History Commons^™

Revisiting The Geneva Summit 40 Years Later:, Thomas Quinn Marabello, Jonah S. Schaller

Swiss American Historical Society Review

Forty years ago this month, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev met for the first time in Geneva, Switzerland. What became known as the “Geneva Summit” was an important Cold War meeting between the two superpowers that would reset and impact their relations to this day. The Geneva Summit, some would argue, was the beginning of the end of the Cold War, as both leaders began working towards arms reduction, peace, and cultural and educational exchanges between both countries. It is hard to believe that November 1985 was forty years ago. The world watched as the …

Did A Swiss American Invent The Cheeseburger?, Susann Bosshard-Kälin

Swiss American Historical Society Review

We know about Ricola. But hamburgers? Rumor says that German sailors in an American port put chopped beef on bread and named it “Hamburg” after their hometown. Whether this is true or not is unclear.

What is documented, however, is that Texan Fletcher Davis sold “hamburger steaks” at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, Missouri. They consisted of a beef patty – a flat minced steak patty – with sweet pickles, mustard and onions, sandwiched between two halves of a bread roll.

So far so good.

But who invented the cheeseburger?

A 16th Century Anabaptist Woman Defies Zurich Authorities And Writes About It, Joël László

Swiss American Historical Society Review

Members of the Anabaptist movement in and around Zurich were persecuted and executed for their convictions during the Reformation. They continue to be disparaged and stereotyped to this day. But a look at the historical sources reveals a different picture ‒ that of a defiant movement in which women such as Margret Hottinger played a key role.

Nicola Wenz:, C. Naseer Ahmad

Swiss American Historical Society Review

Nicola Wenz is an award-winning bi-national producer and journalist from Switzerland and Germany, based in Washington, D.C. She works as a news producer for the German public television service Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF), where she manages U.S. political coverage, including the White House, State Department, Capitol Hill, and the Pentagon. Her assignments are diverse, ranging from indepth feature stories and environmental issues to major news events across a wide geographic area from North America to China.

Swiss National Day

Swiss American Historical Society Review

The Swiss American Historical Society had a table at Swiss National Day, which was celebrated on the grounds of the Swiss Embassy and Ambassador’s Residence in Washington, DC on Saturday, July 26th. While overall turnout was down from previous years, we had over 20 visitors stop by our table. Many had never heard of us before and we gained a few new members! We gave away extra copies of the June issue of the SAHS Review and talked about our recently published book, Helvetic Heights: A Human History of the Swiss Alps and William Tell virtual event for August 14th.

End Matter

Swiss American Historical Society Review

No abstract provided.

Why Is Ticino Part Of Switzerland?, Noah Businger

Swiss American Historical Society Review

Nowadays, the Canton of Ticino is considered as Swiss as anywhere else in Switzerland. However, it wasn’t always like that: putsches, revolutions, and independence movements once posed serious challenges to the status of the south-lying canton as part of Switzerland. So, how is it that Switzerland’s borders ended up south of the Alps? The answer lies not only in political upheaval and a desire to preserve local autonomy, but also in the symbolic integration of the canton into the national narrative. Over time, figures like William Tell and events like the uprising of 15 February 1798 became powerful tools of …

Gallatin Award Given To Outstanding Swiss Restaurant, Susann Bosshard-Kälin

Swiss American Historical Society Review

David Fritsche from Einsiedeln runs the successful Swiss restaurant STABLE in the U.S. capital city of Washington, DC, together with his business partner Silvan Kraemer. At the Swiss Embassy’s Soirée Suisse, held on September 10, the two were honored with the Gallatin Award. The Gallatin Award is given annually at the Soirée Suisse to an organization that embodies the attributes of Albert Gallatin. The award celebrates the close ties between Switzerland and the United States, as “sister republics”, and honors special Swiss achievements. STABLE was recognized for its role in strengthening the relationship between the two countries through food. The …

Partnership With Pepperdine

Swiss American Historical Society Review

On Saturday, May 31st, SAHS officers and members served on a panel and presented their knowledge of different aspects of Switzerland on Zoom to graduate and doctoral students at Pepperdine University (their main campus is located in Malibu, California). These students went on a study tour in Switzerland for a week in June.

