The Anchorage Genealogical Society is delighted to hold their annual Spring
Seminar on May 4th. The speakers will be Alison and Tom Taylor who own Pictures
& Stories and are coming from Utah. The seminar will be held at the Loussac
Event Center from 9 am to 4:30 pm. Sessions will include how to tell the best
stories of your life, making a family story cookbook, organizing your family history,
and advice on digitizing photos. The Taylors are in demand all over the country.
Come join the AGS for this exciting day!
For more information or to register, go to the AGS website at:
Anchoragegenealogy.org.
Located near the mouth of the Copper River, Cordova was a crossroads of trade and interaction among Eyak, Tlingit, Ahtna and Chugach peoples when Europeans sailed into Prince William Sound in the 1700s. Founded in 1909 as a railway terminus to deliver copper from the Kennecott Mines, Cordova also was near Katalla, Alaska’s earliest oil field. Fishing is the town’s major industry today.
This year’s theme, “Rights and Responsibilities,” speaks broadly to Alaska’s history of determining which people and groups should have rights, and what responsibilities are attached to those rights. Disputes
over rights and responsibilities have spanned Alaska history, including voting rights for women and Alaska’s Native people, fish traps and limited entry fisheries, subsistence rights, taxation, the Alaska Permanent Fund and responding to the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
The conference will open with a Wednesday reception, with papers presented the following three days. Friday’s focus is on Prince William Sound topics and speakers. While presentations that address the conference theme are encouraged, the society welcomes proposals for papers, panels, roundtables, films or workshops on any aspect of Alaska history. The theme echoes the upcoming year’s National
History Day theme, and students and teachers are especially encouraged to participate.
This year’s keynote presenter is former Alaska Lt. Gov. Fran Ulmer, an international climate change expert. She brings a broad perspective on Alaska’s history by virtue of her extensive public service as a policy
analyst for Gov. Jay Hammond, Juneau mayor and state legislator.
To propose a presentation, please email a title, proposal of 100 words and two-sentence biography to members@alaskahistoricalsociety.org. Typically, presentations are 20 minutes in length. Abstract submission deadline: May 31, 2024.
When filling out your Alaska Permanent Fund application, we’d like to ask folks to remember the Alaska Historical Society when making your Pick. Click. Give. donations. Your support helps us fulfill the AHS mission of educating the public and promoting the study of Alaska history.
Apply for your PFD at: https://pfd.alaska.gov
Thank you for supporting the Alaska Historical Society.
Ian Hartman and David Reamer Honored as Historians of the Year
Two prominent Anchorage historians who wrote the ground-breaking book, Black Lives in Alaska: A History of African Americans in the Far Northwest, were named historians of the year by the Alaska Historical Society over the weekend at its annual conference on the Kenai Peninsula.
University of Alaska Anchorage history professor Ian C. Hartman and public historian and Anchorage Daily News columnist David Reamer were awarded the James H. Ducker Historian of the Year Award. It is named for longtime Alaska historian James Ducker, who served for 30 years as editor of the Society’s journal, Alaska History.
The book, published by University of Washington Press, opens with little-known accounts of Black whalers and fugitives from slavery who came to Alaska in the mid-1800s. It details Blacks in Alaska’s gold rushes, their service in Alaska with the military during World War II and the Cold War and discusses the racial mistreatment Blacks encountered in Alaska and their actions to achieve their civil rights.
The authors involved many Blacks who live and work in Alaska today. The Society said the work is well and carefully documented and details important but little-known historical developments in Alaska. The award carries a $250 cash prize for each author.
Other awards announced at the AHS annual conference include:
Seward historian, author and columnist Doug Capra was awarded the Evangeline Atwood Award for Excellence for his books, plays, articles and newspaper columns that contribute to documenting and interpreting the history of Seward and the eastern Kenai Peninsula.
The award remembers a founder of the Alaska Historical Society who wrote, supported and advocated for Alaska history from the 1940s into the 1990s. Capra taught history at Seward High School and worked as an interpreter at Kenai Fjords National Park.
The Anchorage Park Foundation and the Native Village of Eklutna, with special recognition of Aaron Leggett, won the Esther Billman Award for the Anchorage Indigenous Place Names Project. The partnership project started in 2018 to install markers throughout the Municipality of Anchorage to acknowledge the Indigenous names for geographic places. The most recent is “Nuch’ishtunt” – the place protected from the wind – installed at Point Woronzof. Other markers have been installed at Potter Marsh, Westchester Lagoon, Muldoon Park and the mouth of Ship Creek.
The posts include artwork, preserve the Dena’ina language and explain the site’s cultural significance and history. The project could not have been possible without Aaron Leggett’s leadership. Leggett is curator of history at the Anchorage Museum and president of the Native Village of Eklutna.
Billman was the longtime curator of the Sheldon Jackson Museum in Sitka. The award recognizes a society, museum, government agency or organization for a project contributing to the preservation and understanding of Alaska history during the past year.
The Alaska Jewish Museum was awarded the Elva Scott Local Historical Society Award for its virtual exhibit, From Purchase to Prosperity: The Jewish Founders of the Alaska Commercial Company, co-curated by Leslie Fried and J. Pennelope Goforth.
