Annual report of the secretary-treasurer.

THE PAST YEAR WAS A PARTICULARLY EVENTFUL ONE FOR THE SOUTHERN Historical Association. We enjoyed a very successful annual meeting in New Orleans, with the highest attendance in recent decades. Of perhaps more long-term significance, we have begun the implementation of the new funds established through the very generous gifts made to the SHA the year before by benefactors C. Vann Woodward and LaWanda Cox. Through actions taken by the Executive Council, the Association has moved in very different ways to use these funds to enhance the experiences and recognize the work of some of our most valuable members--our graduate students.

When we learned of the Woodward bequest, then-Vice President Bertram Wyatt-Brown appointed a committee, chaired by Sheldon Hackney, to explore and recommend effective means of utilizing that very substantial endowment. The committee recommended as its top priority the establishment of a dissertation prize in southern history. The Council approved the idea at its meeting in New Orleans and decided to make it an annual prize, given the large number of dissertations produced in southern history each year. A subcommittee of three past presidents--James C. Cobb, Drew Gilpin Faust, and Bertram Wyatt-Brown--worked quickly to devise the terms of the prize so that the first award, of $4,000, can be made to a 2001 dissertation at our meeting this year in Baltimore. We announced the award in the February issue of the Journal, sent flyers to all major Ph.D.-granting history departments, and President Jacquelyn D. Hall appointed the first Woodward Prize committee: Gail W. O'Brien, chair; Jack Temple Kirby; and Robert C. McMath. Incidentally, the Baltimore meeting will also see another new prize awarded for the first time: the Bennett H. Wall Award for the best book published in 2000 or 2001 on southern business and economic history, an award established by Richard J. Rabbe and the George W. Harris Foundation to honor this past SHA president and former long-time secretary-treasurer.

The Council decided additionally that the Woodward Fund could also be used to enhance our annual program. We often have to provide funds for non-historians who speak at the conference, or to musicians, filmmakers, and others whose presentations provide popular options that much enrich our meetings. In the past, the burden has fallen on local arrangement committees to raise the funds needed for these added features and other entertainment costs. That committee in New Orleans, headed by Randy J. Sparks and L. Virginia Gould, did an outstanding job on both fronts--in the entertainment they planned and in raising the funds to pay for it all. But in talking with the Council about this, they made us realize that this is often too much of a responsibility for the historians in our host cities to bear, particularly when, as is the case in New Orleans, we return to those cities on a regular basis. So Woodward's generosity will also be felt at all future meetings through a variety of nontraditional sessions and local festivities that we might not be able to afford otherwise.

LaWanda Cox made her gift to the Association with the wish that it be used to encourage the work of graduate students in southern history and in the Association. The Council decided at our 2000 meeting in Louisville to establish, on a trial basis, a luncheon for graduate students attending our conference, to be funded by the John and LaWanda Cox Fund. That event was held in the historic Blue Room at the Fairmont Hotel in New Orleans during our meeting in November. With 138 students in attendance, it proved so successful that all concerned would like to see it become an annual tradition.

The agenda for this gathering was simple: to allow students to meet and chat with current and past SHA leaders--at least one of whom was at each of fourteen tables--and to hear brief presentations by the current officers about the Association, its functions, and the role of graduate students within it. We also used the occasion to gather valuable feedback, both oral and written, from the students attending on what else the SHA might do to serve their needs and interests. Their suggestions were good ones, and many of them can easily be implemented. Because students saw this occasion as a chance to get in touch with other students of similar interests, several suggested that the luncheon be held earlier during the conference, so that they would have more time to interact with each other once they had met. They also suggested that we arrange seating at future luncheons by field, so students working on the Civil War, or civil rights, or women's topics, could sit at the same table, perhaps with a senior scholar in that field at the table as well. Other students asked if we might provide a means on our website for room sharing at the meeting, a particularly apt idea with the higher room rates we are facing at future meetings.

