Annual Meeting
The Southern 2023 | #2023SHA | November 9-12, 2023. Registration Is Open!
Registration is now open for the 89th Annual Meeting of the Southern Historical Association, which will take place at the Westin Charlotte in Charlotte, North Carolina, November 9-12, 2023. Located in the uptown financial district, The Westin Charlotte is perfectly situated near downtown's top destinations and close to popular attractions like Bank of America Stadium, the Spectrum Center, and the Charlotte Convention Center. You can preview a draft of the program here.
Conference Registration
Members are urged to preregister at https://thesha.org/register. The preregistration fee is $40 for members and $70 for nonmembers, with attending spouses registered for free. Preregistration opens June 1 and closes October 18. On-site registration rates increase to $60 for members and $85 for nonmembers; attending spouses can register for free. Please include the name of attending spouse on the registration form. Both preregistration and on-site registration is $5 for students. Luncheon tickets ordered in advance should be picked up at the registration desk. A limited number of luncheon tickets can also be purchased on-site at the registration desk.
Hotel Address
Westin Charlotte
601 South College Street
Charlotte, NC 28202
Reservations and Rates
By Phone: (704) 375-2600 (ask for reservations and mention that you are with the SHA)
Online: https://book.passkey.com/go/TheSouthernHistorical2023
SHA On-Site Contact: Maja Ferrari (Senior Event Manager; [email protected] or 704.335.2114 )
- Single Rate: $179.00
- Double Rate: $179.00
- Triple Rate: $199.00
- Quad Rate: $219.00
- Block Cut-Off Date: October 18, 2023
Transportation and Parking
The hotel does not have an airport shuttle. Attendees flying into Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) should plan on a seven mile uber/lyft to the hotel. Self-parking is available on-site for $35/night or $40/night for valet parking.
Hosting Breakfasts, Luncheons, and Receptions
Affiliate groups, departments, or presses planning receptions, meals, or alumni events should contact Maja Ferrari at 704-335-2114 or [email protected] to reserve rooms and discuss catering options.
Exhibitors and Advertisers
The 89th Annual Meeting of the Southern Historical Association will be held at the Westin Charlotte (601 South College Street Charlotte, NC 28202), November 9-12, 2023. Attendance typically runs between 1000 and 1200 and includes academic historians, editors, museum and public history professionals, K-12 educators, National Park Service personnel, education administrators, lawmakers, and non-professionals who just love rigorous history. The SHA represents all historians of the South and all historians within the South, and the SHA’s annual meeting has earned its reputation as one of the most convivial and rewarding of all the major history conferences. Our exhibitor and advertiser guide has all the details you need to take advantage of our range of options for putting your message in front of our members. The easiest way to process payments for exhibit, advertising, and sponsorship options is by credit card at thesha.org/reservations. If you would prefer to process by check, all you need to do is complete these forms, and we’ll send you a receipt. Never hesitate to write ([email protected]) or call (706.542.8848) SHA's administrative assistant, Maggie Riley, with any questions. See you in Charlotte!
Future Meeting Dates/Sites
The Proposal Portal for SHA 2024 Is Now Open!
The proposal window for the 90th Annual Meeting of the Association in Kansas City, Missouri is now open and will remain open until September 15, 2023. Program Committee Chair, Angela Murphy, has issued the following call for proposals:
This will be a special conference in that, although the SHA will maintain its own program, it will be held concurrently with the meeting of the Western Historical Association. The program committee therefore is especially interested in papers and panels that explore intersections between Southern and Western History as we meet alongside our Western History colleagues in Kansas City, a location where those two histories connect. Some general themes worth attention are: regional identity; race/racism/anti-racism; gender/women’s history; LGBT histories; Indigenous/Native American history; labor activism/class consciousness; middle class formation/culture; scandals/crime/violence; policing/law enforcement/criminal justice; local histories of Kansas City and its environs; slavery expansion, especially in Missouri and Kansas; and environmental issues including natural disasters, drought, federal investment, national parks and land management, and climate change.
Some questions that may be considered include:
- How has regional identity developed in, and shaped, the South and/or the West?
- How have conceptions of the South/southerners and West/westerners connected with one another and how have those connections changed over time?
- How have the South and the West reckoned with their distinctive racial histories in recent years in academic historiography and/or public history?
- How important has the North/East been as foils of southern/western identity?
- How has migration, including Indigenous, Latino/a, Asian, European, and/or Black migrations at different phases of American history, shaped the South and the West?
- Both regions have been categorized as having distinctive cultures of violence. What might we learn from studying connections and comparisons of these cultures in the two regions?
- How have “southern” issues shaped the West and how have “western” issues shaped the South? For example: How has slavery shaped Western history? How have borderlands issues shaped the South?
