St. Louis U. High’s Historical Society has recently been revived, and with great momentum. The society’s resurgence was spearheaded by Social Studies teacher and moderator/coordinator Tim O’Neil after many years.

The Historical Society, at its core, is a club. It is similar to Youth and Government, Sysiphus, and Prep News in that it has an extracurricular component of learning and production but also an accepting group of students that is open to new members and socialization. 

The club meets regularly and discusses all things history, and is led by social studies teachers Tim O’Neil, Anne Marie Lodholz, and social studies department chair Tom Zinselmeyer. Whether it is historical works released by professional historians, SLUH students, or current events taking place in the local community, SLUH’s Historical Society will discuss it and make a meeting out of it. When the club is not talking about current events or works, it is working on its upcoming historical journal publication: Historia. 

“It's an opportunity to do a lot of enrichment activities that can supplement both what we teach in the classroom as well as branch out into parts of history that we don't get a lot of time to do,” said O’Neil.  “Local history especially tends to not get much attention oftentimes in the classroom when you're teaching World or U.S. History.”

The Historical Society is planning its first publication, Historia, a historical journal based on student-produced research papers, reports, and projects. The publication will be open to the student body to submit historical works with the chance of being featured in Historia.  The journal will hope to feature nine different fields of social studies: Human Geography, Sustainability, Global History, American History, Local History, Social Justice, Political Science, Economics, and Psychology.

This journal will serve as the club’s main attraction and be a central focus at club meetings. SLUH turns out many high-quality works of historical research every year, yet almost none are recognized by the school, much less beyond the school. 

“Any of the social sciences are built around research, and the end result of research is always publication,” said O’Neil. 

Given the academic capability of the SLUH student body, undervaluing the importance of SLUH’s social studies’ output seems to be a missed opportunity. 

“The (Historical) Society hopes to end up tapping into a group of students that are interested in history and oftentimes put a lot of passion and hard work into research that usually gets produced as a research paper for their class,” said O’Neil. “When the student gets the grade and tosses it in the recycling bin, it trivializes the whole process.”

The complex process of research, writing, and analysis has much more value than a single grade ever could, and so Historia will try to showcase the fruits of that process. 

O’Neil, along with the rest of the Historical Society, hopes for the journal to act not only as something to marvel at, but also a practical tool. 

“Once we have a publication, we can help teachers by pointing guys in the right direction. Telling students, ‘This is what a good model looks like’ is a great teaching tool,” said O’Neil.

SLUH’s Historical Society is a niche space for students and teachers that enjoy light-hearted social interaction accompanied by scholarly research and history as a whole.

O’Neil thinks the club also has value as the SLUH community continues to move out of pandemic mode. 

“It was a good opportunity to revive a club that might serve a certain group of guys who were interested in history and maybe could use some help reconnecting and socializing but also just to kind of have an outlet to do extra historical things that didn't exist in any other place,” said O’Neil. “If you notice, there's been clubs and organizations that exist that kind of provide a spin of a social outlet and enrichment outlet that's tied to stuff that we do in the classroom.”

According to O’Neil, similar kinds of clubs have existed at SLUH before; the last one he is aware of was around 20 years ago. But O’Neil hopes this version lasts.

The Historical Society has a group of students on board, such as junior Tommy Chalmers, senior Alex Deiters, and senior Henry Azar, who are ready to undertake the Historical Society's endeavors on the horizon. 

“Historia is important because SLUH promotes academic excellence and ability, and to be able to recognize the academic achievements of its students is something that needs to have more attention. It needs to be a bigger focus of the school as a whole,” said Chalmers. “Because it's a new journal, it's a good way to pioneer something new for SLUH.”

The Historical Society will continue to meet in the meantime to discuss the plans for Historia and the club itself; topics about advertising the journal, encouraging submissions, and further promotion of the club will be among the main points of discussion at the club meetings. 

The deadlines for entries are on March 1 for all grade levels. Freshmen entries must be at least three pages (of content) long, with sophomore, junior, and senior entries requiring five pages of content.  

After March 1, the Historical Society’s’ main objective will be discerning which historical works will be accepted into the journal and which will be declined.  The journal is on track to be finalized by April 15, and a formal publication will be released shortly after, if all goes to plan.