Scott was a founder of Homer’s Natural History Society and Pratt Museum, and after moving to Eagle was newsletter editor, tour guide and officer of its historical society. The award recognizes a historical society or museum for its programs, newsletter, publication or a significant recent accomplishment.
The Jewish Museum exhibit looks at Alaska’s history through West Coast risk-taking Jewish businessmen who engaged in commerce following the departure of the Russians and established a company that still operates in Alaska today. The exhibit tackles the complicated relationship between Western commercial enterprise and diverse Native peoples and the impact of colonialism on them. The website includes documents, images—several in 3D, and a bibliography. Information is clearly presented, and the site is well-designed to easily navigate through the exhibit.
The Society made four awards in its Contributions to Alaska History Awards, which recognize individuals and groups for projects, publications and other efforts that have significantly promoted and added to understanding Alaska history.
Ketchikan Museums was recognized for its newsletter and website’s Artifact of the Month column. The feature is a highlight of the quarterly email newsletter from the Tongass Historical Museum and Totem Heritage Center. Each Artifact of the Month has a photo of an object used in Ketchikan, often related to a current exhibit, and a story about how it was used.
Fairbanks historians Leanna Prax Williams and Rebecca Heaton received the award for coordinating and advocating for Alaska History Day. The program, in partnership with National History Day, has promoted learning and applying historical skills to Alaskan students for over 30 years. Williams and Heaton, who worked with the Fairbanks History Fair for more than five years, stepped up to undertake coordinating the state competition. Under their leadership, entries nearly doubled this year and at least 800 students participated in some way.
Anchorage educator Alice Tower Knapp received a Contributions to Alaska History Award for her book, On Track!: The Nordic Skiing Association of Anchorage. A retired school librarian and lifelong Nordic skier, Knapp spent her Covid years going through scrapbooks, newsletters, photographs and administrative records of Anchorage’s Nordic ski association that started in 1964. She details early races and hosting national competitions, the popular backcountry and Junior Nordic programs, the growth of ski jumping and biathlon programs, and club events like the annual Ski Train, Ski for Women, and Tour of Anchorage.
Fairbanks historian Chris Allan was recognized for a long list of significant contributions to the AHS over the past two decades. His contributions include writing 14 engaging articles that have been published in the journal Alaska History, authoring the regular oddments in our newsletter, generously providing content for our website including eight Eyewitness Series booklets that showcase voices of the past, finding beaver logs and making auction donations.
Allan served two terms on the Board of Directors, was president for two years, program chair, oversaw a redesign of the website, and is frequently called on to answer obscure inquiries that come to the Society. He works for the National Park Service as historian for Gates of the Arctic and Yukon-Charley Rivers parks and preserves.
This year’s recipient of the Morgan and Jeanie Sherwood Award for best article in the last volume of Alaska History, the peer-reviewed journal of the Alaska Historical Society, went to Ray Hudson for his article “The Imaginary Frontier and Its True Poverty: The Aleutian Islands at the End of the Nineteenth and Beginning of the Twentieth Centuries.”
Hudson lived and taught at Unalaska for about 30 years and has written articles and published books about the people and place. The late Professor Sherwood was a longtime Alaska historian and he and his wife endowed the award with a $500 annual prize.
The Society also presented a special award to acknowledge the enormous contributions of board member Rachel Mason, an Anchorage National Park Service historian. Mason has served as an officer, program chair, awards chair, member of the newsletter staff and in about every other capacity with the society.
Her historical research is often of difficult research topics. Three of her ground-breaking studies include Seward’s red light district, coordinating publication of Nick Golodoff’s memoir about the Attuans internment in Japan during World War II, and documenting the “lost Aleutian villages” that Unangan residents taken to Southeast Alaska internment camps during World War II were not allowed to return to.
The final award is the President’s Award, known as the Beaver Log because it comes with an authentic log felled by an Alaska beaver. This year’s award went to Kaila Pfister, a new member of the AHS board.
She was recognized for excellent service including her efforts to have the Society use technology to spread the word about Alaska history including the Society’s website, Facebook postings, and overseeing technology at the annual conference which was both live in-person and Zoomed. Pfister also has served on the logo and journal redesign committees and will be leading the organization through a redesign of its website this coming year.
The Alaska Historical Society is the state’s only statewide historical association dedicated to preserving and educating Alaskans about the state’s history.
April 18, 7 – 9 p.m. : Alaska: The Canary in the Coalmine for Climate Change
The panel focused on what Alaska’s history can teach us about the relationship between
economic growth and our interests in stewarding Alaska’s lands and waters for present and future
generations. The panel looked to debates spanning issues such as damming the Yukon River to
Alaskan responses to oil and gas development, and if the binary between conservation and
development serves the complexities of decisions facing Alaska’s residents and lands.
Watch a recording of this panel here.
Speakers included:
– Austin Ahmasuk, (Iñupiat) is the environmental justice co-director for Native Movement.