- Where does the “South” end and the “West” begin in regions that are “both” Southern and Western (depending on the moment) such as Appalachia, Texas, Missouri, Southern-expats in California, etc.?
- How does the idea of the Sunbelt challenge typical regionalization in U.S. history?
- What carceral histories do the South and West share and how have criminal justice issues shaped the regions?
- Both Southern and Western History have provided very rewarding forums and disciplines for scholars examining the multi-layered impact of race and ethnicity on regional identity. In what ways have these regional forums helped accelerate scholarship on matters of race and ethnicity?
- Scholars in both regions have sought to escape earlier generations’ environmental determinism, from aridity to cotton culture. In what ways does our current climate urgency help us reconsider the role of various environments in shaping conditions and identities across both regions?
- What are some pedagogical strategies for incorporating Southern and Western history into our classrooms, especially in American History surveys that tend to proceed from New England/Virginia westward via expansion in their traditional chronologies?
Note from the WHA and SHA Executive Offices: We enthusiastically celebrate the propitious timing for western and southern historians to cross paths and exchange their work and ideas. Please note: the 2024 WHA and SHA conferences are concurrent events, not one joint event. The associations will share exhibit space and joining events, but each will maintain their typical programs to ensure that the gatherings are familiar and enjoyable for all attendees.
All proposals for the 2024 program must be submitted online before September 15, 2023. See thesha.org/submit-a-proposal.
Formats: Traditional panels are composed of three 15-minute papers, a chair, and two commentators, one of whom may be the chair. (One panel member, designated the organizer, will submit a 250-word panel overview, abstracts for each paper, and the participants’ vitas.) Single paper submissions are accepted and, where possible, will be matched into panels by the Program Committee. However, complete panels have priority. (You may find H-South helpful in connecting with scholars to build panels.) Roundtables are organized discussions including three to four discussants and a moderator, who responds and asks questions of the participants, one of whom is designated the organizer. Discussants focus on a specific field or topic in informal 8-minute remarks, but do not read a formal paper. The moderator asks questions to which they respond, leaving ample time for questions from the audience. (The organizer submits a 250-word statement on the main question under discussion and each participant’s vita.) The SHA is also open to Alternative Session Proposals.
Past Meetings
| Year |
Hotel |
City |
Highlights |
President |
Address |
| 2022 |
Hilton Baltimore Inner Harbor |
Baltimore, MD |
Highlights of the conference included an opening plenary on history education in challenging times, a final plenary conversation with Nikole Hannah-Jones, and Gilmore's presidential address devoted to "The Past Ahead." |
Glenda Gilmore |
The Past Ahead |
| 2021 |
Virtual Meeting |
New Orleans, LA |
Highlights of the conference included an opening plenary featuring the artist Dread Scott, the SAWH Annual Address, given by Judith Giesberg, the SCWH Banquet Address delivered by Thavolia Glymph, and more than 70 concurrent sessions. |
Steven Hahn |
Emancipation, Incarceration, and the Boundaries of Coercion |
| 2020 |
Virtual Meeting |
Memphis, TN |
Highlights of the conference included an opening plenary featuring poet Nikki Finney, “Memphis Since King: The Struggle to Make Black Lives Matter in the Bluff City,” “By One Vote: Woman Suffrage in the South," and “Sisterly Networks: Fifty Years of Southern Women’s History.” |
Thavolia Glymph |
| 2019 |
Galt House Hotel |
Louisville, KY |
Highlights of the conference included an opening plenary focused on felon disenfranchisement and concluded Saturday night at the Frazier History Museum with “Making History Work: Teaching, Research, and Public History in Kentucky.” |
William A. Link |
Frank Porter Graham, Racial Gradualism, and the Dilemmas of Southern Liberalism |
| 2018 |
Sheraton Birmingham Hotel |
Birmingham, AL |
Highlights of the conference included an opening plenary on Alabama foodways, a tour of Sloss Furnace and off-site events at the Birmingham Museum of Art, the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. Panels and roundtables were devoted to such diverse topics as southern public health, animal studies, social justice and policing, media and visual culture, science and slavery, and the environment and activism. |
Jane Turner Censer |
The Southern Lady and the Northern Publishers: A Tumultuous Relationship |
| 2017 |
Sheraton Dallas Hotel |
Dallas, TX |