The students particularly appreciated John B. Boles's presentation at the luncheon, in which he took the time to lay out in some detail the "do's and don't's' of submitting articles for publication and, as one student wrote, "demystifying the process" of publishing in the Journal of Southern History. They asked for more such presentations that focus on various aspects of the historical profession applicable to them. While our program usually does include a workshop or two devoted to such issues, including one regularly sponsored by the Southern Association of Women Historians, we agree that this luncheon would provide a very natural forum in which to deal with these issues. For this event in Baltimore, Professor Theda Perdue has graciously agreed to organize and moderate a panel discussion by several recently minted Ph.D.'s, who will talk about their experiences in the transition from graduate school to their first, and sometimes second, jobs. It was gratifying to see how many students in their comments expressed their appreciation for this luncheon and for the SHA's generally student-friendly environment (and low membership and registration fees) compared to other meetings. A number of them thanked LaWanda Cox for her thoughtfulness in making this very generous gift. One student ended his or her comments by declaring, "Dr. Cox's book on Lincoln still rules!"

The success of our meeting this past year had much to do with the sheer good fortune that it happened to fall in the "Big Easy." Given the skittishness about travel after September 11, it is hard to imagine any other city drawing as large a crowd. Added to that worry was the mishap in the Atlanta airport caused by an overzealous Georgia Bulldawg fan (are there such things?), and perhaps an overzealous airport security force, that closed the airport for much of Friday afternoon, thus delaying the travel of many of our members heading for New Orleans, and forcing others to cancel their plans altogether. Despite these setbacks, our attendees numbered 1,761--not the biggest ever (Ben Wall has reminded me that we reached even larger numbers during the heyday of the late 1960s and early 1970s), but certainly our largest attendance in the last couple of decades.

The meeting was also made memorable due to the efforts of those who planned it. Virginia Gould and Randy Sparks went well beyond the call of duty in arranging the opening night festivities--including a "second line" parade from the Fairmont Hotel through the French Quarter to the Presbytere, led with great style and spirit by President Bertram Wyatt-Brown, whose leadership skills will henceforth be associated with his panache with a twirling umbrella. Peter A. Coclanis and his program committee added much to the first night as well, with an entertaining and well-received opening session devoted to Louis Armstrong and his music, discussed by James Ketch, the director of jazz studies at UNC-Chapel Hill, and performed by an extraordinary group of local musicians, including Ketch himself on the trumpet. As one member commented to me: "What a night--three great bands in three hours!"

Plenty of people stayed over for Sunday night's presidential address by Bert Wyatt-Brown, which earned him a standing ovation, and for a jazz reception at the Fairmont, featuring the music of Jason Marsalis, the youngest of that "first family of jazz." The evening was capped for many of our members by more jazz and supper, which had originally been planned for a small jazz club, Donna's Bar and Grill, but moved to a much larger venue, the Storyville District, to accommodate the greater demand from our attendees than we had anticipated.

Another exceptional aspect of our New Orleans meeting was how well attended sessions were, the credit for which goes to Peter Coclanis and his committee. High registration numbers in New Orleans do not always translate into high session counts, but the varied topics and speakers this past year were enough to keep people in the hotel and off the streets for much of Saturday and Sunday. (There was, perhaps inevitably, a drop-off for Monday morning sessions, despite the number of people who stayed through Sunday night.) Those with the largest draws, each with well over a hundred in the audience, were a roundtable on current trends in the historiography of slavery, a session on new perspectives on Confederate nationalism, and a panel commemorating the centennial of Booker T. Washington's Up from Slavery. Other popular sessions focused on race and gender in the colonial lower Mississippi valley, on turn-of-the-century New Orleans, and on images of women and whiteness in the early twentieth century. A dialogue between Duke colleagues Anne F. Scott and Trudier Harris about their personal histories and perspectives on academia and history across racial lines drew an unusually large audience for a midday workshop and inspired much discussion afterward.

