In its forty-second volume, CU Denver’s Historical Studies Journal continues to exhibit outstanding student achievements in historical research. The journal has provided both undergraduate and graduate authors with the chance to engage in a peer review process with a student-run editorial board. This is the fourth online volume of the Historical Studies Journal. Its digital format allows the CU Denver History Department to share the excellent work of its students with readers around the world.
The student works published in this volume represent the wide variety of interests and specialties of the scholars within the History Department. Several works in this volume consist of fascinating global perspectives. Indira Saha explores the role of partition in shaping Bengali cuisine and cultural practices in “Broken Borders, Preserved Kitchens: The Impact of the 1947 Partition on Bengali Foodways and Identity.” The historiographical article “A Problem Like Maria: A History of the History of Medieval Nuns” by Robert Welch demonstrates the evolving interests and attitudes of historians who study the nuns of Medieval Europe. In “Rob and Rot: The Historiography of Scurvy,” Britt Henslee provides an analysis of the existing historical literature about the treatments and impacts of scurvy. Both Aaron Heathcote and Britney Berlin provide fascinating insights on Colonial America and exemplify the incredible research conducted by our department’s undergraduate scholars. Heathcote’s article, “Who Watches the Watchers?: The Evolution of the Role of Guardians in Early America, 1637-1828,” discusses questions regarding Indigenous sovereignty and the development of relations between Indigenous people and the colonial state in New England. In “Threads of Exclusivity: The Moral and Social Implications of Sumptuary Laws in Massachusetts, 1620-1705,” Berlin delivers a fascinating narrative about the cultural and societal meanings associated with the creation and enforcement of laws regulating apparel in Puritan Massachusetts. Brianna Matson takes us to the twentieth-century United States in her article, “All Mixed Up: Discursive Shifts in White Approaches to Banjo Music in Twentieth-Century America.” Matson illuminates how white Americans appropriated the banjo and folk music, two things that were originally associated with Black American culture. Several works demonstrate diverse perspectives in the field of Colorado Studies. Samantha Martinelli’s piece, “‘In Sisterhood, We Tried’: A Case Study of the Women’s Bank of Denver and the Role of Financial Institutions for Women in the Feminist Movement,” situates the story of the Women’s Bank of Denver within a broader narrative about the rise and fall of the second-wave feminist movement in America. Justin Porcelo unveils the experience of Vietnamese refugees in Denver following the Vietnam War in “Saigon to Denver: Resilience in the Face of the Vietnamese Refugee Crisis During the 1970s.” Sophia Imperioli’s article, “Displaced Roots: The Lost Neighborhood of Auraria and its Legacy of Activism, 1969-2024,” brings us home with her discussion of how the creation of our very own campus and the displacement of residents of the former Auraria Neighborhood manifested into activism based in the Chicano community.
The graduate student editorial board oversees the peer review process for the Historical Studies Journal and is advised by a faculty board. The journal provides graduate students with experience and insight on the editorial and publication processes involved with the creation of an academic journal. I would like to sincerely thank Claireabelle Balmas, Britt Henslee, Sophia Imperioli, Krista Marks, Samantha Martinelli, and Indira Saha for all of the wonderful work they conducted on this year’s editorial board. I also extend my special thanks to Dr. Xiaofei Gao, Dr. Dale Stahl, and Dr. Gabriel Finkelstein for being a part of the faculty board of the Historical Studies Journal.
Kira Boatright
Editor-in-Chief – CU Denver Historical Studies Journal, Vol. 42
