Chair's Note

Dear Students, Student Families, Alumni, and Friends of History,

The 2024-25 academic year has wrapped up, and I can personally say that it was one filled with new experiences and interesting challenges. For myself, it has been a thrill to start as department chair, as this has allowed me to get to know a wider swath of our excellent students than it had been my pleasure before. For many of our students, this year represented the culmination of an academic career in which they created skills and memories they shall carry for a lifetime.

We have been delighted to see a continued increase in the number of Broncos choosing to study History. In fact, we have had our largest induction of members to Phi Alpha Theta (the history honor society) as well as a larger number of graduating majors in some years. We continue to have more students attracted to the minor, and these come from an impressively diverse range of disciplines – Biology, Computer Science, Public Health, Marketing, and Religious Studies. The History Club is robust as ever, and its activities have been aided by a group of superfans who support the department and discipline as our History Ambassadors.

As you can see from the impressive list of accomplishments and awards included below, our department is crowded with talented and inspiring young historians.

Most of our graduating class of 2025 arrived at Santa Clara in the Fall of 2021, and many might recall us all struggling at that time to regain a sense of normal following the pandemic. We were still in face masks that year and, while this was not the biggest challenge, it was indicative of how we were required to navigate an academic, social, and political landscape that seemed to be in constant flux. It was the Fall of 2022 that ChatGPT was unleashed to the world, and a great many of us are still trying to figure out what the AI revolution portends for University learning, human creativity, and (gulp) perhaps survival of our most cherished values. This graduating class enters into a society (and job market) that might be radically transformed in just a few more years. Amidst this uncertainty, it is comforting to find so many dedicated and thoughtful people who understand that our present predicaments and future trials can best be grasped by mastering the past – knowing it really well, with rigor, integrity and compassion.

Supporting the study of history is a vital investment in challenging times, since it equips us with the ability to meet all new challenges. Our alumni already know this, and I hope that they can help share this insight with the next generation of leaders being shaped at Santa Clara University.

Sincerely,

Matthew Newsom Kerr

History students Samuel Cao, Savannah Mills, and Olivia Diaz had their projects selected for the 10th Annual Digital Humanities Showcase, held on May 29. Samuel’s project, “California’s Bracero Program," was based on his research for his senior thesis, while Savannah and Olivia’s projects come from their work in Prof. Meg Eppel Gudgeirsson's Public and Digital History: “U.S. Civil War - Prisoner of War Camps” and “The Gender Dimensions of Genocide."

Phi Alpha Theta is a professional society whose mission is to promote the study of history through the encouragement of research, good teaching, publication and the exchange of learning and ideas among historians. The Society seeks to bring students and teachers together for intellectual and social exchanges, which promote and assist historical research and publication by our members in a variety of ways.

Santa Clara University’s History Department was honored to host an induction ceremony for several high-performing History Majors on May 14th. Students were presented with certificates of membership and tassels for their graduation robes. A raffle, fun food and prizes were enjoyed by all. Congratulations, new members!

Two Santa Clara History students also presented their work at the Northern California Regional Phi Alpha Theta Conference on April 17th and 18th at Sacramento State University. The Conference’s exciting welcome reception was held at the California State Railroad Museum.

Several History students were recognized with major awards for outstanding written work.

Graduating History major Samuel Cao won both the Hoefer Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Writing as well as the Helene LaFrance Undergraduate Library Research Award. These are for his senior thesis, “California’s Bracero Program: Racializing and Legalizing Mexican Transportation.”

History major Francesca Tapper was awarded the University-wide Provost Research Fellowship. The Office of Fellowships awards only two Provost Research Fellowships per year to students with promising research agendas. These summer research fellowships are intended to prepare current sophomores or juniors to compete for nationally competitive graduate fellowships such as Rhodes, Marshall, Schwarzman, Knight-Hennessey, Fulbright, Truman, Goldwater, Udall, Gates-Cambridge, or the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. Candidates will exemplify the ideals and best traditions of Santa Clara University. Candidates are nominated by a faculty member willing to work with them to develop the research project and application, and to serve as a mentor during the summer.

History major Jacklyn Alonzo Heredia was awarded the Hayes Fellowship of the University Honors Program. This fellowship was established in memory of Arthur Hull Hayes, Jr., SCU's first Rhodes Scholar (1955) and a former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Each Hayes Scholar receives summer research wages, expenses for domestic study and travel, and research supply expenses. Candidates are members of the University Honors Program who exemplify the ideals and best traditions of Santa Clara University.

Three members of the Class of 2025 graduated with Honors in History: Naomi Sneath, Anna Nicolae, and Samuel Cao.

The Redwood Prize, established in 1908 by the executive committee of The Redwood, is given to the student who writes the best essay on a historical subject. This year, the Department awarded the Redwood Prize to Christina McManus for her paper, “The Dispute of the Desert Dwellers: Federal Land in Nevada.”

