Pacific Coast Branch
The AHA Council, meeting at Washington, D.C., in January 2004 endorsed the revisions of the constitution and bylaws of the Pacific Coast Branch (PCB) that, among other things, clarified the purposes of the organization, specifically: “The purposes of the organization shall be the advancement of the interests of the American Historical Association, and the promotion of the historical interests of the membership with special emphasis on the United States, western Canada, Mexico, the Pacific Rim, and their inter-relationships.”
Annual Meeting
At the 2003 annual meeting of the PCB, held in August at Honolulu, Hawaii, 207 individuals, one-third of whom were graduate students, registered to attend 48 academic sessions. The program also included a luncheon speaker sponsored by the Western Association of Women Historians and a banquet address by President Vicki Ruiz of the University of California, Irvine.
The following prizes were awarded during the year: The Louis Knott Koontz Memorial Award for the most deserving article to appear in the Pacific Historical Review in the volume year 2002 to Lanny Thompson for “The Imperial Republic: A Comparison of the Insular Territories under U.S. Dominion after 1898”; The W. Turrentine Jackson Prize for an outstanding essay in the PHR by a graduate student to Nicholas G. Rosenthal, for his article “Repositioning Indianness: Native American Organizations in Portland, Oregon, 1959–1975” (August 2002); The W. Turrentine Jackson Dissertation Award to Connie Chiang (University of California, Berkeley) for her dissertation “Shaping the Shoreline: Environment, Society, and Culture in Monterey, California”; the Norris and Carol Hundley Award to Louise McReynolds for her book Russia at Play: Leisure Activities at the End of the Tsarist Era (Cornell University Press, 2002); the PCB Book Award to Becky Nicolaides for her book, My Blue Heaven: Life and Politics in the Working-Class Suburbs of Los Angeles, 1920–1965 (University of Chicago Press, 2002).
By mail ballots cast during the summer 2003, the PCB membership chose Elizabeth Jameson (Univ. of Calgary), as president-elect; William Issel (San Francisco State Univ.), Rachel Fuchs (Arizona State Univ.), and Stephen Haycox (Univ. of Alaska, Anchorage) as members of the council; and Keven Leonard (Western Washington Univ.) and Steven Hackel (Oregon State Univ.) as members of the Nominating Committee.
Finances:
As of December 31, 2003, the PCB held $142,635 in endowment funds for the Pacific Historical Review, the Louis Knott Koontz Award, the Norris and Carol Hundley Prize, the W. Turrentine Jackson Prize, the W. Turrentine Jackson Dissertation Award, and the PCB Reserve Fund. Total value of assets owned by the Branch as of December 31, 2003, totaled $207,095.
For the fiscal year, July 1, 2002, to June 30, 2003, the income for the Pacific Historical Review (which had a circulation of 1,327 in December 2002) was $109,213, and expenses (including a $3,500 subsidy to the editorial office of the PHR and a $5,462 royalty to the PCB) totaled $76,650.
W. David Baird
