Richard J. Jensen
Richard J. Jensen | |
---|---|
PhD) | |
Thesis | The Winning of the Midwest: A Social History of Midwestern Elections, 1888–1896 (1966) |
Doctoral advisor | C. Vann Woodward |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Social history |
Institutions |
Richard Joseph Jensen (born October 24, 1941) is an American historian and
Biography
Jensen was born on October 24, 1941,
After graduation, Jensen started as assistant professor at
He was a visiting professor at the University of Michigan in 1968, Harvard University in 1973, Moscow State University in 1986, and West Point from 1989 to 1990.[7]
From 1971 to 1982 Jensen was also Director of The Family and Community History Center at the Newberry Library.[4][8] From 1977 to 1982 he was president of the Chicago Metro History Fair. From 1992 to 1997 he was executive director at H-Net.[9] Jensen served on the editorial boards of six scholarly journals, among them The Journal of American History and the American Journal of Sociology.[4]
Jensen was awarded a
Jensen was quoted in 2012 as stating that
Work
The Winning of the Midwest (1966/1971)
In The Winning of the Midwest,[13] Jensen tells a social history of elections in the Midwestern United States from 1888 to 1896. He analyzes the role religion played in political conflict, arguing that it had a major influence on party allegiances. Completed in 1966 as his PhD dissertation, the University of Chicago Press published it in 1971. Reviews in the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society and The Journal of American History praised the work for its broad scope, prose style, and analysis.[14][15] A review in the Indiana Magazine of History criticised the work for attempting to tackle too broad a subject area and questioned Jensen's use of evidence to ascertain religious preferences.[16] It is his most widely cited work.[17]
Historian's Guide to Statistics (1971)
In 1971, Jensen co-authored the Historian's Guide to Statistics with
Illinois: A Bicentennial History (1978)
In 1978, Jensen's Illinois: A Bicentennial History was published by Norton, New York in its
H-Net
In 1997 H-Net won the American Historical Association's James Harvey Robinson Prize, awarded for innovative methods of history teaching.[22] According to the historian Paul Turnbull, under Jensen's leadership—and with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities—H-Net "rapidly became a forum attracting both historians with established expertise in computer-based quantitative research and younger colleagues interested in exploring the analytical possibilities of hypertext," and "greatly assisted the development of the technical expertise and intellectual ambitions of historians who undertook a remarkable number of Web-based projects through the second half of the 1990s."[18]
In 1994, H-Net began a move to Michigan State University, where historian Mark Kornbluh had secured institutional support.[23] In 1997, Kornbluh and Jensen competed against each other in a "bitterly contested" election for the position of H-Net's executive director, with Jensen arguing that H-Net should be decentralized while Kornbluh advocated consolidation the organization's operations at Michigan State.[24][25] Kornbluh ultimately won the support of the editors of H-Net's discussion lists.[25]
"No Irish Need Apply" (2002)
Jensen's article about anti-Irish sentiment, "No Irish Need Apply: A Myth of Victimization", was published in the Journal of Social History in December 2002. It argues that "No Irish Need Apply" (NINA) signs were mostly a myth, and that there was "no significant discrimination against the Irish" in the US job market.[26] In July 2015, the same journal published a rebuttal to Jensen's thesis written by Rebecca Fried, an eighth-grade student at Sidwell Friends School, Washington, DC.[27][28][29] Before submitting her article for publication, Fried consulted with the historian Kerby A. Miller, who had long disagreed with Jensen's thesis. Miller found her argument to be a worthy, scholarly rebuttal in need of little editing.[27] Fried's paper provided examples of "No Irish Need Apply" in newspaper archives, contesting Jensen's thesis that there was no evidence of the same.[28] The following month, Jensen wrote a rebuttal to her argument for the History News Network.[30]
Selected publications
Jensen has co-authored or edited 21 scholarly or popular books and written 45 scholarly articles.[17]
- Jensen, Richard J. The Winning of the Midwest: Social and Political Conflict, 1888–1896. U of Chicago Press 1971.[31]
- Jensen, Richard J. Historian's Guide to Statistics: Quantitative Analysis and Historical Research. 1971.
