Fiona Vernal work supporting oral history in CT featured in UConn Today article

In collaboration with Connecticut Humanities and the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History, Fiona Vernal has made an online platform TheirStory accessible to CT organizations and residents to support the creation of oral history collections. Vernal began working with TheirStory creator Zack Ellis in 2022 working on a project on West Indian, African American, and Puerto Rican migrations to Hartford. The article also details the other CT organization and communities that have benefitted from this collaboration.

Helen Rozwadowski Interviewed for Blue History Network Podcast

Professor Helen Rozwadowski was interviewed for the Blue History Network Podcast, which is now up on Spotify and the network’s website. In this podcast, Professor Rozwadowski delves into “a wide variety of subjects, from oceanography in the Nineteenth century to how we, in the present, bring ocean history to the attention of the public“. She also discusses her books, Fathoming the Ocean and Vast Expanses.

Frank Costigliola’s Recent Book Wins Sharon Harris Book Award

Congratulations to Professor Frank Costigliola, whose recent biography of US diplomat and strategist George Kennan was just named a co-winner of the Sharon Harris Book Award from the UConn Humanities Institute.

The book has been warmly received by scholars and the reading public, including an enthusiastic recent review in The New York Review of Books.  An unpaywalled version of the review can be found here: The Enigma of George Kennan

Nu-Anh Tran Editor of Special Journal Issue

On the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War, a special issue of the Journal of Vietnamese Studies offers thirteen original translations of Vietnamese songs, poems, memoirs, and fiction about the end of the war and its aftermath. Co-edited by Nu-Anh Tran and Trinh M. Luu, the collection is ideal for teaching at the college- and high school-level. Browse the issue at https://online.ucpress.edu/jvs/issue/20/2

The Politics of Care Work

Emma Amador, Author

Duke University Press, 2025

 

In The Politics of Care Work, Emma Amador tells the story of Puerto Rican women’s involvement in political activism for social and economic justice in Puerto Rico and the United States throughout the twentieth century. Amador focuses on the experiences and contributions of Puerto Rican social workers, care workers, and caregivers who fought for the compensation of reproductive labor in society and the establishment of social welfare programs. These activists believed conflicts over social reproduction and care work were themselves high-stakes class struggles for women, migrants, and people of color. In Puerto Rico, they organized for women’s rights, socialism, labor standards, and Puerto Rican independence. They continued this work in the United States by advocating for migrant rights, participating in the civil rights movement, and joining Puerto Rican-led social movements. Amador shows how their relentless efforts gradually shifted the field of social work toward social justice and community-centered activism. The profound and enduring impact of their efforts on Puerto Rican communities underscores the crucial role of Puerto Rican women’s caregiving labor and activism in building and sustaining migrant communities.

Black Movement: African American Urban History since the Great Migration

Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar, Editor

The University of North Carolina Press, 2025

 

Description:

The Great Migration of African Americans from the South to northern and western cities between 1915 and 1970 fundamentally altered the political, social, and cultural landscapes of major urban centers like New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Detroit, and changed the country as well. By the late twentieth century, Black people were mayors, police chiefs, and school superintendents, often at parity and sometimes overrepresented in municipal jobs in these and other cities, which were also hubs for Black literature, music, film, and politics.

Since the 1970s, migration patterns have significantly shifted away from the major sites of the Great Migration, where some iconic Black communities have been replaced by mostly non-Black residents. Although many books have examined Black urban experiences in America, this is the first written by historians focusing on the post–Great Migration era. It is centered on numerous facets of Black life, including popular culture, policing, suburbanization, and political organizing across multiple cities. In this landmark volume, Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar and his contributors explore the last half century of African American urban history, covering a landscape transformed since the end of the Great Migration and demonstrating how cities remain dynamic into the twenty-first century.

Contributors are Stefan M. Bradley, Scot Brown, Tatiana M. F. Cruz, Tom Adam Davies, LaShawn Harris, Maurice J. Hobson, Shannon King, Melanie D. Newport, Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar, Brian Purnell, J. T. Roane, Chanelle Rose, Benjamin H. Saracco, and Fiona Vernal.