CFP: Montana Historical Society 2012 Conference

This just in:

The Montana Historical Society - 2012 History Conference: 

"Opportunity for All? Homesteading Next Year Country

2012 marks the 150th anniversary of America’s first Homestead Act. Born of the same political discord that led to the Civil War and signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln during the early years of that conflict, the act provided for the transfer of 160 acres of public land to each homesteader upon payment of a nominal filing fee and five years of “proving up.” The original proponents of the Homestead Act envisioned the settlement of the West by individual farmers with an almost utopian fervor, and today, our cultural mythology most often portrays homesteading as a symbol of the most American of ideals.

Homesteaders at Cabin Creek. July 13th, 1913
Credit: Montana Historical Society Research Center Photograph Archives 

The conference will be held in Helena at the Best Western Premier Helena Great Northern Hotel, September 20-22, 2012. The deadline for submission is February 1, 2012. Session proposals relating to any aspect of homesteading are encouraged (see page 2 for information on how to submit a proposal). Possible topics include:

• The impact of the Homestead Act on Montana’s first peoples
• The impact of homesteaders on the environment
• The impact of the environment on homesteaders
• Daily life on a homestead
• The material culture of the homestead era
• Homesteading as it relates to women’s history
• Homesteading as it relates to ethnic and minority history
• The role of archaeology in telling the homestead story
• The effect of homesteading on Montana politics
• The impact of homesteading on rural settlement and community development
• Homesteading and family folklore
• The role of railroads in homesteading and land development
• And more!

If you are working on any aspect of homesteading, this looks like a fascinating conference.

Montana: The Magazine of Western History Online

Montana: The Magazine of Western History Articles: Readers of this blog will likely be familiar with this wonderful publication. Published by the Montana Historical Society, Montana does a nice job of bridging the divide between scholarly and popular writing, with well-researched articles written in an accessible style and presented in a lavishly illustrated magazine format. It turns out all of the articles from 1999 to the present are available online at FindArticles.com.

The presentation of the articles leaves much to be desired. They are hosted on a commercial site which is plastered with advertising. The crude search function is useless. Though each article includes a citation to the year and month of publication, but important bibliographic information such as the volume and number, and original pagination, are not included. And there are no illustrations.

Interestingly, however, the MHS itself has a site for the magazine that makes up for some of the faults of the FindArticles site. The MHS site for Montana has a few of the articles online with the original illustrations--though there is no way to find these without clicking through each of the back issues. There is however a searchable index that could be used to identify articles that could then be found at the FindArticles site.

As my mom would say, What do you want for nothing? Nine years of the best popular western history magazine are now available online. Enjoy.

Camas Magazine, We Hardly Knew Ye

So I was googling about today as is my wont (I do it for you, dear reader) and came across Camas: A Literary Magazine at the University of Montana. "Camas is a literary magazine published in the Environmental Studies Graduate Program of the University of Montana . . . Our goals are to encourage a dialogue on environmental and cultural issues in the West, celebrate the people who work, study, write, and live here, and to provide an opportunity for students and emerging writers to publish their work alongside established environmental authors."

Unfortunately it appears that Camas only lasted for two issues. From the second issue I quite liked this article, Dying with the High Plains by Kalie Rider, in which the author compares the death of her mother with that of the eastern Montana farm towns where she was raised. It is an artful piece of writing.

It is a hard world for small literary magazines! Try to buy one next time you are in a bookstore, many deserve our support.