A New Book By Sahs Member, Novelist & Literary Historian, Padraig Rooney

Swiss American Historical Society Review

Annemarie Schwarzenbach (1908– 1942) was one of the twentieth century’s most remarkable women, possibly the greatest sexual and political radical of the 1930s. But until now she’s been largely ignored.

The Initial Calvinistic Business Spirit, Rev. Dr. David W. Hall

Swiss American Historical Society Review

Within days of John Calvin’s death on May 27, 1564, his mantle of leadership passed to Theodore Beza (1520-1605). Geneva found itself on the world’s stage as various groups, such as Catholics and Anabaptists, hoped to overturn the newfound Calvinist establishment. The crucial forty year period between the death of Calvin (1564) and the death of Beza (1605) determined whether or not Calvinism would be a lasting force in Geneva and elsewhere. Historian William Monter attributes much of Geneva’s growth and stability during this period to the intellectual magnetism of Calvinism.

Swiss Club Dc Trip To Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Swiss American Historical Society Review

SAHS President Thomas Quinn Marabello, who is also a member of the Swiss Club DC, joined them on a weekend trip to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They carpooled from the Embassy of Switzerland in Washington, DC and drove to Pittsburgh on the morning of September 20th.

Full Issue

Swiss American Historical Society Review

No abstract provided.

Revisiting The 64th: Assessing And Updating A Historical Collection With New Technologies, Elizabeth H. Holt

Library Faculty Publications

Background: In November 1940, the LSU Medical Center organized the 64th US Army General Hospital to serve in the Mediterranean from 1943 to 1945. In the 1970s, members of the unit donated approximately 3000 items to a faculty member, who then donated that collection to the LSU Health Libraries; it comprises photographs, newsletters, Army reports, interviews, and correspondences. In 2011, the Libraries faculty & staff undertook digitizing and describing the collection. In 2025, given the advances made in technology since the original project, it was decided to reassess both the physical and digital versions of the collection.

Description: This presentation …

America’S Best Idea: The Separation Of Church And State, A Review, Michael A. Smith

Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History

This article critically assesses Randall Balmer’s America’s Best Idea, a historical and legal examination of the Jeffersonian principle of church-state separation. Drawing on Jefferson’s 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists and Roger Williams’ earlier theological insights, Balmer frames the metaphorical “wall” as both a constitutional safeguard and cultural cornerstone. The review analyzes the book’s treatment of evolving Supreme Court jurisprudence, particularly the shift from strict separationism to accommodationism in recent decisions. It contextualizes this legal transformation within the broader rise of Christian Nationalism, examining the ideological and institutional pressures reshaping civic discourse. While affirming Balmer’s historical rigor and rhetorical …

The Architects Of Consensus: Propaganda, Patriotism, And The Owi’S Battle For The American Mind, Ryan G. Fix

Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History

During World War II, the Office of War Information (OWI) became the United States' most sophisticated domestic propaganda agency, charged with forging national unity in the face of global conflict. This paper explores how the OWI fused federal authority with private-sector cooperation to influence public sentiment through film, advertising, journalism, and rumor control. Rather than resorting to direct censorship, the agency relied on voluntary collaboration, emotional appeal, and strategic framing to shape a coherent narrative that blurred the line between democratic persuasion and ideological management. Drawing on an extensive range of primary sources, including internal memos, field reports, and public …

Kicking In The Copper Country: The Rise And Fall Of Early Soccer In Michigan's Upper Peninsula 1909-1914, Gabe Logan

Upper Country: A Journal of the Lake Superior Region

Near the beginning of the twentieth century, Cornish miners introduced soccer to Michigan's Upper Peninsula. They initially played informal scrimmages and friendlies until 1909 when several mining communities organized the Copper League. This began spirited competition until the Copper Strike of 1913-1914 terminated interest in the sport. Following labor hostilities, many players moved away from the Keweenaw and ended this once promising league.

