Austin Haney to Speak Thursday at the Blaine County Museum, First in Series of Lecturers
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The Blaine County Museum is pleased to announce a pair of speakers that will be making appearances in Chinook. The first of these Historical speakers will be Austin Haney this Thursday, January 19 at 6:00 pm. Anthony Wood will speak on Thursday, February 9, also at 6:00 p.m. Both lectures are free and open to the public.
This week's speaker, Austin Haney will be discussing the oftentimes overlooked history of Northern Montana in the time before statehood. Haney will speak about the first peoples to call the area home, move on to wandering traders, explorers and soldiers. Haney will cover a wide array of colorful and interesting group of individuals that shaped the narrative of North Central Montana and the life we know today.
According to Museum director, Samantha French, "Haney is a longtime researcher and reenactor specializing in the American and Canadian West. A graduate of the University of Montana, Haney has spent the last several years sharing history as an employee of the National Park Service and the Lewis and Clark Foundation."
Anthony Wood will focus his lecture on his book 'Black Montana: Settler Colonialism and the Erosion of the Racial Frontier, 1877-1930, which was a 2022 Stubbendieck Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize Finalist. French states, "Wood achieved PhD candidacy from the Department of History at the University of Michigan in 2020. He worked as a historian for the Montana Historical Society on Montana's African American Heritage Places Project". Woods has received high acclaim including comments by 'Making the White Man's West' author Jason E. Pierce who stated, "The history of African Americans in the Rocky Mountains is still underdeveloped. Black Montana is important both for its work on bringing attention to the experience of Black Montanans and as a case study in the epistemology of settler colonialism."
French has been active in getting the Museum to be more a focal point in the community and arranging a series of lecturers for the museum, "Austin Haney has been the interpretive ranger at Bear Paw Battlefield for two summers, so I have worked closely with him on several projects, including the kid's history camp we did last August. He is an outstanding ranger and storyteller, and an enthusiastic historian and reenactor in his spare time."
When it came time to start lining up lecturers French new right where to start, "I have had him in mind as a speaker for quite some time, and he was gracious enough to put together a presentation about local history. He's done loads of original research about early exploration and tribal migrations in North Central Montana from the 1690s through the 1800, and he'll be sharing his findings. He'll be giving us a great idea of what Blaine County looked like prior to ranching, the railroad, and homesteading."
French's connection to Anthony Wood follows a similar pattern, "I interned at the State Historic Preservation Office at the same time Anthony Wood was working on Montana's African American Heritage Places project at the department. While I never met him, I was aware of his research and I noticed that he published a book "Black Montana: Settler Colonialism and the Erosion of the Racial Frontier, 1877-1930" while purchasing titles for the museum store." She adds, "Wood's book was published in 2021 and was a 2022 Stubbendieck Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize Finalist. I invited him to speak in February for Black History Month, and he accepted the opportunity to come to Chinook to speak. I thought we'd be a fitting location for him to speak due to our close proximity to Fort Assiniboine, known for its regiment of 10th Cavalry Buffalo Soldiers. It is also not uncommon for Montana's marginalized communities to be discussed less often, so it is important to begin to explore the role these communities played in the making of our state's history.
Be sure to stop into the Blaine County Museum and listen to these fine speakers and stay tuned for further lecturers down the road. Hope to see you there!
