PSU Magazine Winter 1998

PSU gained a rare opportun ity last year to become editorial home of a 66-year-o ld journal, the Pacific Historical Review. After decades of being loca ted at UCLA's history department, the pre tigious academic journal is now based in C ramer Hall. The history of American expansion– ism to the Pacific and Asia is the focus of the quarterly pub lication. Recent articles have focu ed on event surrounding the executi on of American airmen in Japan during the last day of World War II and a histor– ical comparison of Califo rnia farming operations. When longtime editor, UCLA history professor Norris Hundley retired, the journal's sponsoring orga– nization, the Pac ific Coas t Branch of the American Historical Assoc iation, began looking fo r new edi torial head– quarters. Portland State applied along with ix other institutions from 11 western states. "We were looking at several key factors," says historian Martin Ridge, senior resea rch associate at UCLA's Huntington Library. As pres ident of the Ameri can Historical A soc iation's Pacific Coast Branch, Ridge served as chair of the committee looking for a new home fo r the journal. "We were interested in schools that had access to a good library, and we were also looking fo r certa in charac– teri ti c in the next editor. The former editor and I both came to the conclu- ion that we were looking for someone in the midd le of their ca reer, as we were when we became invo lved with editing journals," Ridge recalls. "At Portl and State, we found the unique combination of two professors in complementary fi elds (David Johnson in h i tory and Ca rl Abbott in "Women on the Pacific Rim: Some Thoughts on Border Crossing," an article by Joan M. Jensen, appears in the next issue of the Pacific Historical Review. (The New Necklace, 1910, by William Paxton, is in the Zoe Oliver Sherman Collection, courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.) urban tudies ). These two men are in the midd le of their career , and they'r a wonderful bridge between two ge nerations. They both have name identifica tion within the profe - sion, and they also had wholehearted support of their fac ulty and adminis– tration." PSU signed a fi ve-year memoran– dum of agreement to sponsor and house the journal within its Co llege of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Dav id Johnson, professor of history, serves as managing edi tor, and Carl Abbott, professor of urban studies and plan– ning, serves as co-edi tor. The taff also includes Susan Wladaver-Morgan, editorial assoc iate and office manager, and two graduate tud nts. The jour– nal is sti ll pub lished by the University of Califo rnia Pre in Berkeley. Each year Johnson, Abbott, and their editorial staff will glean through roughly 100 manuscripts, of wh ich about 15 are published, and armloads of books fo r review, many of which find a new home on campus. The jour– nal has already donated $ 700 worth of books to the PSU Library. As with any academic journal, the editing process is exacting. Each promising manuscript goes nationwide to two or more anonymous scholar referees who provide detailed assess– ments. It can take as long as a year for some articles to move from the submittal stage to published status. "Sometimes we' ll send a manuscript back to the author and suggest he or she end it to another journal that's more appropriate," say John on . "Occasionally we ay we can't publish it as ubmitted but would reconsider it after it's extensive ly revised and recast. Sometimes articles are rev ised two or three times before publication." Final editing is the responsibility of Johnson and Abbott, ass isted by the sharp eye of Wladaver-Morgan, who worked fo r four years as editorial assis– tant at the Journal of American History. History tudents nationwide, as well as students at PSU, gain from the Pacific Historical Review. The recent piece on American airmen in Japan, for instance, was written by a graduate student at the University of Maryland . For PSU students, seeing firsthand how a scholarly journal is produced is invaluable, ays John on. The Historical Review is one of a handfu l of academic journals with an editorial home on the PSU campu . O ther include the Himalayan Research Bulletin , A sian Perspective , Metropolitan Universities , and Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese. 0