In this episode, Ph.D. Candidate Kasha Appleton (Indiana University) talks with history professor Dr. Jessica Wicks-Allen (Arizona State University) about Wicks-Allen’s Journal of American History article, “Child Apprenticeship and Black Maternal Authority following the Civil War.” Their conversation features an important discussion of Black women’s engagement with the U.S. child apprenticeship system post-emancipation. Specifically, Wicks-Allen and Appleton delve into how Black women leveraged power and fundamentally shaped the contract process by way of their intimate knowledge of the apprenticeship system.

X: @thejamhist | Facebook: The Journal of American History

For more information on OAH 26, visit: https://www.oah.org/conferences/oah2026/

This Blogcast episode features Nick Timmerman’s blog piece “Lessons in History: Teaching at a Tribal College in Northern Minnesota,” first published in Process: A Blog for American History on August 12, 2025. In this episode, Timmerman (a history professor at Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College) reflects on his experience teaching at a tribal college and university— and how it has informed his approach to teaching history. Read the blog post here: https://www.oah.org/process/teaching-at-a-tribal-college-in-northern-minnesota/

Music: King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band’s Mabel’s Dream, 1923

X: @thejamhist | Facebook: The Journal of American History

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This Blogcast episode features Myra Billund-Phibbs’s article “Doing Trans History Despite It All,” first published in Process: A Blog for American History on July 1, 2025. In this episode, Billund-Phibbs (a PhD student at the University of Minnesota) recounts her experience interviewing trans people who lived in the 1970s Midwest. Specifically, she delves into complex questions around doing collaborative oral history in the current historical moment.

Read the blog post here: https://www.oah.org/process/doing-trans-history-despite-it-all-billund-phibbs/

Music: King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band’s Mabel’s Dream, 1923

X: @thejamhist | Facebook: The Journal of American History

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In this episode, Lara Vapnek (Professor of History at St. John’s University, in Queens), Tracey Deutsch (Associate Professor of History at the University of Minnesota), and Natasha Zaretsky (Professor of History at the University of Alabama at Birmingham) discuss the interesting intersections of their three articles, all recently published by the Journal of American History, which talk to each other on the histories women’s labor, energy, and food.

During this lively and generative conversation, Vapnek, Deutsch, and Zaretsky respond to questions like: How has the recent scholarly turn to care work shaped labor history and vice versa? What is the relationship between histories of care work and histories of capitalism? How does energy fit into new scholarship on labor and women’s history? How can self care manifest in simultaneously liberative/resistant and oppressive ways throughout history?

Music: King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band’s Mabel’s Dream, 1923

X: @thejamhist | Facebook: The Journal of American History

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This special panel debrief edition of the Journal of American History Podcast features a conversation on “New Histories of Enslavement,” held at the 2025 OAH Conference on American History in Chicago. In this episode, panel chair Andrea Mosterman (University of New Orleans) and panelists Christy Clark-Pujara (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Gloria Whiting (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Cory Young (University of Iowa), and Max Speare (Saddleback College) explore new directions in the field of U.S. slavery history. Host Kasha Appleton guides the discussion through key questions: How did the myth of a free abolitionist North became embedded in national memory? What methodologies best serve the sources used tell freedom seekers’ stories? The conversation highlights different approaches to studying enslavement in the United States while showcasing each panelist's unique contributions to this evolving field.

Music: King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band’s Mabel’s Dream, 1923

X: @thejamhist | Facebook: The Journal of American History

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This special panel debrief edition of the Journal of American History Podcast features a conversation on “Citizenship and Belonging,” held at the 2025 OAH Conference on American History in Chicago.

In this episode, panelists Erica Lally (Georgetown University), David Dry (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Heidi Ardizzone (Saint Louis University), and Hannah Simmons (Northwestern University) explore definitions of citizenship and belonging in U.S. history. Hosted by Kasha Appleton and Marina Mecham, this debrief examines how Black and Indigenous women's citizenship claims in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries reshape our understanding of American citizenship and rights. The discussion highlights different approaches to studying citizenship and belonging, while showcasing how each panelist's research contributes to this evolving field.

Music: King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band’s Mabel’s Dream, 1923

X: @thejamhist | Facebook: The Journal of American History

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This special panel debrief edition of the Journal of American History Podcast features a conversation on “Unsettling Forest Histories,” held at the 2025 OAH Conference on American History in Chicago.

In this episode, Andrew Needham (New York University), Bathsehba Demuth (Brown University), Allyson LaForge (Brown University), and Mariko Whitenack (New York University) reflect on their panel session which discussed the state of forest history and the role of Indigenous ontology in the field. In this debrief dialogue, hosted by Marina Mecham and Kasha Appleton, the panelists respond to questions such as: why is it important to study forest history? What does it mean to “unsettle” forest histories and environmental histories more broadly? How are historians doing this unsettling work now? What can Indigenous ontologies contribute to the field?

Music: King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band’s Mabel’s Dream, 1923

X: @thejamhist | Facebook: The Journal of American History

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This special panel debrief edition of the Journal of American History Podcast features a conversation on “Queer and Trans Histories of the Midwest,” held at the 2025 OAH Conference on American History in Chicago.

In this episode, Marc Ridgell (University of Pennsylvania), Clare Forstie (Saint Paul College), Steven Louis Brawley (LGBTQ History Project in St. Louis), René Esparza (Washington University in St. Louis), and Nic Flores (University of Illinois Urbana Champagne) unpack their panel session which broadly discussed the importance of focusing on the Midwest when studying, archiving, and writing queer history. In this debrief discussion, hosted by Marina Mecham and Kasha Appleton, the panelists respond to questions such as: what can we learn about resistance and everyday resistance strategies from queer history? Why are queer archives important and what sources can people turn to to write queer histories? How does the history of the AIDS crisis shift when centering/focusing on the Midwest? Who is this historical work for and why is it important?

This panel was solicited by the OAH Committee on the Status of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) Historians and Histories and endorsed by MHA and the WHA.

Music: King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band’s Mabel’s Dream, 1923

X: @thejamhist | Facebook: The Journal of American History

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