Highlights of the conference included the opening plenary on Texas as a demographic, social, and political bellwether for the South. The program also features roundtables and panels on public health history, policing and mass incarceration, the history of slavery and the university, LGBT politics, “The ‘Old’ History of Capitalism,” Big Data and Civil War soldier studies, the Native American experience in the 20c. South |
John B. Boles |
My Life with The Journal |
| 2016 |
TradeWinds Island Grand Resort |
St. Pete Beach, FL |
Highlights of the conference included plenaries devoted to "Southern History: Looking Forward," "Southern History in the Headlines," President Catherine Clinton's Presidential Address, "The Southern Social Network," as well as roundtables on "Food Politics in a Global South," "Public Memory and Commemoration of Racial Violence," and "Criminalization and Incarceration in the American South v. North." |
Catherine Clinton |
The Southern Social Network |
| 2015 |
Little Rock Marriott |
Little Rock, AR |
Highlights of the conference included an opening night session, "Justice After the Civil Rights Movement," examining how we might integrate those rights we believe are and should be inalienable; a reception honoring the Association for the Study of African American Life and History at its centennial; a session on teaching the Little Rock School Crises at Little Rock Central High; and a Saturday evening panel on "The Clintons and History" at the Old State House, which Bill Clinton called his "favorite building in Arkansas." |
Barbara Fields |
Dysplacement and Southern History |
| 2014 |
Hilton Atlanta |
Atlanta, GA |
The conference offered a special opportunity to visit and tour the Margaret Mitchell House for "Been in the Storm So Long: Remembering 1864 and 1964 in 2014." There was also a panel offering "Reflections on the New York Times 'Disunion' Blog"--the first time a whole panel has been dedicated to a single blog. |
Peter Kolchin |
Reexamining Southern Emancipation in Comparative Perspective |
| 2013 |
Hyatt Regency St. Louis at the Arch |
St. Louis, MO |
The SHA honored John Boles for serving as the editor of the Journal of Southern History for thirty years. Carol Reardon, Gary Gallagher, Lesley Gordon, and James Hogue took part in an intense debate over the question: "Should military history be central to the study of the civil war?" |
David Goldfield |
Border Men: Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson, and Civil Rights |
| 2012 |
Renaissance Riverview Plaza Hotel |
Mobile, AL |
U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey offered her perspective on writing on the Civil War and emancipation and read from her 2011 book Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. |
Orville Vernon Burton |
The South as 'Other,' the Southern as Stranger |
| 2011 |
Sheraton Baltimore City Center Hotel |
Baltimore, MD |
Six scholars offered comments on a roundtable commemorating the 75th anniversary of Gone with the Wind. Other scholars offered definitions and possibilities for studying the "Global South." |
Theda Perdue |
The Legacy of Indian Removal |
| 2010 |
Westin Charlotte Hotel |
Charlotte, NC |
A panel of two historians, former executives of Charlotte Motor Speedway, the museum curator and an author discussed "NASCAR, Charlotte, and the South" at the newly-opened NASCAR Hall of Fame. Sheldon Hackney, Philip Morgan, Peter Kolchin, and Jane Dailey debated the "State of Southern History." |
William J. Cooper Jr. |
The Critical Signpost on the Journey Toward Secession |
| 2009 |
Marriott Downtown |
Louisville, KY |
75th anniversary of the organization. To commemorate the anniversary, Bethany Johnson presented a special history of the organization. |
Jack Temple Kirby |
ANCESTRYdotBOMB: Genealogy, Genomics, Mischief, Mystery, and Southern Family Stories |
| 2008 |
Sheraton New Orleans |
New Orleans, LA |
The association offered a Hurricane Katrina bus tour as well as an SHA service project to work at a Habitat for Humanity construction site. This conference featured the first Sunday panels as well. |
Leon F. Litwack |
"Fight the Power!" The Legacy of the Civil Rights Movement |
| 2007 |
Richmond Marriott Hotel |
Richmond, VA |
Attendees could visit the Jamestown settlement to honor its 400th anniversary. 144 people attended a roundtable on Bertram Wyatt-Brown's Southern Honor at 25 years. Wyatt-Brown himself offered comments. |
Nell Irvin Painter |
Was Marie White? The Trajectory of a Question in the United States |
| 2006 |
Sheraton Birmingham Hotel |
Birmingham, AL |
Author Ernest Gaines lectured on "How James Meredith saved [his] Writing Career." Several panels considered the impact of Hurricane Katrina, including one on archival materials at HBCUs in New Orleans and another on the environmental history. |
Pete Daniel |
African American Farmers and Civil Rights |
| 2005 |
Westin Peachtree Plaza |
Altanta, GA |
