James K. Polk and His Time
A Conference Finale to the Polk Project
Friday and Saturday, April 12 and 13, 2019
East Tennessee Historical Society, Knoxville
Polk and His Cabinet (Polk Memorial Association)
Friday, April 12, 2019
8:30 to 9:15 Breakfast (for Registered Attendees) and Welcome
Michael David Cohen* and Ernest Freeberg,* University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Scot Danforth, UT Press
9:15 to 10:45 Concurrent Sessions 1
Polk, War, and the Army
Chair and Discussant: Benjamin H. Severance,* Auburn University, Montgomery
“Young Hickory” Goes to War: Polk’s Approach to and Conduct of the Presidency in Wartime
Alexander V. Marriott, Alvin Community College
“The Whigs Generally are Obliged to be more Covert in their Thwarting Schemes”: The Federalist Party’s Shadow in the Era of Polk
Asaf Almog, University of Virginia
A Polk Man to the Core: John Fulton Reynolds, the Politics of Westward Expansion, and the Professionalization of the U.S. Army Junior Officer Corps in the Antebellum United States
Mitchell G. Klingenberg, Texas Christian University
Fort Ewell, Texas: A Borderlands Post of the Mounted Rifles, 1852–1854
William V. Scott, The University of Texas at San Antonio
Young Polk and Other Polks
Chair and Discussant: Connie L. Lester,* University of Central Florida
Reexamining the Ancestry of President James Knox Polk
John F. Polk, Clan Pollock and Polk-Pollock-Pogue DNA Project
Manifest Destiny’s Prehistory: The Polk Family’s Colonization of Indigenous Lands along the Duck River in Early Tennessee
Lucas P. Kelley, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Young Hickory’s Apprenticeship: James K. Polk in the Bank War
Thomas Coens, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Enslaved & Entrenched: The Complex Life of Elias Polk
Zacharie W. Kinslow, Austin Peay State University and President James K. Polk Home & Museum
10:45 to 11:00 Break
11:00 to 12:30 Concurrent Sessions 2
Polk’s Colleagues and Rivals
Chair and Discussant: Laura-Eve Moss, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
James K. Polk and John Quincy Adams
Neal Millikan, The Adams Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society
Young Hickory, the Little Giant, and the Democratic Party in the Age of Manifest Destiny
Michael E. Woods, Marshall University
“. . . That Timid, Shifty and Selfish Politician, Buchanan . . .”
C. S. Robinson, Versailles, Kentucky
Give ’em Jessie! Jessie Benton Frémont and the Presidential Campaign of 1856
Lorraine Dias Herbon, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Land, Sovereignty, and Religion
Chair and Discussant: Daniel Walker Howe, Oxford University and University of California, Los Angeles
Environmental Footprints in President Polk’s Thickly Forested Interior
Michael Gunther, Georgia Gwinnett College
Federal Mining Policy in James K. Polk’s America: National Authority, Small Government, and the Public Lands, 1807–1872
Patrick Allan Pospisek, Grand Valley State University
Indians Nations, Slavery and Congressional Power in the Post–Civil War and Antebellum Period: Reconsidering the Impact of the Thirteenth Amendment and Its Influence on Congress and Tribal Governments
Aaron L. Mason, Northwestern Oklahoma State University, Alva
“Religion is the Very Best Possession in the World, and the Last to be Spoken Of”: James K. Polk and Jacksonian Religion as Enlightened Rational Christianity
Daniel N. Gullotta, Stanford University
12:30 to 1:45 Lunch (for Registered Attendees)
1:45 to 3:30 Featured Roundtable on the Many Sides of Polk
Polk, Van Buren, and Democratic Leadership in 1844
Mark R. Cheathem, Cumberland University
Arresting Achievements of the Overshadowed: The Perilous Reemergence of
James Knox Polk
Aaron Crawford,* University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Polk and the Business of Slavery
Kelly Houston Jones, Arkansas Tech University, Russellville
Polk as a War President
John C. Pinheiro,* Aquinas College (Chair)
Polk, John Catron, and the Executive-Judicial Relationship
Rachel A. Shelden, University of Oklahoma
3:30 to 4:00 Break
4:00 to 5:00 Reception
Remarks by Holly Mercer, Newfound Press/UT Knoxville, and Charles G. Sellers, University of California, Berkeley
5:00 to 6:00 Keynote Address: “Lady First: The World of First Lady Sarah Polk”
Amy S. Greenberg, Pennsylvania State University
A signing of Dr. Greenberg’s book Lady First will follow the address.
Dinner on Your Own
Saturday, April 13, 2019
8:30 to 10:30 Breakfast (for Registered Attendees) and Screening of
the Film James Polk
Brian Rose, Writer and Director
10:30 to 10:45 Break
10:45 to 11:45 You Can Visit a President: The Polk Historic Sites
Chair: John Belohlavek, University of South Florida
John Holtzapple, President James K. Polk Home & Museum, Columbia, Tenn.
Scott Warren, President James K. Polk State Historic Site, Pineville, N.C.
11:45 to 1:00 Lunch (for Registered Attendees) and Valedictory
“My manusc[r]ipt papers . . . are safe”: The James K. Polk Project, 1958–2019
Michael David Cohen,* University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Names followed by * indicate participants who have worked at the Polk Project.