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Eberly College of Arts & Sciences Department of History
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The Callahan Lecture Series

The Callahan Lecture Series was established in 1964 to honor historian Dr. James Morton Callahan, one of the founders of modern diplomatic history.

About Dr. Callahan

  • Dr. Callahan held multiple roles at WVU, serving as chair of the Department of History and Political Science from 1902 to 1929, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences from 1916 to 1929, and University Research Professor from 1929 to 1956. 
  • Dr. Callahan earned a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1897, where he studied under Herbert Baxter Adams.
  • A champion of organizing the vast archival resources of statehood, Dr. Callahan encouraged his own graduate students to consider the history of West Virginia as a topic, and guided preeminent West Virginia scholar, Dr. Charles Ambler. 
  • West Virginia Governor William Glascock selected Dr. Callahan to serve as the official historian on the West Virginia Semi-Centennial Commission in 1912, and he published extensive works on the state’s history.

Important works by Dr. Callahan

  • The Alaska Purchase and Americo-Canadian Relations
  • American Foreign Policy in Mexican Relations
  • American Relations in the Pacific and Far East, 1784-1900
  • Cuba and International Relations: A Historical Study in American Diplomacy
  • The Diplomatic History of the Southern Confederacy
  • Three-volume series History of West Virginia, Old and New, and West Virginia Biography

 

Rice, Otis K. "James Morton Callahan." e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia. 27 September 2012.  e-WV | James Morton Callahan (wvencyclopedia.org)

Hammersmith, Jack L. "James Morton Callahan: The Making of a West Virginia Historian." West Virginia History: A Journal of Regional Studies 5, no. 1 (2011): 25-52.  doi:10.1353/wvh.2011.0001.

Photos courtesy of West Virginia History OnView, West Virginia & Regional History Center, 1549 University Ave, PO Box 6069, Morgantown WV 26506-6069 West Virginia History OnView | WVU Libraries (wvhistoryonview.org)

Selected Past Lectures

  • 2023 —  "That Dark and Vast Sea:  A Clandestine History of Race, Capitalism and Rebel Sailors in the Afro-European Maritime World" with Dr. Minayo Nasiali, April 13, 2023
    Consumerism and Global Trade Social Studies Lesson Plans developed by WV History PhD candidate Kristen Bailey.
  • 2017 —  “Backwardness and Rushing Forward: The Age of Speed in a ‘Suburb of Europe,’” with Nathaniel Wood, March 27, 2017
  • 2012 —  “Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin” with Timothy D. Snyder, February 9, 2012
  • 2005 — "A Crooked Line: From Cultural History to the History of Society” with Dr. Geoff Eley, October 11, 2005,