The success of the meeting and the (nearly) unanimous enthusiasm for the Fairmont Hotel as a meeting site led us to contract with the hotel to return again in 2006. We will still need to meet later in November to get affordable room rates there, but we will be able to meet from Thursday to Sunday rather than Friday to Monday as we did this past year. We should also be able to obtain lower room rates with an overflow hotel than was the case this past year, given the recent construction of two new hotels just across the street from the Fairmont. Three awards were presented before the presidential address on Sunday night at the meeting. These were announced in the February issue of the Journal, but congratulations again to Walter Johnson and Jane Landers, who shared the Frances B. Simkins Award for his book Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market, and hers, Black Society in Spanish Florida; to Ronald Hoffman and Sally D. Mason, who won the Frank L. Owsley Award for their book, Princes of Ireland, Planters of Maryland: A Carroll Saga, 1500-1782; and to Gavin James Campbell, who won the William F. Holmes Award for the best paper presented at the meeting by a graduate student or junior faculty member, for his paper "`A Pure and Persistent Anglo-Saxon Lineage': Race and Old-Time Fiddling in Atlanta, 1913-1925."

A number of issues were raised and resolved in the Executive Council's meeting in New Orleans. In response to the constitutional amendment enacted last summer that gave the European History Section a permanent seat on the Council, the leadership of the Latin American and Caribbean Section (LACS) was concerned that this had shut them out of Council representation. Without the long history with the SHA that the EHS has had, or the number of members yet to justify a full seat on the Council, LACS leaders proposed instead that they have a nonvoting representative. The Council approved that proposal for a three-year period, at which time the relationship between the SHA and LACS will be re-evaluated.

Given the higher costs of our meetings, due to increases in hotel rates for food and beverage services, space rental, audio-visual rentals, and other fees incurred each year, the Council agreed to raise registration fees. Many Council members felt that our fees were ridiculously low, certainly in comparison with those of other major historical associations. The SHA meeting will remain the best bargain in the profession in that we are only raising the fee by $10, so that members who preregister will pay $20 rather than $10, nonmembers $25 instead of $15, and those who register at the meeting will now pay $25 instead of $15, with nonmembers paying $30 instead of $20. It was agreed that student rates would not be raised, so that we will continue to charge a mere $5 to all students who attend our meeting, a gesture that they very much appreciate, as several indicated in their feedback at the graduate student luncheon. The Council has since agreed to raise our advertising fees for the Journal and the program. They too were well below those commanded by other organizations and journals, and they have not been raised for more than a decade. Finally, the Council approved Managing Editor John B. Boles's nominations of Cynthia A. Kierner and Mark M. Smith for four-year terms on the Board of Editors of the Journal of Southern History.

The Committee on Women is taking on a project that could lead to interesting and useful results. Its members, led by chair Nancy A. Hewitt, have decided to conduct a survey of the SHA's more than 800 women members. This will serve a number of purposes: to gain a demographic and academic status profile of our female membership and to gather information and opinions on a range of issues facing women both in the historical profession and in the SHA. J. William Harris, a member of the committee, has extensive experience with using and analyzing questionnaires and has agreed to take charge of the implementation of the poll and its analysis. We hope that all female members of the Association will take seriously the survey and their response to it so as to make its findings as complete and as accurate as possible.

Charles W. Eagles served as a very effective chair of the 2001 Membership Committee. He and his committee learned, as all do, just how challenging it is to keep our membership levels stable, much less to increase them. The numbers below indicate their success. The drop in affiliate membership is, we are assured, a temporary dip, due mainly to some personnel changes and other glitches in the European History Section this past year.

