Black Bear Undergraduate
History Journal
University of Maine Department of History, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
and University of Maine History Graduate Student Association
A Note from the Board
Dear Readers,
The editorial team is excited to introduce the newest issue of the Black Bear Undergraduate History Journal. The Spring 2022 semester has been productive and exciting for the editorial team, who awarded their first ever Best Essay Award to Tom Pinnette, whose work was published in the fall of 2021. The BBUHJ has also received many high quality submissions this spring, and we thank all undergraduate History majors, History graduate students, and the History faculty for engaging with the Black Bear Undergraduate History Journal so generously.
As many members of the department community may know, the Black Bear Undergraduate History Journal is an academic journal dedicated to showcasing undergraduate work from History students at the University of Maine. Our publication is run by the Journal Board, made up of four History graduate students who have edited, designed, and curated this issue. The BBUHJ would like to extend the ongoing offer to join our editorial team to any History graduate student or graduate student in a related discipline.
The spring 2022 issue’s Short Paper Category highlights research on popular and elite Catholic practices in the Middle Ages, and a proposal for re-framing the historical memory of Mainers who participated in the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The Long Paper Category includes articles examining colonial visions of Palestine, the career of Civil Rights activist John Lewis, the Harlem Hellfighters, the Abolitionist Movement, and the failure of Nazi Germany’s war machine. This issue will also be the first to feature a Historical Mapping section, which includes student visualizations of historical data from critical points in North American history. We are elated to showcase such strong and diverse undergraduate research.
The BBUHJ thanks the University of Maine History Department and the History Graduate Student Association for providing support for this project. We look forward to continuing with this project in the following years, and cultivating undergraduate research.
Yours truly,
The Journal Board
Awards and Mentions:
Our journal, has received an Honorable Mention in the 2021 Gerald D. Nash History Electronic Journal competition, by the Phi Alpha Theta (ΦΑΘ) National Honor History Society.
The Black Bear Undergraduate History Journal is supported by the University of Maine Graduate Student History Association and the University of Maine History Department.
University of Maine Land Acknowledgement
The University of Maine recognizes that it is located on Marsh Island in the homeland of the Penobscot Nation, where issues of water and territorial rights, and encroachment upon sacred sites, are ongoing. Penobscot homeland is connected to the other Wabanaki Tribal Nations — the Passamaquoddy, Maliseet, and Micmac — through kinship, alliances and diplomacy. The university also recognizes that the Penobscot Nation and the other Wabanaki Tribal Nations are distinct, sovereign, legal and political entities with their own powers of self-governance and self-determination.