The 50th year anniversary of the European Section's affiliation with the SHA, featuring a special panel looking back. A special walking tour of the 1906 Atlanta race riot was offered, as the conference took place just one year before the centennial. |
Charles Joyner |
A Region in Harmony: Southern Music and the Sound Track of Freedom |
| 2004 |
Memphis Marriot Downtown & Memphis Cook Convention Center |
Memphis, TN |
The graduate student luncheon featured Pete Daniel at the National Museum of American History and other historians working in a non-academic setting. Another panel revisited the 1955 contentious panel discussion of the Brown v. Board decision. Thomas D. Clark (who attended the panel) and John Hope Franklin (who refused to attend the conference due to segregation at the Peabody Hotel) reflected on the experience. |
Wayne Flynt |
Religion for the Blues: Evangelicalism, Poor Whites, and the Great Depression |
| 2003 |
Hyatt-Regency Houston |
Houston, TX |
First chance to submit proposals online at the SHA website. A seven-member panel (including two state representatives) discussed the importance and impact of the Smith v. Allwright decision in 1944 that ended the white primary. |
Darlene Clark Hine |
The Corporeal and Ocular Veil: Dr. Matilda A. Evans (1872-1935) and the Complexity of Southern History |
| 2002 |
Wyndham Baltimore Inner Harbor Hotel |
Baltimore, MD |
The C. Vann Woodward Prize for the best dissertation in southern history was established. Five historians offered a roundtable "Tribute to Frank L. Byrne." |
Jacquelyn Dowd Hall |
Women Writers, the "Southern Front," and the Dialectical Imagination |
| 2001 |
Fairmont Hotel |
New Orleans, LA |
The first graduate student luncheon sponsored by the John and LaWanda Cox fund took place. Attendees attended a private party at Donna's Bar and Grill featuring Bob French and the Original Tuxedo Jazz Band along with Kid Chocolate and Sista Teedy. |
Bertram Wyatt-Brown |
Tom Watson Revisited |
| 2000 |
Galt House Hotel |
Louisville, KY |
The William F. Holmes Award honoring the best paper by a graduate student or junior faculty member was established to honor Holmes' service as the Secretary-Treasurer of the SHA for 15 years. Rick Bragg, Deborah McDowell, Judith Paterson, Edward Cohen, and Janisse Ray discussed the meanings of "History and Memory." |
Drew Gilpin Faust |
The Civil War Soldier and the Art of Dying |
| 1999 |
Worthington Hotel |
Fort Worth, TX |
The Honorable Zell Miller participated in a "Conversation" with Dan Carter, Anthony Badger, Glenda Gilmore, Sheldon Hackney, and Arvarh Strickland. Another panel considered ethnicity in the South, focusing on Irish, Chinese, and Italian immigrants. |
James C. Cobb |
An Epitaph for the North: Reflections on the Politics of Regional and National Identity at the Millennium |
| 1998 |
Sheraton Birmingham Hotel |
Birmingham, AL |
Historians employed abroad described their experiences with Southern Studies outside the United States (Susanna Delfino, Alessandra Lorini, and Timothy Lockley). Howell Raines of The New York Times described his experiences reporting on the Civil Rights Movement in the South. |
Carol Bleser |
The Marriage of Varina Howell and Jefferson Davis: "I Gave the Best and All My Life to a Girdled Tree" |
| 1997 |
Radisson Hotel |
Altanta, GA |
Edward Ayers described his work on The Valley of the Shadow Project, while a workshop argued about the "need for academic partnerships" with the National Park Service. |
Paul K. Conkin |
Hot, Humid, and Sad |
| 1996 |
Excelsior Hotel |
Little Rock, AR |
Featured the first workshop on "Utilizing the World Wide Web in the Historical Profession," which marked the first appearance of "The Internet" anywhere on the program. |
Harold D. Woodman |
Class, Race, Politics, and the Modernization of the Postbellum South |
| 1995 |
Radisson Hotel |
New Orleans, LA |
Charles H. Martin and Andrew Doyle examined "Football and Public Meaning" in the South. This conference also featured the first panel focused entirely on Southern gay and lesbian history. One panel considered the Plessy case on its 100th anniversary. |
Dan Carter |
Legacy of Rage: George Wallace and the Transformation of American Politics |
| 1994 |
Galt House Hotel |
Louisville, KY |
The SHA president's photo appeared at the front of the program for the first time. Drew Gilpin Faust, Gary Gallagher, Joseph Glattharr, and Armstead Robinson discussed "Writing about the Civil War in the Age of Ken Burns and Beyond." |
Numan V. Bartley |
Social Change and Sectional Identity |
| 1993 |
Clarion Plaza Hotel |
Orlando, FL |
Scholars discussed "Disney, Dixie, and the American Imagination" in a special session very fitting for the location. A panel of four historians discussed "Slavery and the Problem of Evidence" in a roundtable. |
Jimmie Lewis Franklin |
Black Southerners, Shared Experience, and Place: A Reflection |
| 1992 |
Radisson Hotel |
