Welcome to the July 2021 issue of VAN. For those eager to get back to in-person conferences (hooray!), you’ll find details on upcoming calls for papers and the 6th installment of our May 2022 San Antonio tour previews, as well as registration details for two great virtual events to tide us over. Please also note the editorial board of Buildings & Landscapes is seeking applications for an image editor. Don’t hesitate to reach out to Lydia Brandt (lbrandt.usc@gmail.com) with questions.

I’d like to extend a special thanks to Christine Henry who has been at the helm of VAN for the past seven years! Her assistance and advice as I take over the role of editor has been invaluable. I’m excited to carry on her vision for a timely monthly newsletter as well as an in-depth quarterly features edition. I’m especially grateful to have the help of assistant editor Melanie Fuechsel, who will be expanding VAN's reach on social media. We look forward to serving the VAF membership!

Marisa Gomez Nordyke

VAN Editor

The Vernacular Architecture Forum (VAF) solicits letters of interest from scholars seeking to serve its peer-reviewed journal Buildings & Landscapes. The journal currently has an opening for the position of image editor. This is a volunteer position.

Published twice a year by University of Minnesota Press, Buildings & Landscapes is the leading source for scholarly work on the vernacular architecture of North America or areas that broaden the context of North American architecture and cultural landscapes. The journal’s contributors include historians and architectural historians, preservationists and architects, geographers, anthropologists and folklorists, and others. All share an interest in documenting, analyzing, and interpreting vernacular forms and approach the built environment as windows into human life and culture, basing their scholarship on both fieldwork and archival research. As of the Fall 2020 issue (27.2), the journal is printed in full color, making the role of the image editor even more important.

Call for image editor

The image editor of Buildings & Landscapes works closely with the journal’s two coeditors on all matters related to the illustration program. This includes advising on the selection, sizing, and color of images. In addition, the image editor works with each author to ensure the submittal of images of sufficient resolution and appropriate permissions in advance of submission to the University of Minnesota Press per its guidelines. The image editor also reviews proofs and answers queries from the Press to facilitate publication. The image editor is a three-year (six journal issues) position. The image editor term officially begins with B&L 30.1 (Spring 2023), whose submissions are due to the Press in the Fall 2022. Ideally this new image editor will shadow the current one for 29.2 (Fall 2022), whose submissions are due in Spring 2022. 

To be considered for the image editor position by the selection committee, to suggest a colleague, or to ask questions, interested parties should send letters of interest and CVs to B&L Co-Editor Lydia Brandt (lbrandt.usc@gmail.com) by July 1, 2021. Applicants should ideally have experience with Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Excel, and familiarity with United States copyright and fair use rules. Those with knowledge of the VAF or who have previously published in Buildings & Landscapes or Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture are especially encouraged to apply. 

A reminder that Buildings & Landscapes: Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum reviews article manuscripts on a rolling basis. The editors invite submissions to be considered for issue 29.2 (fall 2022) by October 15, 2021.

The editors encourage submission of scholarly articles that integrate fieldwork and archival/primary source research into an original argument about the history of everyday buildings and/or landscapes. The editors particularly welcome submission of articles on topics related to the study of North American vernacular architecture or which otherwise broaden the context of North American architecture and cultural landscapes. Authors are urged to draw linkages between the physical aspects of the built environment they study and the people who create, consume, use, and inhabit it. If an author is unsure about a manuscript’s fit for the journal, they are encouraged to contact the editors in advance of a formal submission.

Complete author guidelines may be found here.

Please contact the editors directly for inquiries or manuscript submissions: Lydia Mattice Brandt (lbrandt.usc@gmail.com) and Michael Chiarappa (Michael.Chiarappa@quinnipiac.edu). Inquiries about reviews can be directed to the Review Editor: Rachel Leibowitz (leibowitz@esf.edu).

