Volume 17, Issue 1 (2025) Spring 2025

Editor's Note

Welcome to the 17th edition of The Forum, the student-led history journal of Cal Poly SLO. For those who do not know, The Forum serves as an opportunity for students at Cal Poly to develop their own research and provide students with direct publishing experience. This year’s edition highlights students’ individualized research based on the various topics of history taught at Cal Poly, such as the history of the transatlantic slave trade and Oceanic history. The articles that are included in this edition demonstrate not only a rich understanding of these topics, but also provide a new, original way of looking at them. The United States is once again entering an unprecedented period. Higher education, however, is being questioned like never before. Hopefully this journal serves as a reminder that the discipline of History is an essential aspect of our society, both as a personal and collective understanding of ourselves and each other. Therefore, consider it as just one more addition to the never-ending pursuit of this knowledge that is so vital and cherished in our society. With apologies for the cliché, The Forum embodies both the History Department at Cal Poly and its students. The faculty at Cal Poly are like no other in their motivation to encourage students to reach their full potential. Similarly, the personal connection and the relentless effort to put everything into their teaching is what produces such well-trained historians that we have at Cal Poly, some of which are represented in this journal. In addition to the staff, the History students go beyond Cal Poly’s “Learn by Doing” motto and strive above and beyond to be as creative and original as possible. Creativity and originality are the true sources of well-reasoned historical literature because it grounds itself not purely in a continuation of previously held ideas but finds itself anew. This journal follows such tradition, and it has been a great honor for me to oversee such a wonderful and powerful journal. But hey, I’ll let you decide.