– Courtney Carothers, professor in the Department of Fisheries, College of Fisheries and Ocean Science, at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
– James Magdanz, independent researcher specializing in hunting and fishing economies
in Alaska.
– Moderated by Bathsheba Demuth, Dean’s Associate Professor of History and
Environment and Society, Brown University.
Alaska is often referred to the canary in the coalmine for climate change – or rather, Ground Zero
for predicting the direction and impacts of climate change. How can current and historical
records help us better understand the differences between these terms, the roots of climate
change as seen in Alaska, and what we may see in the future?
Speakers include:
– Rick Thoman, climate specialist with the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and
Policy at UAF and the lead author of the 2023 Arctic Report Card.
– Ken Tape, climate change specialist and research associate professor at the University of
Alaska Fairbanks.
– Jackie Qataliña Schaeffer, director of Climate Initiatives for the Alaska Native Tribal
Health Consortium.
– Moderated by Molly McCammon, an Alaska Historical Society board member and
senior advisor at the Alaska Ocean Observing System.
To help raise the level of civil discourse across Alaska, the Alaska Historical Society (AHS) launched this four-part lecture and panel discussion series. “Today in Alaska, as in much of the rest of the country, our civic discourse has deteriorated to a point where sensible public policy is not only enormously challenging, but often unachievable,” said William Schneider, University of Alaska Fairbanks professor emeritus and recent past president of the Alaska Historical Society. “By demonstrating how knowledge of history can inform and improve current public policy debate, we hope to raise the level of discussion so an informed public can encourage decision-makers to draw on history to make fact-based policy which serves the broadest diversity of Alaskans,” Schneider said.
The AHS is Alaska’s largest statewide organization dedicated to the informed exchange of ideas through a factual appreciation of Alaska’s history. It is partnering with the Cook Inlet Historical Society and the Anchorage Museum on the series. The Atwood Foundation has provided a generous grant to cover costs. Other supporting organizations include the League of Women Voters, the University of Alaska Anchorage Seawolf Debate Program and OLE!, an Anchorage-based nonprofit which offers educational classes.
Beginning with the 1867 transfer of Alaska from Russian to American administration, the federal government extended its authority over the territory. Was this “Americanization” positive with new government services or an unwelcome colonization? Americanization had both enormously positive and negative impacts which continue today. The unsettled relationship between the federal government, the state and Native groups deserves closer discussion as Alaskans consider ideas such as resource management and policies relating to Alaska Natives under federal trust.
Recording – please note, you will need to login/ register to access the recording below
About the Panelists
ROSS COEN is a lecturer in the Department of History, University of Washington, and editor of Alaska History, the semi-annual journal of the Alaska Historical Society.
MARY EHRLANDER is an emeritus professor of history, University of Alaska Fairbanks, and former director of UAF’s Arctic and Northern Studies Program. Her new book, with Hild M. Peters, is Hospital & Haven: The Life and Work of Grafton & Clara Burke in Northern Alaska.
IAN HARTMAN is a professor and chair of the history department, University of Alaska Anchorage. He teaches modern American history with an emphasis on issues related to economic and racial inequality.
CHARLES WOHLFORTH was an Anchorage Daily News reporter from 1988-92 and a regular opinion columnist from 2015- 19. He served on the Anchorage Assembly. He has written books about Alaska, science, history and the environment.
Description
This was the first of a four-part lecture and panel series about major public policy issues facing Alaska. The sessions, scheduled at the Anchorage Museum, are designed to combat the often willful distortion of history and create a more productive environment in which to arrive at sound public policy.
The first program, entitled “Alaska Native Sovereignty,” considered the history of the relationship between Native groups and the federal government. The landmark 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act was broadly seen as the settlement of longstanding Alaska Native land claims. Some contend the act greatly limits Native sovereignty, while others point to Native assertion of sovereignty in self-government and active management of vital services such as health care delivery.
The first program featured three experts on Alaska Native sovereignty: Alex Cleghorn, David S. Case, and Rosita Kaaháni Worl. The moderator is William Schneider, oral historian, anthropologist, and professor emeritus at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
The panel discussed the topic at hand and took questions from both a live and on-line audience. Alaska students are encouraged to participate in all of the sessions.
About the Panelists
David Case is a legal scholar, attorney, and author. He has over thirty years of practice representing Alaska Native tribal, corporate, and municipal legal interests. Case’s book, written with David A. Voluck, Alaska Natives and American Laws, was originally published in 1978 and is now in its third edition. It is cited and quoted by scholars and the courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court.
Alex Cleghorn is an attorney and is chief operating officer of the Alaska Native Justice Center. Cleghorn, of Alutiiq and Sugpiaq descent and a tribal citizen of Tangirnaq Native Village, previously served as assistant attorney general and special assistant to the Alaska Attorney General, where he led and coordinated efforts to build collaborative relationships between the state and Alaska tribes.
Rosita Kaaháni Worl is a Tlingit scholar and anthropologist. Worl, president of the Sealaska Heritage Institute, has conducted research throughout Alaska and the circumpolar Arctic. Her current research contributions have focused on the role of Native corporations and the issues surrounding cultural inclusion and ways Native corporations represent cultural values.