Horace B. Woodworth at the Northern Great Plains History Conference

Horace B. Woodworth will make an appearance at tomorrow's Northern Great Plains History Conference in a panel called History of and History at the University of North Dakota.  He'll be joined by Orin G. Libby (via Gordon Iseminger) and a historical cast from the Department of Social Work (via Bret Weber).  They'll all gather at the Ramada here in Grand Forks at 9 am tomorrow (Thursday, October 14, 2010).

Bret's paper and mine come from our efforts to document the history of the University for the 125th-aversary last year. Gordon Iseminger's paper will come from his book project on the life and times of Orin G. Libby.

It's nice to have papers representing the history of the University because the Northern Great Plains conference was founded by members of the Department at UND.  Here's the text from my history of the department (it doesn't add much):

There are several other development of note during the 1960s that demonstrate the position of the department both at the university and in the greater intellectual community. First, in 1966 the Department developed the Northern Great Plains History Conference. This conference, initially a cooperative venture with the University of Manitoba, sought to provide a venue for scholars based in the Northern Plains to present their work as it was often prohibitively expensive to attend national meetings. The initial conference in 1966 was held in the Memorial Union and attracted over 150 scholars. In subsequent years attendance grew further. While many of the papers focused on the history of the Northern Plains, it included panels on other topics as well. This conference also improved the department’s visibility in a regional context as the conference frequently attracted scholars from more prominent universities like Wisconsin and Minnesota. Over the next decade, the responsibilities for the conference were shared between the faculty of the department and other schools in the area. The conference continues to be a viable academic conference to this day.

And here's my paper:

Caraher History Before Libby

Here's a link (.pdf) to the full program of the conference.