The Department of History is pleased to announce the publication of the 2025 issue of The Ozark Historical Review.

Now in its 53rd year of publication, the OHR is an academic history journal that showcases the work of the U of A's undergraduate and graduate history students. The U of A community is invited to read this latest issue, along with past issues filled with fascinating topics, at the The Ozark Historical Review website.

The editor of the OHR, assistant professor Justin Gage, remarked on the scholarly excellence of the articles featured in the 2025 issue. "This year's volume features three works that offer extraordinary insight into important topics that have been understudied," Gage observed, "and they demonstrate the towering level of research and writing that our students do at the U of A."

The articles published in the OHR typically begin as research papers written in U of A history courses. Students learn to navigate historical methods of research and writing with the help of their professors. Students who are interested in publishing can then submit their paper to the editor of the OHR, who guides them through the publication process. This process can be challenging but highly rewarding. "Students who publish in the OHR create something that lasts forever; their articles will be available to scholars across the globe," Gage noted. "They're contributing to our collective knowledge of who we are and how we came to be that way."

The spring 2025 issue features articles by Jacob Cummings and Spencer Livengood, both 2024 graduates, and Jack Goodwin, who is entering his final year of the History Department's 4+1 M.A. program (which allows students to take history graduate hours during the final year of their undergraduate careers, be admitted to the Graduate School immediately following graduation and complete much, or all, of their remaining coursework for the M.A. in history during the fifth year).

Cummings' article, "The Varied Response of Cherokees to Land Allotment," provides a much-needed nuanced overview on how the Cherokee Nation faced the U.S.-government imposed allotment of tribal lands in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Cummings, a member of the Cherokee Nation, was interested in the topic because of the importance in his family of his great-great grandfather's land allotment deed. After finding more allotment records in the National Archives, Cummings scoured other archives for primary sources, like letters written by Cherokee leaders and articles from Indian Territory newspapers. His article makes clear the difficult challenges Cherokee leaders faced as they resisted settler pressures and U.S. government control.

Livengood's article, "Elite Southern Views on Chinese Labor from Reconstruction to Exclusion," takes a compelling look at the attitudes in the South on Chinese American labor in the 19th century. Livengood argues that following the Civil War, some Southern elites, including planters, hoped that Chinese Americans could replace African Americans as a controllable labor force in the South. But when projects to introduce Chinese labor failed, Southern ideologues concerned themselves with Chinese immigration and labor in the American West as a way to attack northern views on labor, thereby airing their grievances on Reconstruction and Republican Party power. Southerners aligned themselves with anti-Chinese Westerners, siding with Chinese Exclusion, to undermine Republican influence.

Goodwin's "Turkish Eyes for America: How Turkey Embraced the United States in the Interwar Period" argues that the United States and Turkey developed a special diplomatic relationship in the years between the first and second world wars. Goodwin finds that Turkey embraced some American ideals during this period because of the many ways the United States played a role in Turkish life. He points to the diplomatic efforts of American ambassadors and Turkish leaders like President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and to economic efforts in trade and investment. Important were the social-philanthropic, "soft diplomacy" elements of American missionary groups and organizations like the Rockefeller Foundation, along with the influence of American culture (especially in film).

"Our students are excited to investigate historical questions, dig deep into the research, evaluate the evidence they discover and put it all together to be shared," said Todd Cleveland, the acting chair of the History Department. "History courses bring high-impact learning to students, where they gain the skills to be active in their own research. They learn to tackle complex questions that are meaningful in their lives and in society at large."

Gage invites students to submit their original research papers for consideration of publication in the OHR by Dec. 20. All submissions will be reviewed by the editorial committee. The OHR is published at the end of the spring semester. More details are here: OHR Guidelines and Deadlines PDF.