COMPARATIVE MEMBERSHIP BREAKDOWN

                             December 31, 2000   December 31, 2001

Regular Members                    2,897              2,953
  (includes family spouses)
Life Members                         268                276
Institutions                       1,492              1,497
Exchanges                             87                 86

  TOTALS                           4,744              4,812
Affiliate Members                    235                 90
  (EHS, LACS, SCBS)

The chair's home state, Mississippi, and Virginia led all others in the number of new members each brought into the Association; committee members from Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Texas, Pennsylvania, and our president's home state of Florida also did particularly well in the new and reinstated members they gathered into our fold. It is with real regret that we will have to say good-bye later this year to Catharine Tyson, who has served as the SHA's membership secretary for the past eighteen years; she began when William F. Holmes took over this office. Along with Gloria Davis, Catharine's conscientiousness, care, and efficiency have been vital to the smooth operation both of this office year-round and at the registration desk at our meeting, where many of you have come to know and appreciate her. Besides those of us who work closely with her here in Athens, those who most value what she does and how well she does it are the membership committee chairs, past and present. In nearly every report from a membership committee, the chair has pointed out what a pleasure it is to work with Catharine and how much credit she deserves for the successes of the committee and the leadership of its chair. She will be much missed by the Association, but she will work closely with us in the summer and fall as we hire a replacement and orient him or her to everything involved in this very important job.

Nancy Smith Midgette continues to provide a vital contribution to the SHA through the job placement service. She reported that, of twenty different positions listed through the service this year, sixteen actively interviewed candidates in New Orleans. For a number of institutions, the SHA meeting has become the primary venue for interviewing candidates. This year several major universities chose to conduct their interviews at our meeting rather than at the AHA in January, and we are happy to make this opportunity available to any and all. Nancy is working with us and the Wyndham Hotel to secure more private space for these interviews during our meeting in Baltimore.

This year will be the first time ever that we have met in Baltimore. I have sensed a good deal of excitement among our members to be meeting there, and we anticipate a very high turnout. We will return to our usual meeting pattern of Wednesday to Saturday, but we will have the added bonus of an expanded program. In a decision made by the Council a year and a half ago in Louisville, the meeting will extend through Saturday afternoon, with an additional full slate of sessions that will allow that many more participants on the program and that many more offerings of interest to those attending. This is experimental: we will monitor those sessions closely to see whether there is indeed enough attendance and interest to make this expansion permanent, or whether people have had enough by midday Saturday and are heading home or off to play tourist in the afternoon. We have a very able and enthusiastic local arrangements team, headed by Peter W. Bardaglio and Jane Dailey, planning extracurricular events to help us take full advantage of our first visit to this historic city and region.

Financially, we remain very happy to be under the good, sensible management of Sandra Porter and her company, Minerva Planning Group. Due to the fact that most of our funds were in transition from one company to another, they were not actively invested on and just after September 11, when the market took such heavy hits, and so we avoided any significant loss as a result. We are only now beginning to move forward again and have shifted all of our endowment funds from Charles Schwab to Vanguard. Thus the data that follows reflects opening amounts in the Schwab accounts and their present value (with no change indicated since the transfer) in the Vanguard accounts. Our strategy is to provide enough diversification in each of these funds--some fairly conservative investments and some more aggressive--in order to assure the steady long-term growth that the Association needs.

FINANCIAL STATEMENT
January 1-December 31, 2001

Balance as of January 1, 2001:
    Checking account, SunTrust
      Bank, Northeast Georgia     $12,626.19
TOTAL                                           $12,626.19
Receipts, January 1-December 31,
  2001:
    Annual dues collected
      (includes overage from
      sustaining members)         $94,285.50
    Back numbers of Journal sold
      by office                       240.50
    Index sales                        25.00
    Convention receipts            55,876.50
    Advertising in Journal         10,725.01
    Bell & Howell, microfilm
      sales                           987.14
    Sales of membership list        1,850.00
    Contributions                      49.00
    Miscellaneous                   9,030.66
    Transfer-Charles
      Schwab-Mitchell Fund          1,000.00
    Transfer-Charles
      Schwab-Endowment              1,750.00
    Transfer-Charles
      Schwab-General Acct.         25,000.00
    Transfer-Vanguard
      Group-Owsley Acct.            1,000.00
    Total receipts                             $201,819.31
TOTAL to be accounted for                                   $214,445.50

