The 100th annual meeting of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association took place July 24–26, 2007, at the East-West Center in Honolulu, Hawai‘i. Jill Watts (California State Univ. at San Marcos), and Sam Brunk (Univ. of Texas at El Paso), co-chaired the program committee and Robin Walz (Univ. of Alaska Southeast) chaired the Nominating Committee. At the July 24, 2007, meeting of the PCB Council, the Council voted unanimously to dedicate the 100th anniversary meeting to the memory of PCB member and participant Timothy Moy, whose tragic drowning on O‘ahu two days earlier saddened everyone. The conference had 189 registered participants. The program featured 48 different sessions. Susan Wladaver-Morgan, associate editor of the Pacific Historical Review, addressed the luncheon of the Western Association of Women Historians on the topic “‘Vibrates in the Memory’: Reaching and Teaching History through Music.” At the annual banquet, President Linda B. Hall (Univ. of New Mexico) gave the presidential address, “Images of Women and Power,” which appeared in an expanded form in the February 2008 issue of the Pacific Historical Review.

The winners of the various PCB awards and prizes were as follows: The Pacific Coast Branch Book Award went to Linda Nash for Inescapable Ecologies: A History of Environment, Disease, and Knowledge (University of California Press); the Norris and Carol Hundley Award to Natalia Molina for Fit to be Citizens? Public Health and Race in Los Angeles, 1879–1939 (University of California Press); and the W. Turrentine Jackson (Dissertation) Award to co-winners: Cecilia Ming-Tsu (Stanford Univ.), “Grown in the ‘Garden of the World’: Race, Gender, and Agriculture in California’s Santa Clara Valley, 1880–1940,” and Ana Elizabeth Rosas (Univ. of Southern California), “Flexible Families: Bracero Families’ Lives Across Cultures, Communities, and Countries, 1942–1964.” Honorable mention went to Ann Gabbert (University of Texas, El Paso) for “Defining the Boundaries of Care: Local Responses to Global Concerns in El Paso Public Health Policy, 1881–1936.” PHR Co-editor Abbott announced the two awards for articles that appeared in the Pacific Historical Review: the Louis Knott Koontz Memorial Award (chosen by the entire editorial board) to Elizabeth Jameson at the University of Calgary and Jeremy Mouat at the Augustana campus of the University of Alberta, for “Telling Differences: The Forty-Ninth Parallel and Historiographies of the West and Nation,” which appeared in the May 2006 issue. The W. Turrentine Jackson (Article) Prize (chosen by the editors from among articles submitted by graduate students) went to Matthew Morse Booker (North Carolina State Univ.), for “Oysters and Oyster Pirates: Property and Inequality on San Francisco Bay,” which appeared in the February 2006 PHR as part of the forum on water and western cities. All PCB prizes in support of scholarly excellence carry with them a cash stipend of $750 and a framed certificate for the recipient.

The president-elect of the PCB for 2009 is Rachel Fuchs (Arizona State Univ.). Newly elected members of the PCB Council were: Andrew Wiese (San Diego State Univ.), Lisa Forman Cody (Claremont McKenna Coll.), and Kevin Allen Leonard (Western Washington Univ.), while Jessica Weiss (California State Univ. at East Bay), Douglas C. Sackman (Univ. of Puget Sound), and Mona Siegel (California State Univ. at Sacramento) were elected to the Nominating Committee.

President-elect 2008 David Wrobel announced his presidential appointments: Michelle Nickerson (University of Texas, Dallas) to the Jackson (Dissertation) Prize Committee, Kerwin Klein (University of California, Berkeley) to the Norris and Carol Hundley Award Committee, Katherine Morrissey (University of Arizona) to the PCB Book Award Committee, and Cheryl Koos (California State University, Los Angeles) as chair of the Nominating Committee. The PCB Council created a Finance Committee charged with overseeing the investment of funds and consulting as needed with tax accountants and tax attorneys and also approved the selection of Pasadena, California as the site for the 101st meeting of the Pacific Coast Branch, to be held at the Pasadena Hilton, August 7–9, 2008.

Pursuant to Executive Director Janet Farrell Brodie’s announced intention to step down from her position at the end of 2007, the PCB Council established a search committee consisting of Linda B. Hall, Elizabeth Jameson and Rachel Fuchs to find a replacement for Brodie. That search resulted in the selection of Peter J. Blodgett, H. Russell Smith Foundation Curator of Western Historical Manuscripts at the Huntington Library, to fill this position beginning January 1, 2008. During its meeting at the 2007 annual conference in Honolulu, Hawai’I, the PCB Council passed a resolution to commend Janet Brodie for her unceasing dedication to the Pacific Coast Branch.

Peter J. Blodgett
Executive Director

Resolution Thanking Janet Farrell Brodie for Her Service as Executive Director of the PCB-AHA

Janet Farrell Brodie has served the PCB-AHA as Executive Director since 2004. During that time she has worked tirelessly and with good cheer to advance the interests of the organization and its members. She has organized conferences in San Jose, Corvallis, Palo Alto, and here in Honolulu. Janet Farrell Brodie has effectively overseen the business of the PCB’s prize committees and its finances. She has sustained and enhanced the reputation of the organization and nurtured and promoted graduate student involvement. She has accomplished all of this on a limited budget, with no release time, and limited university support. We are enormously grateful for her deep dedication to and enlightened guidance of the PCB. As we embark on the difficult task of identifying her successor as Executive Director of the PCB-AHA, we are fully aware of the challenges that would face such a person, for Janet Farrell Brodie has served our organization so very well. She is remarkable, efficient, gracious, and wise. We are deeply grateful and extend our heartfelt thanks to Janet Farrell Brodie for the example of excellent leadership and dedication she has provided to our organization.