Better late than never...Here's a short BIO of me

My name is George Balogh. I have been an adjunct history professor at various colleges since 1984. I earned my bachelor's degree at the University of Illinois Chicago in 1968, my master's from the University of Central Arkansas in 1982, and my Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma in 1992, all in history. It goes without saying that I like school. I did all my graduate work while employed full time at Acxiom Corporation where I have worked for 39 years and am presently an information security team leader.

My PhD dissertation is about the history of communities, companies, and entrepreneurs in south Arkansas, with a focus on the forest products industry, railroads, and the towns of Crossett, Warren, Fordyce, and Camden.

My wife and I have been married 46 years. We live in Arkansas and have 7 grown children, 11 grandsons, and a granddaughter.

Work, teaching, family, and church keep me pretty busy, but in my spare time I do assorted history projects, paint, read (I like Sci-Fi and mysteries), watch videos, and take road trips. In Arkansas, Petit Jean State Park, Queen Wilhelmena State Park, and Lake Hamilton are some of my favorite places to visit. We also like to visit Sedona, Arizona, Santa Fe, New Mexico, St. Augustine, Florida, Savannah, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina.

I teach because I love history, enjoy meeting new people, and learn a lot from my students. I have discovered that online classes can put me in closer contact with my students than face-to-face lectures.

Arkansas Civil War Sesquicentennial Commemoration

Arkansas, like many states, is commemorating the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War.  Here is a link to the Arkansas website: Arkansas Civil War Sesquicentennial Website

Anthony Timberlands Inc

My latest article has been published in the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture.

http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?search=1&entryID=5258

Chicago

Last week our family had a chance to get together with our extended family in Chicago to celebrate the 90th birthday of my wife's mother.  A few days prior to the birthday bash some of us stayed in the Congress Plaza Hotel on the shore of Lake Michigan, in downtown Chicago.  http://congressplazahotel.reachlocal.net/  It turns out that hotel was built to accommodate visitors to the 1893 Columbian Exposition and World Fair.  The hotel was once owned by Al Capone.  The room was wonderful, the service excellent, and the view magnificent.

In the weeks leading up to our trip I read a fascinating, readable history by Eric Larson, entitled, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America.  The book chronicles the events leading up to the Exposition, including the massive, rapid construction project.  It also contains a murder mystery.  Aside from the murders, the story of the fair is about optimism and vision.  It also provides a peek at life before the turn of the 20th century in a rough and tumble Chicago, where life was cheap and working conditions and quality of life, awful for most.


I was born on the edge of the Exposition site at the University of Chicago Lying In Hospital many years later and spent my grade school years fewer than two miles from there. Nearly all the buildings are gone, except for the Museum of Science and Industry, the Midway Plaisance, the Wooded Island, and Jackson Park.  


One day when we visit, in warmer weather, we plan to take in some of those sights.

Los Alamos and Santa Fe and the Manhattan Project

We like to vacation in New Mexico.  Two weeks ago we spent a week in Santa Fe.  One of our day trips was a visit to Los Alamos, where the first atomic bombs were developed and built.  Los Alamos is a beautiful town in a scenic setting, atop a thousand foot tall mesa overlooking the Rio Grande River.  It has two fine local history museums, one that concentrates on the arts and local settlers and pioneers, and another one, the Bradbury Museum, that focuses on the role of Los Alamos in the development of the atomic bomb.

The Bradbury is an interesting visit.  It has a section for the geeky types who want to know what the bomb looked like and how it has been deployed since then as a weapon.  And, it has a section for geeky kids with robots and science demos.  The third section, though, caught our attention.  It focuses on the timeline associated with the development of the bomb, and especially on the personal stories of those who worked there, from mailroom clerk to chief scientist.  Their stories are told on placards hung around the room -- about 100 of them.  The placard shows a photo of the person at the time they worked there, and a photo of them taken in the past five years or so.  I encourage you to visit if you are ever in the area.

One other Manhattan Project site we visited was 109 East Palace, a plain-looking storefront used during WWII as the check in office for anyone going to Los Alamos - from top scientist to cook.  The office exists today as a small retail store selling bed linens and is located one block east of the Santa Fe plaza.

Vicksburg

On our recent vacation trip to Florida we paused a night at Vicksburg, Mississippi.  My great great grandfather, Edward McLeod, fought on the Union side during the siege of that city during the Civil War.  The military park is well-maintained and impressive.  Besides a visitor center and museum there is a 16 mile driving tour and a second museum containing the salvaged remains of the Union ironclad the USS Cairo.  The visitor center includes an interactive display of the battle, which took place from March to July of 1863, an 18 minute film, various life size exhibits, and, of course, a gift shop.   The driving tour takes you first along the Union lines, and then along the Confederate line.  The terrain is hilly and the vistas beautiful. 


The USS Cairo is displayed under a very large open roof covering.  I was stunned by its size – it is huge!  Platforms and walkways allow you to explore the ship inside and out.  The adjacent museum explains the significance of gunboats to the war and of the USS Cairo, in particular.  A stop there is well worth the time.


The most moving part of our visit was our stop, near the end of the driving tour, at the markers indicating where Edward McLeod and his fellows camped and fought.  It is one thing to read about his unit’s actions (the 47th  Indiana Volunteer Infantry); it is quite another thing to be where they were, to experience the environment (bugs and all), and to walk where he walked nearly 147 years to the day earlier.

Here are  links to the park website and to the Wikipedia article about the Siege of Vickburg.


http://www.nps.gov/vick/index.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Vicksburg

Doomsday Book

The Doomsday Book is an early entry in Connie Willis’s body of work of history-based science fiction, and it is a gem.  Published in 1993 it won both the Hugo and the Nebula awards.  This time Willis takes our time-traveling historians back to the time of the Black Plague in 14th century England.  The principal character is a young woman who inadvertently lands in the wrong decade and is forced to deal with life, love, and death all around her.  A parallel story line narrates the difficulties her modern day peers have in trying to rescue her, while dealing with a pandemic and politics in the mid-twenty-first century.


This is a strong, character-driven story that draws you in and makes you care about the players down to the satisfying conclusion.  It also offers an informed peak at life in the 14th century.  Willis’s research is meticulous and thorough.  She brings a bygone era to life.   This is a book that will make you ponder and wonder  long after you finish reading it.