In The Current Issue:
In studying great themes in history, it is all too easy to forget that the United States is made up of individuals, and that these individuals were people not entirely unlike ourselves. An understanding of the lives of individuals—the sentiments and motivations of those people who “made history happen”—is crucial in understanding the greater events of U.S. (and Ohio) history. Our feature article in this edition of the Northeast Ohio Journal of History helps us to remember this simple truth. In “Lucy Markerly: A Case Study of an Englishwoman’s Immigration to the Western Reserve in the 1830s,” John Nelson uses the individual experiences of one of the multitudes of people who flocked to the United States in the early 1800s to draw attention to such larger themes as the immigration experience, gender roles, religion, and assimilation. In so doing, this single story helps the reader keep sight of the fact that there is no single story to the history of immigration.
While you are visiting the journal, please take the time to drop by our new discussion board. Taking advantage of the technology available to us as an electronic journal, we believe this new feature will make our journal more interactive and serve to engender substantive debate, discussion, and exchange of information for all people interested in the history of Ohio.
In addition to the usual book reviews, we also encourage the reader to explore the other features of our site. For those who missed earlier issues, please visit our “Archives” link, which contains the entire contents of previous volumes. We have expanded our “Research Links” feature, adding not only more primary sources but also more links to local historical agencies. We strongly encourage the reader to suggest or send new links for this page. The same is true for items in “Current History,” which is a clearinghouse for information on events of a historical nature in Northeast Ohio . Because we update this section constantly, please feel free to send announcements for it at any time.
We would also like to remind our readers that printer-friendly versions accompany each article and review. These PDF files are not only easier on the eyes when printed, but also contain basic issue data and page numbers for convenience in citation.
As always, please address any inquiries about this project (or about any other aspect of the journal) to the editor at kkern @ uakron. edu. We welcome all comments and suggestions.
Kevin Kern
Feature Article:
Lucy Markerly: A Case Study of an Englishwoman’s Immigration to the Western Reserve in the 1830s.
By: John T. Nelson
Book Reviews:
Reviewer:
Amanda Epperson
Author:
Warren E. Van Vugt: British Buckeyes: The English, Scots, & Welsh in Ohio, 1700-1900
Reviewer:
Robert S. Shelton
Author:
Edited by Peggy Russo and Paul Finkelman: Terrible Swift Sword: The Legacy of John Brown
Reviewer:
Lisa Smith
Author:
Edited by Emily Foster: American Grit: A Woman’s Letters from the Ohio Frontier
Reviewer:
Thomas Sosnowski
Author:
James H. O’Donnell III: Ohio’s First Peoples
Reviewer:
Christopher S. Stowe
Author:
Lenette S. Taylor: “The Supply for Tomorrow Must Not Fail”: The Civil War of Captain Simon Perkins Jr., a Union Quartermaster
Contributors:
John T. Nelson is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Toledo, currently finishing his dissertation entitled, “American Cultural Icons Defining the Cold War.” He received his Bachelor of General Studies and Associate of Arts degrees from Kent State University, graduating magna cum laude and with distinction, respectively. He also holds a Master of Arts, concentration in Public History, and a Master of Liberal Studies with concentrations in American History and Marketing from the same institution. His general field is United States history with a major in Twentieth Century and a minor in European Expansion. Other research interests include cultural, military and film history. A frequent presenter at conferences, he has won several awards for papers, including the Best Paper Prize at the Regional Phi Alpha Theta History Conference, Clarion University, 2005. He has contributed several entries to the forthcoming Encyclopedia of US Latino/a History. John resides in Kent, Ohio and is a skiing instructor at Boston Mills/Brandywine resorts.
Amanda Epperson is a senior lecturer at the University of Akron. After completing a Master of Arts in Art History from the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, she went on to earn her Ph.D. from the University of Glasgow in 2003 under the direction of Professor Edward J. Cowan. Her research interests include eighteenth century Scotland, migration studies, and the Atlantic World.
Robert S. Shelton is an Assistant Professor of history at Cleveland State University, where he teaches courses in nineteenth-century American history and the Civil War and Reconstruction. He has published on slavery, race, and labor history.
Lisa M. Smith is currently ABD at The University of Akron, where she specializes in the Civil War and Reconstruction. She is currently writing her dissertation titled, “Netta Taylor and the Divided Ohio Front, 1860-1865.”
Thomas Sosnowski has taught Ohio History at Kent State University Stark Campus for almost thirty years. His publications relating to the region have included book reviews in The Historian and Libraries & Culture, as well as a chapter biography on Warren G. Harding in Philip Weeks’ Buckeye Presidents. His refereed presentation to the 2003 conference of the Ohio Academy of History entitled “A ‘Noble’ Attraction: French Revolutionary Exiles in the Trans-Appalachian West” was published in the annual Proceedings. The other focus of his scholarly work is in French History, especially during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and has afforded him the opportunity to make presentations (and subsequent publications) in London (UK), Melbourne (Australia), and numerous venues in the United States like the Consortium on Revolutionary Europe and the Western Society for French History.
Christopher S. Stowe is currently Associate Professor of Military History with the
United States Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Lee, Virginia. Stowe presently is writing his first book, a critical biography of Major General George Gordon Meade, for The Kent State University Press.