A-Z index
About the Center
The center promotes historical writing and thinking about Idaho's changing West. We specialize in colorful books that place modern issues in historical context. We also publish a research magazine, a scholarly journal, and investigative reports on urban affairs. We sponsor tours, web exhibitions, conferences, professional development workshops, a K-12 heritage education program, GIS mapping of cultural landmarks, and an active urban studies research program in Boise City Hall.
History of the Center
Founded by the Idaho State Board of Education in 2004, the center emerged from the university's proud tradition of community engagement and applied social science research. Its research activities date back to the 1985 founding of a public history outreach program in the new Boise State University College of Social Sciences and Public Affairs. In 1988, the program won the Secretary of the Interior's "outstanding service" award for a multidisciplinary study of the Snake River Birds of Prey Natural Area. Environmental research continued with a prize-winning natural history called Snake: The Plain and Its People (1994) and Secrets of the Magic Valley, which was the Idaho Library Association's "book of year" in 2002. Our urban studies research has focused on preservation planning. In 1991, after the publication of an acclaimed book about Boise's Harrison Boulevard, the program coauthored Idaho's first residential historic preservation ordnance.
Since 2004 the center's work increasingly emphasizes the historical dimensions of city planning and the challenge of metropolitan growth. Working with Mayor Dave Bieter and Boise City Council, the center established an Office of the City Historian, and worked to institutionalize the office in the new Boise City Department of Arts and History. The center also works closely with the Idaho State Historical Society and Idaho State University on the production of the magazine Idaho Landscapes and the peer-reviewed journal Idaho Yesterdays.
In 2008, the Center won the Idaho Smart Growth "advocacy award" for a study of the problems posed by evictions from mobile home parks; also an Preservation Idaho "orchid award," a American Society of State and Local History publication award, and the Idaho Heritigate Trust media award. Recent projects include a U.S. Department of Education Teaching American History grant, a commemorative book for the Lincoln bicentennial (Lincoln Never Slept Here), a 4th grade history text (The Idaho Adeventure), and a popular walking guidebook to downtown architecture (Ethnic Landmarks).
In 2010 the Center helped open a Main Street classroom for place-based urban studies. Called the Center on Main, at 1020 W. Main Street, the classroom includes a historical exhibition about postwar Boise, called "Lost City." The classrooom also includes books, a library urban studies kiosk, historic neon, and a student advising center.
Director
Todd Shallat (tshalla@boisestate.edu) directs the Center for Idaho History and Politics. A Ph.D. in Applied History and Social Science from Carnegie Mellon University, he is the author of the prize-winning Structures in the Stream (University of Texas, 1994) and more than a dozen books and coauthored reports about technology and the environment. In 2002, the Carnegie Foundation named Shallat "Idaho Professor of the Year." Shallat's bio and C.V., teaching philosophy.
Center for Idaho History and Politics
Boise State University, Library L195F
1910 University Drive
Boise, ID 83725-1925
208/426-3701
Fax: 208/426-4058
tshalla@boisestate.edu
Mailing address:
Center for Idaho History and Politics
Boise State University, MS 1925
Boise, ID 83725-1925