Expenditures, January 1-December 31,
  2001:
    Printing, Journal of Southern
      History (Less Rice support
      of $2,000.00)               $51,986.41
    Mailing cost of Journal         8,925.39
    Deposits, Univ. of Georgia
      (for bulk mailing,
      telephone, and secretaries'
      salaries)                    17,000.00
    Administrative Assistants'
      salary/taxes                 40,229.35
    Office expenses                 3,267.40
    Convention expenses            31,784.48
    NCCPH dues                      3,000.00
    Miscellaneous                   1,472.44
    SHA editorial internships       6,000.00
    Bank charges                      138.67
    Secretary-Treasurer travel        368.90
    Secretary-Treasurer stipend    10,000.00
    Editor stipend                 10,000.00
    SHA lectures                    3,000.00
    CPA Charges                     5,300.00
    Transfers-Endowment Fund        8,174.00
    Total Expenditures                         $200,647.04

Balance as of December 31, 2001:
    Checking account, SunTrust
      Bank, Northeast Georgia     $13,798.46
TOTAL                                           $13,798.46
TOTAL accounted for                                         $214,445.50
SOUTHERN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
ANNUAL REPORT--2001

                   SUNTRUST BANK
                SHA GENERAL ACCOUNT

Beginning Balance 12/31/2000    $11,283.55
Interest                            325.43
Ending Balance 12/31/2001       $11,608.98

                THE VANGUARD GROUP
           SHA CASH MANAGEMENT ACCOUNT

Beginning Value 12/31/2000        $111,316
Withdrawals                         25,000
Advisor Fees                         8,213
Schwab Expenses                         25
Interest                             1,903
Dividends                            1,008
Ending Value 12/31/2001            $78,651
Investment Gain/Loss                $7,665

              SHA ENDOWMENT ACCOUNT

Beginning Value 12/31/2000        $446,431
Deposits                             8,319
Withdrawals                          1,750
Schwab Expense                          25
Dividends                           12,617
Ending Value 12/31/2001           $454,415
Investment Gain/Loss                $1,415

           H. L. MITCHELL AWARD FUND

Beginning Value 12/31/2000         $30,842
Withdrawals                          1,000
Schwab Expense                          25
Dividends                              950
Ending Value 12/31/2001            $31,386
Investment Gain/Loss                $1,545

               OWSLEY AWARD FUND

Beginning Value 12/31/2000         $33,378
Withdrawals                          1,000
Schwab Expense                          25
Dividends                            1,280
Ending Value 12/31/2001            $34,195
Investment Gain/Loss                $1,817

             JOHN/LAWANDA COX FUND

Beginning Value 12/31/2000        $101,242
Withdrawals                          3,995
Schwab Expense                          25
Dividends                            3,872
Ending Value 12/31/2001           $101,094
Investment Gain/Loss                $3,847

          BENNETT H. WALL AWARD FUND

Beginning Value 12/31/2000         $15,186
Schwab Expense                          25
Dividends                              581
Ending Value 12/31/2001            $15,742
Investment Gain/Loss                  $556

            C. VANN WOODWARD FUND

Beginning Value 12/31/2000              NA
Initial Deposit                   $234,240
Deposits                           $38,303
Schwab Expense                          25
Dividends                            7,666
Ending Value 12/31/2001           $280,184
Investment Gain/Loss                $7,641

NOTES:

1. All brokerage accounts were transferred from The Charles Schwab
   Company to The Vanguard Group in 2001 to realize lower transaction
   costs and better diversity of low expense mutual funds.

2. Schwab charged transfer fees of $25 per account.

3. Significant money market balances through 2001 helped to preserve
   account values and provide conservative returns.

4. Investment Policy is in place for each account; equity positions are
   slowly increasing with equal periodic transfers from the Prime Money
   Market Fund to selected equity and bond funds.

5. Advisory fees for 2001 of $8,212.65 were paid in full from the SHA
   Cash Management account rather than each individual portfolio. An
   overpayment made in November 2001 in the amount of $476.13 was
   credited back to this account in February 2002.

MR. INSCOE is the secretary-treasurer of the Southern Historical Association And a professor of history at the University of Georgia.