Editor's Note

Abstract

Being an editor has been something I have never done before, and I worried about how good of a job I could do when I agreed to do this. The Folio is a small journal, relatively unheard of by anyone outside the History Department, but past volumes have been remarkably well-done. Maintaining the quality of the Folio that my predecessors had already established was a daunting task, and I will let you the reader judge on how the final copy turned out.

Editing a journal is a learning experience, and I would have been lost had I not been under the tutelage of Dr. Hundley. This issue is the seventh time she has worked with other student editors, and I have had the good fortunes of building off of their efforts. With the advance in technology, the Folio has gone from being published in a way that, as Dr. Hundley mentioned, "Gutenberg would be familiar with," to submitting the essays via the Internet to the publishing company. Dr. Hundley held my hand each step, and because of her, I did not stumble.

Before the publishing process could begin, however, it never would have been started without the submissions from the authors. For that, everyone involved in this journal is thankful. The articles were critiqued closely by an editorial board composed of Dr. George Dehner, Dr. James Duram, Dr. Helen Hundley, and Dr. Ariel Loftus. Not only did these four decide which papers would be accepted, they also took time out of their schedules to work with the authors and provide insightful suggestions for improving papers, and I believe that the articles in this volume reflect not only on the authors, but also the editorial board. Those four professors should be lauded in helping make the Fairmount Folio a success.

This journal is also proud to publish the papers that were granted awards by the Department of History this year. These papers appear unedited except in format. This year, the Doulas Bendel! Award, given for the best paper in the History 300 undergraduate research and writing course during the last school year, was awarded to Sara DeCaro for her study on Sir Francis Drake's role in the Spanish invasion of England. One of our edited papers also is an award winner. Erin Doom's work on the historiography of the iconoclastic controversy won the John Lowell Rydjord Award for the best undergraduate paper. The Department of History also honors its graduates. Mark P. Schock won the Fiske Hall Graduate Award, given for a paper completed during a lecture course, for his research on Nazis in a Kansas POW camp. Finally, the Fiske Hall Graduate Seminar A ward was presented to Robert J. Clark for his research into Moses Mendelssohn's approach to Jewish integration. This award is earned for a semesterlength research paper as a requirement for a seminar course.

In closing, the Department of History, as well as the Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, deserves special praise in support of the Fairmount Folio. The faculty and staff went out of their way to assist in this publication, and the college generously funds the project each year.

Thank you to all involved for making Volume Seven ofthe Fairmount Folio a reality.

Nathan Heiman

May 2005