A recently published CityLab article asks the question, “where did all the public bathrooms go?” The author, Elizabeth Yuko, turned to UConn History professor Peter Baldwin to delve into this inquiry. For Professor Baldwin, public bathrooms reveal the intersections of public health, class, and gender, each intimately  connected to early twentieth century concerns around privacy and government intervention. The absence of public bathrooms, Professor Baldwin argues, reveals that “we do not care about anyone who doesn’t have money, which I think encapsulates where American politics has been going since 1980.” For more insights into toilets, culture, and politics, check out the CityLab article!

UConn History Professor Fiona Vernal has received one of the annual Provost’s Awards for Excellence in Community Engaged Scholarship. This prestigious award is bestowed upon several faculty, staff, and students who have worked to create local, regional/state, national, and global projects that further sustainability and the public good. Professor Fiona Vernal has collaborated with various partners to amplify the stories and histories of housing, labor, and migration in the greater Hartford community. Her projects have  contributed to the launch of the History Department’s Engaged, Public, Oral, and Community Histories (EPOCH) initiative. Her work bridges public history and mentorship to chart new paths in scholarship about race, community, and belonging. Professor Vernal’s community-engaged scholarship, alongside the work of many amazing staff, students, and faculty, has been profiled in UConn Today.

Congratulations! A job well done!

The New York Times has turned to UConn History Professor Alexis Dudden for her insights into the overlooked stories of “comfort women, ” as apart of their series on unreported death in The Times. Having interviewed survivors of  state-sponsored sexual slavery during WWII era Japan, Alexis Dudden reflects on the life on Kim Hak-soon, who was detained by Japanese soldiers while living in China in 1941. As Prof. Dudden explains in the Times article, Kim-Hak-soon “remains one of the bravest people of the 20th century,” who was around 15 when she was taken.  In 1991, Kim Hak-soon first publicly shared her story and later recorded her testimony in the 1993 book, The Korean Comfort Women Who Were Coercively Dragged Away for the Military, Vol. 1. For more about the life of Kim Hak-soon, her activism, and the sexual slavery sponsored by the Japanese state, please read the Times article, “Overlooked No More: Kim Hak-soon, Who Broke the Silence for Comfort Women.”

Save the date! On Monday, 10/11, UConn History Professor Manisha Sinha will deliver the keynote address at the Race and Slavery in New England Symposium, sponsored by the Museum of Old Newbury. The conference will take place from 8:30-5:30pm with in-person and online options. Professor Sinha will speak at 8:45am on the “Abolitionist International.” From the event website:

Sinha explores how Garrisonian abolitionists built transnational networks of protest by aligning antislavery with pacifism, women’s rights, and utopian socialism. Abolition overlapped with contemporary radical social movements, including the struggle for the rights of labor. The talk will address both the convergences as well as conflicts between these movements.

Check out the registration and event details!  This will be an excellent and timely talk and conference!

UConn History Professor Micki McElya has been featured in a New York Times article about the first time that women performed the changing of the guard at Arlington National Cemetery in 84 years. Last week,  Sergeant Porterfield and two other soldiers walked with her and participated in the sacred duty. According to Prof. McElya, “the images of the three female soldiers were a “visual marker” of the often unrecognized sacrifices that women and other marginalized people in the United States have made for the military.” 

Please read and share this excellent NYT article!