The Giacomini Prize is awarded to a history major or minor for the best researched paper based on primary sources. The prize was endowed by Thomas Bender ’66 to honor his SCU advisor. Prof. Bender went on to author more than ten books, including the winner of the Frederick Jackson Turner Award given by the Organization of American Historians. This year, the Department was proud to award the Giacomini Prize to Thomas Mathew for "The Rise and Fall of the South Pacific Railroad: An Analysis of the Evolving Newspaper Coverage Surrounding their Acquisition by the Southern Pacific." 

The McPhee Prize, established in 2007 through the generosity of Lulu and John McPhee, is awarded to the History Major or Minor whose sustained achievement in history includes writing the most outstanding paper in a senior seminar. This year, the Department was honored to award the McPhee Prize to Francesca Tapper, for her work “The Guatemalan Civil War Genocide.”

The Mehl Prize, established in 1993 by the History Department in memory of friend and benefactor Frederick J. Mehl, is given each year to the senior whose exemplary record in history includes writing the best senior thesis. This year, the Department was honored to award Anna Nicolae, for her work “Sublatâ causa, tollitur effectus: Pathologizing Male Homosexuality in the French Colonies.”

Summer Research Fellows. Each year the History department awards grants of $1,000 each for up to three rising seniors to support research that will culminate in their senior thesis. The fellows for 2025 are:

Benjamin Chu: Richard Nixon's "Southern Strategy" and its Impact on Mass Incarceration.

Christina McManus: Book Bans, from Orwell’s 1984 to Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale.

Dylan Ryu: Organ Transplantation and Understandings of Personhood.

Led by History Professor Amy Randall, the Santa Clara University Center for Arts and Humanities hosted an end-of-year Student Fellow Showcase to share the amazing projects of their 2024-25 fellows. Presenters included Samuel Cao '25, who was advised by Mateo Carrillo and Meg Gudgeirsson.

As was announced in the Winter edition of Primary Sources, the 2023 edition of Historical Perspectives, Santa Clara History Department’s undergraduate history journal, won first place in the Gerald D. Nash History Journal Competition. Our students have racked up a strong record: Historical Perspectives won first place in 2013, 2021, 2022, (and now 2023 - three years in a row!), second place in 2009, 2011, 2018, 2019, and 2020, and third place in 2017. The prize recognizes departments that promote serious student research by publishing a formal journal dedicated to student-written articles. In addition to co-editing Historical Perspectives with an advising faculty committee, the executive committee of our Phi Alpha Theta chapter, elected annually by members, organizes on-campus as well as off-campus activities connected with the study of history.

The 2024 edition of Historical Perspectives is another strong contender, and we wait with baited breath for the announcement of the next Nash Prize winner in December! 

The new Editorial Board has been selected for the 2025 Historical Perspectives: Christina McManus, Jenny Moore, Dylan Ryu, Zackery Knight, and Francesca Tapper. The board will be guided by Prof. Naomi Andrews, who is joined this year by Prof. Jeannette Estruth. Stay tuned for their next volume of Historical Perspectives in the coming academic year! 

Nancy Unger

A wonderful time was had by all at Prof. Unger’s retirement party. Fellow faculty, students, alumni, and Prof. Unger’s own family joined in for speeches, strawberries and cheese, and a champagne toast. Gorgeous floral arrangements were designed by Prof. Andrews.

Not that retirement or this party has at all slowed Prof. Unger down!

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Paul Mariani, S.J.

Paul Mariani, who was promoted to full professor this past year, is celebrating his new book, China’s Church Divided, published by Harvard University Press, July 2025.

Recent praise from Richard Madsen includes: “Drawing on his unique access to Jesuit archives, Prof. Mariani sheds new light on the conflict between ecclesiastical and Communist politics in a tumultuous world moving out of the Cold War.”

Sonia Gomez

Sonia Gomez was awarded the Organization of American Historians’ Mary Nickliss Prize for her book Picture Bride, War Bride: The Role of Marriage in Shaping Japanese America. This prize is given annually to an academic historian for “the most original” book in United States Women’s or Gender History, or its colonial antecedent.

The OAH defines “the most original” book as one that is a path-breaking work or that challenges or changes widely accepted scholarly interpretations in the field of U.S. Women’s and Gender History.

Meg Eppel Gudgeirsson

On March 3, the Silicon Valley Studies Initiative (SVSI), directed by History faculty member Meg Eppel Gudgeirsson, hosted the talk "Before Silicon Valley: Mexican Agricultural and Cannery Workers of Santa Clara County, 1920-1960" by Margo McBane, Ph.D., emeritus faculty from San José State University. Dr. McBane discussed the history of these workers in our region as well as the act of preserving this history for the public.

