British American Nineteenth Century Historians (BrANCH)

Description

BrANCH was established in 1993 in order to promote the study in Britain of the history of the United States between 1789 and 1917. The majority of BrANCH's members are academic historians and graduate students based in the UK who work in this field. BrANCH also has members who are US-based scholars, UK-based school history teachers and others with a scholarly interest in American history in the “long nineteenth century” between the Revolution and the first world war.

The principal academic activity of BrANCH is an annual weekend conference which takes place in September or October each year. Academic activity also includes editorial responsibility for one of the leading academic journals in the field, American Nineteenth Century History, which is published by Taylor & Francis. Through the Peter J. Parish Fund, BrANCH also offers small grants to UK-based postgraduate students to enable them to carry out research into any aspect of nineteenth century American history, and offer an annual prize for the best dissertation written by a UK-based student at undergraduate or masters level.

BrANCH operates under a constitution approved by the United Kingdom’s Charity Commission. The constitution gives full power to a committee of nine people, who also act as trustees of the charity and as management advisory board for American Nineteenth Century History. Three members of the committee are executive officers—chair, secretary, and treasurer—while the editor of ANCH is member ex officio. The officers and committee members are elected annually, but may be re-elected by the annual general meeting, made up of paid-up members of BrANCH, which is held at the annual conference. The accounts are independently audited, and scrutinized by the Charity Commission.