Atlanta, GA |
Attendees could tour the Carter Presidential Center and the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change. Former President Jimmy Carter also appeared for a special "Town Meeting" on "The South, the Nation, and the World." |
August Meier and John H. Bracey, Jr. |
The NAACP as a Reform Movement, 1909-1965: "To Reach the Conscience of America" |
| 1991 |
Worthington Hotel |
Fort Worth, TX |
Historians offered a "Fifty-Year Perspective on the Works of Agee, Cash, and Percy," while another panel writing "History 'in the South When There was no South." |
R. Don Higginbotham |
The Martial Spirit in the Antebellum South: Some Further Speculations in a National Context |
| 1990 |
Clarion Hotel |
New Orleans, LA |
Hotel Rooms cost $60, and scholars such as Robert McMath and Dan T. Carter discussed the "Southernization of American Politics." Editors for collections such as the Black Abolitionist Papers, the Papers of Jefferson Davis, and the Papers of Andrew Johnson described their experiences with Documentary Editing. |
Louis R. Harlan |
Broadening the Concept of History |
| 1989 |
Hyatt Regency |
Lexington, KY |
Scholars offered a workshop on "Southern History outside the Academy." Jean Fagan Yellin, George Stevenson, and Thomas Parramore argued for the "Recovery of a Classic:" Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. |
Ann Firor Scott |
Most Invisible of All: Black Women's Voluntary Associations |
| 1988 |
Omni International |
Norfolk, VA |
Joan Cashin and Steven Stowe offered the first analysis of "manhood" in their panel on "Professions in the Antebellum South." Bennett Wall's presidential address explored "What is Not in Southern History, 1918-1988." |
Bennett H. Wall |
Breaking Out: What is Not in Southern History, 1918-1988 |
| 1987 |
Clarion Hotel |
New Orleans, LA |
Lawrence W. Levine spoke on "Jazz and American Culture," which was followed by a reception featuring music from the famous Preservation Hall Band.JSH editor, John Boles commented on the "Editorial Practices" of the journal in a panel on publishing in the JSH. |
Willard B. Gatewood |
Aristocrats of Color: South and North, the Black Elite, 1880-1920 |
| 1986 |
Adam's Mark |
Charlotte, NC |
Historians described uses of archaeology for writing history in "Buried Treasures: Finding the History of Historical Archaeology." A panel also considered Howard Odum's legacy 50 years after the publication of Southern Regions of the United States. |
Carl N. Degler |
Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis: The South, the North, and the Nation |
| 1985 |
Shamrock Hilton |
Houston, TX |
The society honored retiring Secretary-Treasurer of thirty-four years, Bennett H. Wall as well as his secretary of more than twenty years, Neva O. Wall. Scholars discussed using news film as a historical source. |
Paul C. Nagel |
Reconstruction, Adams Style |
| 1984 |
Galt House |
Louisville, KY |
The 50th anniversary meeting. The program included the leaders and award winners from the past 50 years. Additionally, scholars explored "The Study of Southern History" over the last 50 years (A. Elizabeth Taylor, C. Vann Woodward, John Hope Franklin, and Arthur S. Link). |
Robert F. Durden |
A Half Century of Change in Southern History |
| 1983 |
Sheraton |
Charleston, SC |
Scholars debated the "Impact of Race and Class on Writing History," while another panel considered the history of women's history historiography. An additional panel examined teaching black women's history. |
Aubrey C. Land |
The American South: First Epiphanies |
| 1982 |
Peabody Hotel |
Memphis, TN |
All three officers of the executive council were from the state of Georgia. Twenty-seven years after the panel on "The Segregation Decisions," the orginal panelists along with three new members discussed events since the panel. |
James Harvey Young |
Three Southern Food and Drug Cases |
| 1981 |
Galt House |
Louisville, KY |
A panel of historians considered "Four Historians of the South:" T. Harry Williams, Bell I. Wiley, Holman Hamilton, and Clement Eaton. Seven hstorians examined the rise of the Sunbelt South in six different cities, including Birmingham, Atlanta, New Orleans, Tampa, Oklahoma City, and Miami. |
Charles P. Roland |
The Ever-Vanishing South |
| 1980 |
Atlanta Biltmore Hotel |
Atlanta, GA |
Scholars such as Anne Firor Scott, Hugh D. Graham, and Joel H. Silbey offered "Historical Perpectives on the 1980 Election." One session also considered the "Probems and Prospects" for the "South's Historical Journal," and featured officials from The Journal of Southern History, Florida Historical Quarterly, Lousiana History, and Georgia Historical Quarterly. |
Thomas B. Alexander |
The Civil War as Institutional Fulfillment |
| 1979 |
Atlanta Biltmore Hotel |
Atlanta, GA |
