Letter from the Editors
Dear Reader,
We are pleased to present you with the first-ever issue of the Hopkins History Journal. The following edition is the result of months of tireless work on behalf of our editorial team and authors to publish this outstanding scholarship and launch a new Hopkins publication.
We began this project in 2022, in part inspired by the first publication of the STEM Journal, as an opportunity for students to showcase their work in the humanities and for other students to read examples of excellent student-written papers. As we’re sure you all know, Hopkins students put a lot of time and effort into writing their term papers, and the breadth and depth of the research and writing, even from a ninth-grade level, never cease to amaze us. As such, we believe it important to publicly celebrate this work and we hope it will inspire others.
Featured in this issue are seven excellent high school research papers, from students in grades nine through twelve, and from four different courses. We’ve organized the printed journal by time period, so reading through the journal will figuratively and literally take you back through time.
Several other papers that couldn’t fit in our printed edition can be found on this website, hopkinshistoryjournal.com. Submissions are open for our next issue, and you can find more information about submitting your paper on the last page of the journal.
We’d like to especially thank our faculty advisor, Mr. Levy, for his support in making this possible. Once again, thank you so much to everyone who helped bring this journal to life. As difficult as it was, you made this such an enjoyable and rewarding process for both of us.
We hope you enjoy your reading!
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Sincerely,
Claire Billings and Swarna Navaratnam-Tomayko, 2023-2024 Editors-in-Chief
About the Cover
This issue’s cover draws inspiration and images from several of the selected papers. I cre- ated it with the intent of merging the disparate subjects, moments in time, and cultures that Hopkins students take an interest in. An oversized loaf of Wonder bread sits in the center as an immediately recognizable symbol of the American diet—and its historic struggles to retain nutrition. Three soldiers from a photograph taken during the Polish-Soviet war sit on top of the loaf, and the sign for Frank Pepe’s Pizzeria hangs off it—the marker of one of the oldest of many businesses established by New Haven’s community of Italian immigrants. The elements surrounding the main image include material from anti-Polish propaganda from 1919 and Kinkaku-ji, a temple long essential to Japan’s national ‘essence.’ On the right stands Bill Ayers, co-founder of the Weather Underground. The prairie fire, while not the subject of a research paper, was inspired by one of the titles. Ideas, like wildfires, spread, and the research of Hopkins students is part of the crucial kindling.
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Yuki Heeger, Cover Design