By Natalie Lasky
*Editor’s Note: Head News Editor Christopher Gillett is a member in the History Club. He has abstained from all editorial processes related to this story.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Youngstown State University’s History Club has been making an effort to expand its membership to include people of all majors.
Some activities the club holds are Kahoot games centralized around historical topics and traveling to museums. Currently, the club is planning on going to either Cleveland museums or Pittsburgh museums in spring 2023.
Amy Fluker, YSU assistant professor of U.S. history, said why it is important to study history, using politics and the Civil War as an example.
“We can see echoes of that today, right, that the political party seems so far apart on issues and there doesn’t seem to be any middle ground,” Fluker said.
Regan Ladle, a junior history major and president of the History Club, said she prefers researching the historical backgrounds of different materials used throughout history. She explained her fascination with material history and the questions she asks herself about items.
“Material history in a nutshell is like if you see an item — let’s say it’s a dress made by someone in the 1800s you need to learn about okay — who made the dress, what was it used for?” Ladle said. “Let’s say it had to have this certain ribbing in the draft because of the corset, or having this color because that was the cheapest color for women who didn’t have a lot of money.”
Matt Mincher, a senior history and political science major, said the club’s main focus each year is the History across the Humanities Conference, held by the YSU Department of Humanities and Social Sciences. Mincher said this is the club’s annual conference, which will be held in February.
“The main thing that we do every year is the History Across The Humanities conference, which is going to be held this February where we invite speakers and accept papers, and people can just write about anything, dealing with history, making presentations about it,” Mincher said.
If interested in the History Club, meetings are held on the fifth floor of Debartolo Hall, contact Fluker at [email protected]. For more information on the HATH conference, go to the YSU HATH website.