Zell Miller, Lieutenant Governor of Georgia, presided over a panel on "Jimmy Carter and the Republican Party in the South." C. Vann Woodward, John Shelton Reed, William C. Havard, and David Herbert Donald analyzed "The Enduring South" in a "Dialogue." |
Holman Hamilton |
Clio with Style |
| 1978 |
Chase-Park Plaza |
St. Louis, MO |
Hundreds of people attended a roundtable on Jacksonian America featuring seven commentators. Another panel considered the National Historical Records Program, offering a "Progress Report" and "Prospectus." |
Joe B. Frantz |
Opening a Curtain: The Metamorphosis of Lyndon B. Johnson |
| 1977 |
Braniff Place |
New Orleans, LA |
Two panels on families appeared in the program. The first spanned from North Carolina and Louisiana to France, while the second centered more on comparing Northern and Southern families. This conference also included a viewing of Cormac McCarthy's "The Gardener's Son" about the 1876 murder of James Gregg. |
Richard L. Watson, Jr. |
A Testing Time for Southern Congressional Leadership: The War Crisis of 1917-1918 |
| 1976 |
Sheraton Biltmore |
Atlanta, GA |
Session on the Southern Historical Association's history featuring E. Merton Coulter, Edwin Davis, and Walter Posey. Archivists explored "Archives for Women's History." |
Frank E. Vandiver |
Jefferson Davis--Leader Without Legend |
| 1975 |
Shoreham Americana |
Washington, DC |
800 people attended a panel on Genovese's Roll, Jordan, Roll. Genovese himself along with Kenneth Stampp, William Freehling, and Sterling Stuckey offered comments on the classic. A panel of female historians also discussed "Feminine Survival and Advancement in the Historical Profession." |
Richard N. Current |
Tarheels and Badgers: A Comparative History of Their Reputations |
| 1974 |
Adolphus Hotel & the Baker Hotel |
Dallas, TX |
The first panel on historic preservation appeared in the program. Winthrop Jordan, Willie Lee Rose, and Robert McColley examined the "Psychosexual Origins of Racism." |
Gilbert C. Fite |
The Historian as Teacher: Professional Challenge and Opportunity |
| 1973 |
Sheraton-Biltmore Hotel |
Atlanta, GA |
Mary Ryan considered the "The Ultimate 'Cause' of the Civil War" and determined that it was the "Mother." An ad for Microfilming Corp. of America had a full page. |
George B. Tindall |
Beyond the Mainstream: The Ethnic Southerners |
| 1972 |
Diplomat Hotel |
Hollywood-by-the-Sea, FL |
Mary Elizabeth Massey became the first female president of the organization since 1946. Her speech was entitled, "The Making of a Feminist," which was the first time the word appeared in the program. |
Mary Elizabeth Massey |
The Making of a Feminist |
| 1971 |
Rice Hotel |
Houston, TX |
John Hope Franklin, after many other firsts, became the first black president of the SHA. The program also included a panel on teaching women's history, feauturing none other than Newt Gingrich. There was also a "shopping tour" of the Houston Galleria and Neiman-Marcus. |
John Hope Franklin |
The Great Confrontation: The South and the Problem of Change |
| 1970 |
Kentucky Hotel |
Louisville, KY |
A panel on white citizens' councils and congressional voting during the "Second Reconstruction" appeared. |
David Donald |
The Proslavery Argument Reconsidered |
| 1969 |
Shoreham Hotel |
Washington, DC |
Senator George S. McGovern spoke on the "historian as politician," and the program also featured the first panel dedicated to female reform. |
Arthur S. Link |
Woodrow Wilson: The American as Southerner |
| 1968 |
Jung Hotel |
New Orleans, LA |
Registration cost $1.50. A panel on "The Uses of History in Fiction" featuring C. Vann Woodward, William Styron, Robert Penn Warren, and Ralph Ellison. |
Dumas Malone |
Presidential Leadership and National Unity: The Jeffersonian Example |
| 1967 |
Hotel Biltmore |
Atlanta, GA |
The program surpassed 100 pages for the first time, mostly due to an overwhelming number of advertisements (many from textbook companies). Oscar Handlin, Joel Williamson, Charles E. Wynes, and Leslie Fishel, Jr. considered "racist thinking after the Civil War." |
Dewey W. Grantham |
The Regional Imagination: Social Scientists and the American South |
| 1966 |
Sheraton Peabody Hotel |
Memphis, TN |
Members enjoyed a boat tour on the Mississippi aboard the Memphis Queen. An amendment was proposed to allow all paying members to vote. |
Hugh T. Lefler |
Promotional Literature of the Southern Colonies |
| 1965 |
John Marshall Hotel |
Richmond, VA |
The first conference in Virginia, featuring a panel entitled "The South in Outer Space." |
Joseph H. Parks |
State Rights in a Crisis: Governor Joseph E. Brown Versus President Jefferson Davis |
| 1964 |
Hotel Marion |
Little Rock, AR |
The organization had more than 2,600 members. Members could organize cocktail parties for $.75 per drink, while the panels reflected interest in movements and psychology, with abolitionism, populism, progressivism, student-led movements in Latin America, and the French Revolution appearing throughout the program. |
Joseph J. Mathews |