The SVSI hosted its final event for the academic year on May 2. Public historian Natalie Marine-Street from Stanford University led students, faculty, and staff in a workshop on conducting oral interviews to understand our region's past.

Matthew Specter

Matthew Specter’s 2022 book from Stanford Press, The Atlantic Realists, was the subject of a review forum in the prestigious H-Diplo, which includes Matthew’s response. The book will appear in Mandarin translation this summer. Prof. Specter gave an interview to French daily La Croix on the future of the transatlantic relationship in March. In May, he lectured on Primo Levi's Survival in Auschwitz to the ninety freshmen in Stanford University's Structural Liberal Education (SLE) program.

Specter has also just completed his 10th year as Associate Editor of History & Theory based at Wesleyan University.

Amy Randall

Amy Randall recently published an essay, “Writing Stalinist History in Cold War Breezes,” co-authored with Kate Brown, in Other Voices in Soviet History: Collected for a Devil's Advocate, ed. Dan Healey, Tracy MacDonald, & Heather DeHaan (University of Toronto Press, 2025), pp. 18-37.  

In June, Professor Randall taught a seminar, "Gender and Genocide," for the University of Connecticut's "2025 Scheidt Family Seminar on Genocide Studies & Prevention" for 20 participants from 7 different countries.  All are college/university educators, museum/NGO educators, or people working in policymaking or the security sector.

Marwan Daoud Hanania

Marwan Daoud Hanania will be teaching an interdisciplinary summer course with the Stanford Continuing Studies Program entitled "Demystifying the Middle East," and a summer course with the SCU OLLI entitled "Crossroads of Civilization: Understanding the History, Culture, and Politics of the Levant.” He gave the keynote address for the SCU Office of Multicultural Learning's Middle Eastern North African (MENA) Recognition Celebration on June 4, celebrating the graduation of graduate and undergraduate students. On March 9, he gave a talk for the Stanford Alumni Club of Rossmoor about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Hanania also submitted a book proposal to the University of Texas Press for a manuscript entitled Amman, City in the Middle: 1878 to the Present.

Matthew Newsom Kerr

Matthew Newsom Kerr published an article in the January 2025 edition of Medical History: “An 'arsenal for the supply of ammunition for the defence of vaccination': the Jenner Society and anti-anti-vaccinationism in England, 1896-1906.” 

Professor Newsom Kerr has also shared his research at recent talks and conferences, including the Pacific Coast Conference of British Studies at Stanford on March 28: “‘Nature’s School’: Anti-Vaccinationism and the Gloucester Smallpox Epidemic of 1896” and the European Association for the History of Medicine and Health at Humboldt University Berlin, August 28: “The Fault in Our Scars: Inscribing Smallpox Vaccination in Nineteenth-Century Britain.” He presented his research on the Gloucester epidemic in a Brown Bag Speaker Series in the Humanities on May 14 in the University Library.

Along with artist Maya Gurantz and Chair of the Public Health Department, Sonja Mackenzie, Professor Newsom Kerr participated in a panel presentation on April 29 (“Re-Imagining Public Health Futures and Histories”) at the De Saisset Museum in conjunction with the exhibit The Plague Archives.

Jeanette Estruth

Assistant Professor of History Jeannette Estruth has been named a Santa Clara University Center for Arts and Humanities Faculty Fellow for 2025-2026. Estruth will use her time as a fellow to complete research for a journal-article-in-progress entitled "The Galactic Commons: Reimagining Interplanetary Commons from the Cold War to the Present,” which has been invited for publication in a special journal issue in 2026. Estruth also recently gave an invited talk in the Stanford University History Department in May. She spoke to students at Santa Clara History Day in April and to Prof. Andrews’ History 100 Class, and had a paper entitled “Science and the City” accepted at the upcoming Urban History Association Meeting in October in Los Angeles.  In June, Estruth was re-appointed as Faculty Associate at the Harvard Berkman-Klein Center for Internet and Society, where she has maintained affiliation since 2018. 

Commencement

Several members of the History Department joined our graduates as they walked across the Commencement Stage on June 14. We are so proud of the Class of 2025!  Congratulations, Grads, and please stay in touch! 

American Historical Association Pacific Coast Meeting

Santa Clara University hosted the American Historical Association’s Pacific Coast Branch meeting from July 30 to August 1. The theme was High Stakes History: Studying the Past in a Perilous Present, and featured work from distinguished scholars from all over the country and the world. They were joined by a number of Santa Clara undergraduate historians who shared their own research! 

After graduating cum laude with a history major, David Scott ’74 continued on to SCU Law School and passed the California bar in 1977. Following a stint in private practice, in 1981, he went to work for a semiconductor company, drafting and administering sales contracts. The sales force seemed to be having more fun than himself, so David made a career jump.

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