Recognition

Society Announces Sachsman Symposium on the Nineteenth Century Press

The Thirty-Second Annual Symposium on the Nineteenth Century Press, the Civil War, and Free Expression recently concluded on the Augusta University campus highlighted by the Society of Nineteenth Century Historians dedicating the conference in honor of its founder and tireless advocate, the late Dr. David Sachsman. Henceforth, the conference shall be known as the Sachsman Symposium on the Nineteenth Century Press, a fitting tribute to an outstanding scholar and mentor.

Here are some other highlights!

2024 Conference Program Now Available!

The Society of 19th Century Historians is proud to announce the program for its 32nd Annual Symposium on the Nineteenth Century Press, the Civil War, and Free Expression.

Beginning Thursday afternoon, November 7, 2024 and continuing for the next two days at Augusta University’s Jaguar Student Activities Center on the Summerville Campus, the conference schedule features paper and panel presentations covering a wide variety of topics and signature lectures by two renowned historians.

To learn more about this outstanding event, please visit the program schedule for details.

Free Registration Now Open for the Thirty-Second Annual Symposium

Whether you are in the process of submitting a paper for peer review, participating in a panel, or just interested in the presentations of our two renowned scholars, we invite you to register for the conference scheduled for November 7-9 at Augusta University.

To learn more, please visit our registration page located on our Society website.

Renowned Scholars to Highlight Thirty-Second Annual Symposium

Esteemed historians Orville Vernon Burton and Harold Holzer will give signature lectures at the 32nd Annual Symposium on the Nineteenth Century Press, the Civil War, and Freedom of Expression at Augusta University.

For more infomation, please see the release!

2024 Call for Papers Now Available!

The Society of Nineteenth Century Historians, in partnership with the Pamplin College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at Augusta University, presents the 32nd Annual Symposium on the Nineteenth Century Press, the Civil War, and Free Expression.

For more information, please visit the 2024 Call for Papers!

Opportunities to Participate in an Exciting Project!

The Symposium also invites papers exploring how newspapers and other publications spread news and stories about the unexplained. Papers and panel presentations will be considered, with author permission, for inclusion in Unexplained! Negotiating the Supernatural in the 19th Century Press.

For more information, please visit the 2024 “Unexplained!” Call for Papers

Award for Excellence

Each year the Symposium recognizes excellence in scholarship and research in the field of Journalism History.

Scholars Recognized for Excellence at the 2024 Symposium

Those receiving Excellence in Paper Presentation for 2024 include:

J. Jacob Calhoun, Univerity of Virginia

“’Representatives of the Arch Destroyer Death’: Coroners and the Press in the Post Civil War South.”
“Fascinating study. Gruesome, but certainly an appropriate topic for the Symposium. Well researched and well written.”

The Sachsman Family Award for Outstanding Student Achievement was awarded to:

Asher Lawrence, West Chester University

“Evaluating the Sectarian Struggle for California in the Antebellum Press.”
“In sum, this is a very interesting paper and one to look forward to hearing presented at this year’s Symposium.”

Prince Fellows joining Professor of History John Navin are from left:

Jordan Blazer, Taylor Pierce, Kailani-Lee D’Antuono, and Connor Mojo.

Special recognition was also awarded to a group of students at Coastal Carolina for their collaborative project to study a Low Country newspaper, The Horry Dispatch, in the opening days of the Civil War

Sachsman Family Award Established

At the conclusion of the awards ceremony for the 31st annual Symposium on the Nineteenth Century Press, the Civil War, and Free Expression, the presenters and attendees on hand in Augusta and those joining via the webinar format were honored by the presence of the Sachsman Family for a very special announcement.

Speaking on behalf of her mother, Judy, and brother Jonathan, David’s daughter Susanne announced the establishment of a new award in her father’s honor.

“It’s an award for excellence in order to support student scholarship and research,” said Susanne. “My father felt that this was critical to the future of the Symposium and the field, and to the future of academics as a whole.”

Susanne went on to highlight the conference’s rich tradition of encouraging submissions by students.

“The Symposium has a long history, as you all know, of student participation and of developing those students into scholars who, in turn, become leaders in journalism and history and other academic pursuits.

Beginning next year for the conference’s 32nd anniversary, the Symposium will be inviting, peer reviewing, and recognizing outstanding student submissions with the goal of building and maintaining the ranks of journalism, history, and scholarships. And we encourage your students to actively participate. It’s a great way to honor my father.”

Hazel Dicken-Garcia Award

Named in honor of Dr. Hazel Dicken-Garcia, the award recognizes distinguished scholarship in the fields of Journalism and Civil War History.

A professor emerita of journalism and mass communication at the University of Minnesota, she remains recognized as one of the foremost authorities in the field of journalism studies and served the university as a dedicated teacher and mentor for more than thirty years.

A 1961 graduate of Berea College (KY), she received a master’s degree from the University of Michigan in 1969 and a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin in Madison in 1977. Her book, Journalistic Standards in Nineteenth Century America (1989) has been widely cited and celebrated as an authoritative study of the evolution of ethics in journalism. In addition, she co-authored two other books, Communication History (1980) and Hated Ideas and the American Civil War Press (2007).

Dr. Dicken-Garcia retired from full-time teaching at the University of Minnesota in 2008 with the rank of full professor and remained dedicated to supervising doctoral dissertations until 2011.

She was deeply involved in the annual Symposium on the 19th Century Press, the Civil War, and Free Expression at the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga, where she served as president of the steering committee for more than a decade. The symposium honors a journalism historian each year with the Hazel Dicken-Garcia Award for Distinguished Scholarship. (Dr. Dicken-Garcia was the first winner of the award, which subsequently was named in her honor.) She and her students have presented numerous papers that have become chapters in the books published from the symposium.

Dr. Dicken-Garcia passed away at the age of 79 in 2018, but her dedication and standards of excellence remain guiding elements of the Symposium as it continues into its third decade.

Past Winners of the Hazel Dicken-Garcia Award

2007 David Mindich, St. Michael’s College

2009 Ford Risley, Pennsylvania State University

2010 Donald Shaw, University of North Carolina

2011 W. Joseph Campbell, American University

2012 Gregory Borchard, University of Nevada Las Vegas

2015 Harold Holzer, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

2016 Brian Gabrial, Concordia University

2017 David Sachsman, University of Tennessee Chattanooga

2019 Bill Huntzicker, Independent Scholar and Dr. Katrina J. Quinn, Slippery Rock University

2020 David W. Bulla, Augusta University