The Study of History in the South |
| 1963 |
George Vanderbilt Hotel |
Asheville, NC |
Attendees visited the Biltmore House, the Blue Ridge Parkway, and the Zebulon Vance Birthplace Site. Also, the first panel devoted to Appalachian History appeared. |
James W. Silver |
Mississippi: The Closed Society |
| 1962 |
Hotel Fontainebleau |
Miami Beach, FL |
James F. Doster bemoaned the "Degradation of Clio" in current historiography, while David Smiley, Francis B. Simkins, and Fletcher Green pondered "The Central Theme in Southern History." |
Rembert W. Patrick |
The Mobile Frontier |
| 1961 |
Hotel Patten |
Chattanooga, TN |
The University of Chattanooga presented an original play, "Beyond the Dark Night: A Civil War Drama of Chattanooga," while the conference featured more panels on slavery, Reconstruction, and Native Americans than before. |
Clement Eaton |
Professor James Woodrow and the Freedom of Teaching in the South |
| 1960 |
Mayo Hotel |
Tulsa, OK |
The first SHA meeting outside the traditional South, which also featured the first panel dedicated only to the New Deal. In addition, "The Civil War in the West" still meant the Mississippi Vlley and the immediate Trans-Mississippi. |
William Best Hesseltine |
Four American Traditions |
| 1959 |
Biltmore Hotel |
Atlanta, GA |
The European section of the SHA meeting moved to Atlanta University to protest unequal treatment for black attendees. Howard Zinn proposed an amendment to only meet in desegregated places in the future, but he was ruled "out of order." |
T. Harry Williams |
The Gentleman from Louisiana: Demagogue or Democrat |
| 1958 |
Hermitage Hotel |
Nashville, TN |
A walking tour of Nashville was offered. In addition, scholars considered "Living Subjects as Historical Sources" and the special issues of writing state history. |
Walter B. Posey |
The Protestant Episcopal Church: An American Adaptation |
| 1957 |
Rice Hotel |
Houston, TX |
Attendees had the option to tour the San Jacinto Battlefield and to attend a Rice v. Arkansas football game. |
Robert S. Henry |
West by South |
| 1956 |
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Jacksonville, FL |
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James W. Patton |
Facets of the South in the 1850s |
| 1955 |
Hotel Peabody |
Memphis, TN |
The first formally desegregated meeting of the SHA. Cecil Sims, Benjamin E. Mays (president of Morehouse College), and none other than William Faulkner appeared to comment on the recent Brown v. Board decision. More than 600 people attended this session. |
Bell Irvin Wiley |
A Time of Greatness |
| 1954 |
Hotel Columbia |
Columbia, SC |
Conference-goers were invited to the University of South Carolina vs. University of Virginia football game. More than 250 people attended a session asking, "Was the Old South Backward or Merely Different?" Panelist T. Conn Bryan offered a very different reading than the traditional narrative, arguing that slavery--not capitalist vs. agrarian economies--was at the heart of the conflict between the North and the South. |
Francis B. Simkins |
Tolerating the South's Past |
| 1953 |
Hotel George Washington |
Jacksonville, FL |
All meal functions at this conference were cancelled to avoid controversies over segregated dining. C. Vann Woodward proposed a motion to ensure that future conferences take place in desegregated hotels, but the motion vote was split 5-5, meaning that it had no real power. The first Phi Alpha Theta Luncheon occurred and the first book advertisements appeared in the SHA meeting program. |
Kathryn Abbey Hanna |
The Roles of the South in the French Intervention in Mexico |
| 1952 |
Andrew Johnson Hotel |
Knoxville, TN |
The TVA sponsored special visits to Norris Dam and "Test-Demonstration Farm." A single room for the conference hotel cost $4.25! SHA President, C. Vann Woodward, spoke on the "Irony of Southern History." The first desegregated sessions occurred here. |
C. Vann Woodward |
The Irony of Southern History |
| 1951 |
Jeffrson Davis Hotel |
Montgomery, AL |
A panel on "The United States in World War II" considered "Relations with China and Russia"--in the midst of the Cold War. The Montgomery Chamber of Commerce also offered free bus tours of the city for conference attendees, no doubt an effort to demonstrate and encourage more economic growth. |
Avery Craven |
The Price of Union |
| 1950 |
Hotel Biltmore |
Atlanta, GA |
Alfred B. Sears, George B. Tindall, and several others discussed "Undergraduate History Programs" (George Tindall presented the student's perspective). SHA members also received tickets to the Georgia Tech vs. V.M.I. football game on Saturday, November 11th. |
William C. Brinkley |
The South and the West |
| 1949 |
Williamsburg Lodge |
Williamsburg, VA |
John Hope Franklin became the first African-American member to serve on a panel at a SHA conference with a paper on "The Martial Spirit of the Old South," while David M. Potter considered the "First Fifteen Volumes" of the Journal of Southern History. |