The tour to Guadalupe and Gonzales counties will visit the Polley house, known as Whitehall which has a two-story central passage built of local rock and a log kitchen/quarter. Joseph H. Polley was a native of upstate New York and his wife Mary Bailey Polley was from Tennessee. They were early Anglo immigrants to Texas; by 1860 they owned $70,000 in real estate and some $65,000 in personal property, including 19 enslaved workers who lived in five houses. The doors, windows, and some furniture were shipped by Polley’s brother from New York. Both the house and the quarter were documented by HABS in 1936.

In the middle of the pandemic, after five years of writing and a lifetime of research, VAF member Heather Huyck’s Doing Women’s History in Public: A Handbook for Interpretation at Museums and Historic Sites is out. The book discusses the need to interpret the history of all American women, the approaches to research, preserve and interpret that history. It includes traditional historical sources—written, oral and visual AND tangible resources—landscapes, architecture, and objects. The book places special emphasis on the relationship between vernacular buildings, women, and girls.

M. Ruth Little's new memoir The Book of Ruth: Taming Ghosts, Saving History will be published this fall by Lystra Books in Chapel Hill, NC. The memoir presents a narrative of fifty years of adventures, from preservation activist and State Historic Preservation Office staffer in the 1970s to consultant and author in the 2010s. Ruth takes the reader on an emotional journey through many of North Carolina's unique historic places as she tames her metaphorical ghosts of patriarchy, travel anxiety, and relationships. 

This virtual publication workshop for a co-edited book project will examine the role of race in the construction of historical narratives of “American architecture” during the long nineteenth century. Presentations will outline the general scope of the research project and a panel of respondents who will discuss the key conceptual rubrics, theoretical lenses, and potential case studies that are necessary to construct new histories of American architecture. The event will close with a public conversation.

Panel speakers include VAF members Tara Dudley and Kathryn Holliday, accompanied by Charles L. Davis, Joanna Merwood-Salisbury, Bryan E. Norwood, and Kathryn O’Rourke.

Wednesday, July 28, 2021
2:00–3:30 pm Central

For full event details and to register, see SAH Connects.

The Society of Architectural Historians will present the SAH IDEAS Session, "Radical Methods, New Interlocutors: Strategies for Equitable Histories," at its 2022 Annual International Conference in Pittsburgh, April 27th-May 1st. Part of the SAH IDEAS (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Access and Sustainability) Initiative, the SAH IDEAS session explores a topic related to race, equity, and social justice, and is presented alongside the conference's thematic sessions.

The session will be chaired by VAF member Arijit Sen.

For the full call for papers and important dates, see the SAH conference page.

Historic places and sites reveal that women were present everywhere in essential and sometimes surprising roles. Across a two-part webinar series, public historian and author of Doing Women’s History in Public, VAF member Dr. Heather Huyck will moderate thought-provoking conversations with experts who are interpreting the complexity of women’s history and identity. Together these panelists will challenge how we see and understand women’s essential but too-often hidden lives and contributions across six very different places and property types. You will come away from the series with an appreciation of the historic impact of women, as well as strategies and case studies to shape a fuller and more honest American story.

Part 2: Interpretive Strategies that Reveal Women Are Everywhere
August 12 | 3-4 pm

Many sites and organizations are looking for guidance on how best to identify, research and convey the history of women that are “hidden” in plain sight, particularly in unexpected places that have—until now—have been predominately associated with men. This webinar will explore interpretive strategies including tools, resources, processes, and programs that can help elevate the important roles women played and reveal the difficult relationships and problematic power dynamics associated with women as wives, business managers, caregivers, and owners of enslaved people.

For registration details, visit the National Trust's Preservation Leadership Forum.

The International Society of Landscape, Place and Material Culture (ISLPMC) will hold its 52nd annual conference in Tulsa, Oklahoma, from Thursday, October 20 through Saturday, October 23, 2021.

The 2021 Conference theme is “Livin’ on Tulsa Time.”

The conference committee is currently soliciting proposals for papers, special sessions, and panel discussions relating to the conference theme. However, papers on all material culture topics, architectural history, and historical geography/landscape topics of interest to the Society are welcome. 

For the full call for papers and important dates, see the ISLPMC conference page.