- Jensen, Richard J. Illinois: A Bicentennial History. Norton, 1978.
- Jensen, Richard J.; Jon Thares Davidann; Yoneyuki Sugita (2003). Trans-Pacific Relations: America, Europe, and Asia in the Twentieth Century. ISBN 978-0-275-97714-6.
- Smith, J. Douglas, and Richard J. Jensen. World War Two on the Web. 2nd edition, Rowman & Littlefield, World War Two on the Web.
- Carter, Alice E., and Richard J. Jensen. The Civil War on the Web: A Guide to the Very Best Sites. Rowman & Littlefield, 2003.
- Jensen, Richard (1980). "On Modernizing Frederick Jackson Turner: The Historiography of Regionalism". The Western Historical Quarterly. 11 (3): 307–322. JSTOR 967565.
- Jensen, Richard J. (1984). "Historiography of American Political History". In Greene, Jack (ed.). Encyclopedia of American Political History. Vol. 1. New York: Scribner's. pp. 1–25.
- Jensen, Richard (July 1984). "Six Sciences of American Politics". Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History. 17 (3): 108–117. .
- Jensen, Richard J (2002). "'No Irish Need Apply': A Myth of Victimization". Journal of Social History. 36 (2): 405–429. Project MUSE 37817.
- Jensen, Richard (2012). "Military History on the Electronic Frontier: Wikipedia Fights the War of 1812" (PDF). The Journal of Military History. 76 (4): 523–556.
References
- ^ a b American Political Science Association (1968) Biographical Directory. p. 263
- ^ a b "Richard J. Jensen." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2013. Biography in Context. Web. 24 May 2016.[verification needed]
- ^ ERIC EJ539544.
- ^ OCLC 4431922.
- ^ American Historical Association, Institutional Services Program, Guide to Departments of History: 1996–97 (Washington, 1997) pp 137–81
- ISBN 978-1-4381-2776-7.
- ISBN 978-1-60413-357-8.
- ISBN 978-1-4128-3049-2.
- ISBN 9780252026850.
- ^ American Historical Association, Institutional Services Program, Guide to Departments of History: 1986–87 (Washington, 1987) pp 130–31
- ^ Perspectives: Newsletter of the American Historical Association. Vol. 25. The Association. 1997. p. 21.
- ^ Rosen, Rebecca J. (October 25, 2012). "Surmounting the Insurmountable: Wikipedia Is Nearing Completion, in a Sense". The Atlantic.
- ^ Online at Google.
- JSTOR 40191386.
- JSTOR 1918421.
- JSTOR 277898.
- ^ a b Richard Jensen Google Scholar profile.
- ^ S2CID 62144014.
- JSTOR 27790396.
- JSTOR 40191512.
- ^ Richard Jensen, "H-Net announces 13 new scholarly lists in history", E-Mail of 24 Jun 1993; Thomas Zielke, "Official Introduction of The History Network " E-Mail on GRMNHIST – German History Forum, 23 Feb 93 Archived 2007-01-07 at the Wayback Machine
- ISBN 1573870714.
- ^ "Its Past, Present, and Future". H-Net. Retrieved May 25, 2016.
- ERIC EJ543108.
- ^ a b Guernsey, L. (1997). "H-NET's list editors elect new director". The Chronicle of Higher Education. 43 (35).[page needed]
- Project MUSE 37817.
- ^ a b Collins, Ben (August 2, 2015). "The Teen Who Exposed a Professor's Myth". The Daily Beast.
- ^ .
- ^ Patrick Young (July 19, 2015). "High School Student Proves Professor Wrong When He Denied "No Irish Need Apply" Signs Existed". longislandwins.com. Retrieved September 20, 2015.
- ^ Jensen, Richard, "No Irish Need Apply?" HistoryNewsNetwork.org (11 August 2015) Retrieved 22 Aug. 2015.
- ^ Online at Google