Lester J. Cappon |
The Provincial South |
| 1948 |
Heidelberg Hotel |
Jackson, MS |
The University of Kentucky began to house the Journal of Southern History. Eght panelists considered "College and University Historiography," with E. Merton Coulter presiding. |
Robert S. Cotterill |
The Old South to the New |
| 1947 |
DeSoto Hotel |
Savannah, GA |
Fletcher Green (UNC), Philip Davidson (Vanderbilt), Kent R. Greenfield (US War Department), Charles E. Smith (LSU), and Ernest V. Hollis (US Office of Education) participated in a roundtable discussion of "The Ph.D. Training Program." |
Thomas D. Clark |
The Country Newspaper: A Factor in Southern Opinion, 1865-1930 |
| 1946 |
Tutwiler Hotel |
Birmingham, AL |
Ella Lonn became the first female president of the SHA. Her address was entitled, "Reconciliation Between the North and the South." There was also a roundtable on book reviews from three perspectives: the publisher's, the editor's, and the reviewer's. |
Ella Lonn |
Reconciliation Between the North and the South |
| 1945 |
No Meeting |
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The Journal of Southern History only reviewed 175 books, down from 283 the year before, which reflects printing and publishing difficulties during the war. |
Fletcher M. Green |
Democracy in the Old South |
| 1944 |
Hermitage Hotel |
Nashville, TN |
The tenth annual meeting took place after a two year hiatus. The presidential address by Wendell H. Stephenson considered "A Half Century of Southern Historical Scholarship" |
Wendell H. Stephenson |
A Half Century of Southern Historical Scholarship |
| 1943 |
No Meeting |
|
The Journal of Southern History moves to Vanderbilt University after funding issues at LSU. The first article with African Americans treated as historical subjects appeared in the JSH. Written by J. Merton England, the article contended that slavery was a system of racial and social control--not just an economic system. |
J. G. De Roulhac Hamilton |
Three Centuries of Southern Records, 1607-1907 |
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| 1942 |
No Meeting |
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| 1941 |
Atlanta Biltmore Hotel |
Atlanta, GA |
The first panel on Latin America appeared in the program--"Some Aspects of Latin American History." The conference also featured a panel on "Southern Literature and Music," with special panelist, Robert Penn Warren. |
B. B. Kendrick |
The Colonial Status of the South |
| 1940 |
Francis Marion Hotel |
Charleston, SC |
First European panels with no direct connection to the South appeared--"The Mediterranean in World Politics" and "Twentieth Century Diplomacy"; 279 people attended the conference and on Thursday, the cadets of the Citadel paraded for conference attendees. |
Frank L. Owsley |
The Fundamental Cause of the Civil War: Egocentric Sectionalism |
| 1939 |
Lafayette Hotel |
Lexington, KY |
The History of the South series began. At the conference, the first panel on Native Americans, entitled "Indians of the Old South," took place. The panel included a paper on Indians' "contribution" to culture, Sequoyah and the Cherokee, and archaeological finds of the Tennessee Valley. |
Charles S. Sydnor |
The Southerner and the Laws |
| 1938 |
St. Charles Hotel |
New Orleans, LA |
Membership in the SHA surpassed 1,000 and Philip M. Hamer, the president of the SHA, was also president of the National Archives, making him the first "public historian" to serve in that capacity. |
Philip M. Hamer |
The Records of Southern History |
| 1937 |
Washington Duke Hotel |
Durham, NC |
The first panel on slavery appeared on the program. Entitled "The Slavery Controvery," the panel included Kathryn T. Abbey as Chairman and included papers on the 3/5ths Compromise, propaganda, the Kansas Conflict, and political action in Michigan. Another luncheon panel featured archivists from the National Archives, the Southern Historical Collection, and Colonial Williamsburg. |
Thomas Perkins Abernathy |
Democracy and the Southern Frontier |
| 1936 |
Hotel Hermitage |
Nashville, TN |
Program chair included the first European topic with a session called "Europe & the South," which included papers on Spanish influences in the region, the relationship between the Lees of Virginia and King Louis XVI, and two other papers. Nearly 200 members attended the meeting. |
Charles W. Ramsdell |
The Changing Interpretation of the Civil War |
| 1935 |
Tutwiler Hotel |
Birmingham, AL |
The first annual conference of the newly-created Southern Historical Association. Between its creation in 1934 and 1935, its membership grew to ~354. Ella Lonn became the first female conference participant in a panel entitled "History of the Confederacy" |
E. Merton Coulter |
What the South Has Done About Its History |
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