University Dally Kansan
Wednesday, February 18. 1976
3
Historians beginning to discover minorities' historical importance
By KAREN LEONARD
Staff Writer
Written history has traditionally been a chronicle of wars and kings. But historians are becoming more aware that history is a social process, and the overlooked contributions of women and minorities to American history now are being studied.
"Within the last 15 years, there has been a tremendous basic shift in the definition of history," Rita Napar, acting assistant professor of history, said yesterday "There have been a number of history should be a history of all the people, minority groups tend to be left out of this."
Napier is one of five history professors at the University of Kansas who are researching women and minorities in American history.
SHE IS DOING an ethno-history of the Tingit Indians of southeastern Alaska. She said she became interested in the tribe and taught secondary school children in a Thought village.
Although she didn't go to the village with the idea of studying the Tingits, her research was more valid as a result of her personal contact with them, she said, and how can portray Indians as people and write stories that reflects their own views.
The current interest in minority groups like the Thingits stems from the commitment now being made by society to treat its minorities more fairly, she said, and when that group is taken more seriously, so is its history.
DAVID KATZMAN, associate professor of history, agreed that the study of social and ethnic history was on the rise and was a major contribution to the field of ethnic awareness in the United States.
"Some students are motivated by finding their own past. Other students are interested in taking a group and finding their place in social history." Katzman said. "It's a way of finding community within the larger mass of society."
He said his own interest in minority and ethnic history was probably a result of the fact that he was a member of
"It makes you conscious of being a majority, of being different," Katzman
His interest in minorities also comes from a strong sense of social justice, he said, and he has been active in the civil rights movement since 1959.
The value of research on minority behavior is its potential to affect questions of policy, culture and community to understand the quality of life in the past to understand life in the present; to evaluate current government programs, policies; and the effects of past programs, he said.
HISTORY IS NO longer being written as
Highway Patrol plans inspection for city vehicles
Kansas Highway Patrol personnel begin inspecting city vehicles at the request of Lawrence officials attempting to improve working conditions for city employees.
The inspections were recommended last month by a six-member committee that investigated management of city departments.
Mike Wilden, assistant city manager, said yesterday that police vehicles would be inspected first and inspections of other city vehicles would follow, at no expense to the city.
After each vehicle inspection, be said, the city will be told whether repairs of tires, brakes or lights are needed. Widgeman said that regular maintenance crews are performed regularly.
The inspections, which may last several weeks, begin at 2 p.m. at the Douglas County Fatality Center.
literature alone, he said. The new social historians use computers, he said, and their work is the only way to do it.
"That's the impact we expect to have by interpreting the past," he said. "The social sciences are too contemporary. They don't deal with social processes over time."
Katzman has published a book entitled "pre-ghetto Black Detroit: 1830-1900," and is now writing a book on domestic servants from the Civil War to World War I.
Regina Morantz, visiting assistant professor of history, said the study of women's history had suggested that some of her observations of events occurred in private in the home.
Through her research, she said, she realized that women weren't a peripheral species.
"WOMEN HAVE NOT been visible in public places. To find out what women have been doing, you have to redefine what you're interested in." Morantz said.
Historians are beginning to ask questions
about how they might like to grow up in a 1950s
century family.
questions are asked and the connection between the family and society is made, she
continues.
Morantz is teaching two courses on women's history this semester. She said there had been a wonderful response to the questions she closed out two hours after enrollment began.
OTHER PROFESSORS ALSO reported to student interest in their minority cohort.
W. Stitt Robinson, professor of history,
said more than 100 students at a time
enrolled in his course on American Indian
history, and members of the class were
native Americans.
Robinson said that in his research on Cherokees in the American Revolution, he was attempting to study them from an Indian's point-of-view.
"Too often in the past we've talked about non history from a white point-of-view," he said.
William Tuttle Jr., professor of history now on leave, is researching Afro-American studies.
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