Staff report
Historian Dr. Paul Tenkotte, a professor of history and director of ORVILLE, is working on a second volume, Migration Nation, of The Ohio River Watershed and the Making of America series.
Working in conjunction with Pressbooks, he has issued a “Call for Abstracts for Chapters” in the book.
In 2025 the ORVILLE Project (Ohio River Valley Innovation Library and Learning Engagement) and Northern Kentucky University Steely Library released the free, open‑access book, INNOVATION NATION: The Ohio River Watershed and the Making of America.
Edited by Tenkotte and Debra Meyers, PhD, it was the first in a proposed three-volume series on the Ohio River Watershed.
Deadline for abstract submissions for the second volume, Migration Nation, is May 30.
Migration Nation will reflect the ORVILLE Project’s mission to provide high‑quality, freely accessible educational materials for all learners — K-12 teachers and students, university faculty and researchers, undergraduates/graduate students in multiple humanities and social sciences disciplines, and the general public.
This new volume will explore the Ohio River Watershed not merely as a geographic feature, but as the central arterial system that dictated the flow of the American experience. Through a blend of history and human narrative, it will explore the unique socio-economic forces of the watershed that forged a distinct American identity, transforming a wild frontier into the industrial and agricultural backbone of a rising global power. Migration Nation will examine the dual forces of immigration and internal migration and how they created the nation’s first great melting pot:
• Immigration — the arrival of European and other international peoples and ideas to the Ohio River Watershed, and
• Internal migration — the movement of peoples and ideas across the Appalachian divide, as well as north and south across the Ohio River.
Abstracts for chapters can include either immigration or internal migration.
The Ohio River Watershed Region, home to more than 30 million people, encompasses a watershed of nearly 204,000 square miles and borders on six states (Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois). In addition, the watershed includes parts of eight other states (New York, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama). Formed by the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers in Pittsburgh, the Ohio River flows southwesterly to take in waters from its largest tributaries, the Kanawha, Wabash, Green, Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers. Major metropolitan cities in the region include Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Columbus, Louisville, Lexington, Indianapolis, Nashville, Knoxville, and Chattanooga.
Submit the following to Paul A. Tenkotte, PhD at tenkottep@nku.edu:
• A 150-word abstract with working title.
• A 50-word biography.
• A two-page CV/resume.
• Deadline for abstract submissions: May 30, 2026.
• Proposers will be notified of acceptance on or before June 15, 2026. For accepted proposals, full chapters of 6,000-7,000 words are due by September 15, 2026.
For questions or clarifications, please contact Paul at tenkottep@nku.edu.