Spa 619 - Seminar In Studies Of Hispanic And Latin American Cultures, Juan Jesús Payán

Open Educational Resources

SPA619 es un curso diseñado para estudiantes de los programas de maestría en literatura española y educación. En esta clase conocerás o revisitarás de manera crítica conceptos históricos socialmente construidos, pero que habitualmente se dan como realidades objetivas o empíricas. Problematizaremos, por ejemplo, no solo una noción panétnica reduccionista de la “cultura hispánica”, sino también la ficción de diferencia radical generada desde el nacionalismo exclusionista.

Aunque seguiremos un viaje cronológico a través de hitos de la historiografía hispánica, en este curso nos interrogaremos sobre la construcción misma de lo que damos en llamar “historia”. Para ello, no solo tocaremos principios …

Alfred Russel Wallace Notes 38. Alfred Russel Wallace's "Revolt Of Democracy": A Critical Analysis Of Early 20th Century Labor Theory And Its Contemporary Relevance, James Williams, Charles H. Smith Editor

Faculty/Staff Personal Papers

This article examines Alfred Russel Wallace’s political treatise The Revolt of Democracy (1913), analyzing his theoretical framework for addressing labor unrest and economic inequality in early 20th-century Britain. Wallace's work presents a comprehensive critique of competitive capitalism and proposes systematic government intervention to address structural poverty. Through close textual analysis and comparison with contemporary UK labor conditions, this study evaluates the enduring relevance of Wallace's economic theories and policy prescriptions. The analysis reveals significant continuities between early 20th-century and contemporary debates about living wages, government employment standards, and wealth redistribution, while highlighting both the prescience and limitations of Wallace’s analytical …

One Last Victory: The 1980 Moscow Olympics And The Ussr’S Final Golden Moment, Pablo Boluda

Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History

While much of the existing scholarship on the 1980 Moscow Olympics focuses on Jimmy Carter’s infamous boycott, a closer examination from the Soviet perspective reveals a distinctive moment in Cold War history. Set against escalating global tensions following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Kremlin capitalized on the Games to project strength, unity, and international legitimacy. Although the Western boycott affected the Games, it created an opportunity for the USSR to showcase socialist athletic excellence and strengthen diplomatic ties with Non-Aligned nations, many of which resisted U.S. pressure to abstain. The Games were transformed into a carefully orchestrated ideological spectacle. …

Healing On The Homefront: Convelescent Homes In England During Wwi, Elizabeth Rogerson

Montview Journal of Research & Scholarship

This paper explores the response to soldiers needing rehabilitation in World War One and how convalescent facilities impacted the everyday lives of injured men, nurses, and military medicine. During the Great War, there was an influx of the diversity of injuries due to the expanse of biological and machine warfare. Recognizing that field hospitals were insufficient, England’s War Office executed a plan to requisition public facilities and use volunteer forces not only to heal English men but soldiers from across the world. This paper establishes the context for the convalescing system in England and then its accommodation and improvisation for …

Restorative Nostalgia And Religious Nationalism: Lessons From Srebrenica, Noreen Herzfeld

The Journal of Social Encounters

Svetlana Boym uses the term restorative nostalgia to describe a collective nostalgia, based on an idealization of the past that is used by nationalist groups to motivate their followers. When linked with religion, this type of nostalgia is particularly damaging, frequently leading to sharp ethnic or religious divisions, a demonization of the other, and even war or genocide. The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina presents an example of such nostalgia on the part of the Serbs. An idealization and its resultant rhetoric on the part of Serbian political and religious figures envisioned an imagined future rooted in nostalgia for a …

Schism And Dialogue In Antioch: Melkite-Orthodox Relations, 1724 – Present, Berge Traboulsi

The Journal of Social Encounters

More than three centuries after the emergence of Uniatism and the 1724 Antiochian schism, deep divisions persist between the Melkite Greek Catholic and Greek Orthodox Churches. Despite ecumenical milestones and the official condemnation of Uniatism, full ecclesiastical union remains elusive. Efforts to heal the 1054 schism between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy likewise continue to encounter significant obstacles. This study examines traditional Melkite–Orthodox relations, academic initiatives, and dialogue efforts within the Antiochian context. It advocates bold, reform-oriented approaches to coexistence and collaboration—grounded in human rights and fraternity—moving beyond polemics toward mutual understanding, reconciliation, and trust.

