social Class in Sports
Cardinal Hall B
Media and Representation
Emily Johnson, Department of History, Chair & Comment
Amelia Dorsey* (Ball State), Anarchist Portrayal after the Haymarket Affair
Katrina Partlow, (Ball State), Publishing, Producing, and Pioneering: The Representation of Latinx Women in Southwestern American Media from 1840 to 1920
Naomi St Andre* (Ball State), Girls, God, and Magazines: Exploring the Unique Evangelicalism of Brio Magazine
Cardinal Hall C
Responses to Diversity in American History
Max Felker-Kantor, Department of History, Chair & Comment
Zoe Olesker* (Ball State), Paddy in the Press: Thomas Nast’s Nativist Illustrations of the un-American Irish
Alexa Ramsey* (Ball State), Black Codes and Vagrancy Laws
Teagan Hayes* (Ball State), Ελληνική κουζίνα: Greek Diet within Greece versus in the Midwest United States
Third Panel Session
2:30-4:10
Cardinal Hall A
Finding a Place at the Margins: The Exiled, Animals, and Emotions
Abel Alves, Department of History, Chair & Comment
Emily Loney* (Ball State), Making the Best of Whoredom: A Complicated Look into the Empowerment and Victimization of European Sex Workers during the Middle Ages
Lucas Wallen (Millikin University), The Comparison Between Women and Animals Is in the Best Faith in This One
Maggie Jones* (Ball State), These Unhappy Princes: An Analysis of the 1674 “Princes in the Tower” Urn in Relation to Charles II’s Restoration Emotional Regime
Will Turner* (Ball State), What Makes a Christian? Fitting God into the New World
Cardinal Hall B
Hoosier History
Melissa Gentry, Bracken Library Map Collections Supervisor, Chair & Comment
Kathleen Donoho* (Ball State), Hoosier Homespun: The Gender Division of Textile Production Labor in Early-19th Century Indiana
Sam Kidder (Ball State), The Indiana Sanitary Commission: Neglected from Hoosier History
Carole Stout and Alex Costello (Ball State), A Woman Dedicated to Bettering Her Community: Ella Woldridge
Zachary Broyles (University of Southern Indiana), Throughlines: Examining the Indiana Klan’s Influence on Contemporary Actions & History
Cardinal Hall C
American Popular Culture in the Cold War
Sergei Zhuk, Department of History, Chair & Comment
Lars Arceneaux* (Ball State), Printing the Legend: The Life and Legacy of John Wayne
Katie Turner (Ball State), Trekking through the Cold War: Star Trek as a Manifestation of the Global Conflict
Payton Holland (Ball State), We Are the Empire: How the United States Refused to Heed the Warning of Star Wars
4:20-4:40
Music Lounge
Reception and Awards Ceremony
Bruce Geelhoed, Jessica Reuther, Scott Stephan, and Chris Thompson
* The asterisk next to the presenters’ names indicates that they are members of the Honors College at Ball State University.