Historical Note: The Capricious Nature Of Privanzas In Habsburg Spain: 1556-1665, Nathan Harkey

The Ozark Historical Review

The vast reaches of the Spanish Habsburg empire necessitated a change in court politics in order to manage day-to-day issues for the king. The answer to this problem in Spain, as in other European kingdoms, was the emergence of the privado or court favorite as a legitimate official who would ideally manage the influx of state affairs, limiting access to the king that would have been previously attainable through audiences. While the original purpose of the privado was to alleviate the countless duties of an overburdened monarch, early modern privanzas became a form of art in the expression of absolute …

Out Of Orbit? European Space Collaboration In Post-Brexit Europe, Colin Doege

The Ozark Historical Review

This paper explores the historical role of the UK within the European Space Agency in light of the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union.

Fashioning A Political Identity: French Women And The White Neoclassical Dress, Michele Dobbins

The Ozark Historical Review

This essay seeks to probe the question of women’s neoclassical dress – how was it represented in art, why did it maintain longevity, and what did it mean for the hundreds of women who decided to wear the ideals of Greek and Rome upon their very bodies?

English King And German Commoner: An Exploration Of Sixteenth Century Clothing And Identity, Bradley Moore

The Ozark Historical Review

There is perhaps no other external article which is more closely tied to one’s sense of identity than clothing. With a quick glance, one can readily gauge a person by their dress. So too, in the sixteenth century; clothing was used to construct identity, and in some cases to deconstruct it as well. This paper seeks to explore how identity and clothing are in many ways, inseparable. Concepts of religiosity, gender, nationalism, and “the other” were all intimately tied to dress and fashion. During the sixteenth century, perhaps even more strongly than now, clothing could be read like a book …

The Italian Colony Of São Paulo: Race, Class, And Cultural Capital In Brazil, Giulia Riccò

Race & Ethnic Studies

WINNER, 2024 ALDO AND JEANNE SCAGLIONE PUBLICATION AWARD FOR A MANUSCRIPT IN ITALIAN LITERARY STUDIES, MODERN LANGUAGES ASSOCIATION

Introduces a way to study migration that privileges literary analysis over and against sociological data and insists on the importance of culture in the production of political identities

This book argues that Italians first became racialized as white in São Paulo, Brazil, at the turn of the twentieth century. Whereas Italians in the United States struggled with xenophobia and were often not fully acknowledged as white, in São Paulo, due to a series of social, economic, and cultural fac­tors, Italians became closely …

The Layers Of Trauma In Gisella Perl’S I Was A Doctor In Auschwitz, Tiffany Sidders

Journal of Gender, Ethnic, and Cross-Cultural Studies

Contemporary trauma theory argues that trauma operates in a binary, linear fashion that represents healing from a crisis. As one of the foremost trauma theorists, Cathy Caruth situates trauma within a binary framework of either victim or perpetrator but does not fully account for victims who became perpetrators or those who perpetrated for survival—or for the survival of others. One example of such a figure is Gisella Perl. In her memoir I Was a Doctor in Auschwitz, Perl describes multiple layers of trauma that create a deeper connection to her emotions and her lived experience in Auschwitz. Unlike other …

The German Press's Coverage Of The Bavarian Freikorps, Chase Kinder

Research from the Berry Summer Thesis Institute, 2025

The Freikorps (Free Corps) was a German paramilitary group that primarily consisted of former World War I soldiers who experienced post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and continued their military combat by suppressing communist revolutions in Germany throughout the early Weimar Republic. My research investigates how the German press in Munich covered the Bavarian Freikorps’ swift removal of armed communists and their violence against German civilians during the suppression of the Bavarian Soviet Republic in May 1919. This news coverage influenced how a large portion of German civilians viewed and interacted with German veterans of World War I and the Freikorps after …