Ohio Valley History Submissions Guidelines

If your manuscript is currently in a justified format, please un-justify it before saving and printing your final copy. Before your essay can be typeset to fit OVH format, it must have ragged right margins. Please do not make changes to your electronic file that do not appear on your hard copy.

We encourage you to provide illustrations and can accept either glossy photographs or 300 dpi TIF files. Supply each illustration with a caption, accompanied by a source line and such acknowledgments as are required. You are responsible for obtaining the necessary permissions to publish the illustrations.

Journal style calls for omnibus endnotes; that is, one endnote per paragraph. The total number of endnotes thus should not exceed the number of paragraphs. Quotations should be placed first in the endnote and in exact order of appearance. Citations, in exact order, should follow the quotations. Please ensure the accuracy of your quotations and citations. They must be verified before submitting the article. Quotations from books and articles should cite the specific page(s):

1Stephen Aron, How the West Was Lost: The Transformation of Kentucky from Daniel Boone to Henry Clay (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), 141.

2Arthur Rolston, "A Tale of Two States: Producerism and Constitutional Reform in Antebellum Kentucky and Ohio," Ohio Valley History 5 (Summer 2005), 42.

Quotations longer than five lines should be set off from the text by indenting both margins five spaces, but not by single spacing.

For books, give the name of the author(s) or editor(s) in normal order; the complete title of the work in italics; and, within parentheses, the number of volumes (if more than one), and the place of publication, publisher, and date of publication. For place of publication, use the two-letter postal abbreviation for states. Finally, include the page numbers you are citing. Do not use p, pp or pg before the page number.

Examples:

3Kim M. Gruenwald, River of Enterprise: The Commercial Origins of Regional Identity in the Ohio Valley, 1790-1850 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002), 156-58.

4R. Carlyle Buley, The Old Northwest: Pioneer Period, 1815-1840, 2 vols. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1950), 2: 360-61.

In edited volumes:

5Julian P. Boyd, ed., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 31 vols. (Princeton: University of Princeton Press, 1950-2003), 12:171-201.

6Boyd, Papers of Jefferson, 10:180.

7Elizabeth A. Perkins, "Distinctions and Partitions Amongst Us: Identity and Interaction in the Revolutionary Ohio Valley," in Contact Points: American Frontiers from the Mohawk Valley to the Mississippi, 1750-1830, eds. Andrew R.L. Cayton and Fredericka J. Teute (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 205-35.

8William C. Davis and Meredith L. Swentor, eds., Bluegrass Confederate: The Headquarters Diary of Edward O. Guerrant (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1999), 6-8.

In reprints or second editions, include the original date of publication:

9Levi Coffin, Reminiscences of Levi Coffin, the Reputed President of the Underground Railroad (1876; rep., New York: A.M. Kelley, 1968), 22.

10Eugene D. Genovese, The Political Economy of Slavery: Studies in the Economy and Society of the Slave South (1961; 2nd ed., Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1989), 35.

In subsequent citations, use ibid. if the citation immediately following is the same, or ibid. with a different page number if the citation is identical except for the page reference. If other citations intervene, use the short title format.

Examples:

11Gruenwald, River of Enterprise, 17.

12Ibid.

13Ibid., 21.

14Buley, Old Northwest, 1: 95.

For articles, give the author's name, article title, journal, date (month and year), and page reference. Months should be as follows: Jan., Feb., Mar., Apr., May, June, July, Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov., and Dec. Use short title format for subsequent, nonconsecutive citations.

Examples:

15Michael Bowen, "Addition Through Subtraction: Robert Taft, the Labor Vote, and the Ohio Senate Election of 1950," Ohio Valley History 5 (Fall 2005), 21-42.

16Gary J. Kornblith, "Rethinking the Coming of the Civil War: A Counterfactual Exercise," Journal of American History 90 (June 2003), 76-105.

17Bowen, "Addition Through Subtraction," 25.

Treat dissertations like books, except place the title within quotation marks and include the type of thesis and the institution where it was submitted within the parentheses containing publication data.

Example:

18Bridget Ford, "American Heartland: The Sentimentalization of Religion and Race Relations in Cincinnati and Louisville, 1820-1860" (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Davis, 2002), 101-21.

For newspapers, the name of the paper should be italicized. If the city is not part of the title it should be indicated, along with the state, if needed, immediately after (within parentheses) the newspaper title. Section, page, or column should not be included.

Examples:

19Western Star (Lebanon, OH), Mar. 5, 1821.

20Kentucky Gazette (Lexington), Oct. 1, 1849.

21Ibid., Oct. 12, 1849.

22Western Star (Lebanon, OH), June 22, 1830.

23New York Times, May 27, 1950.

For manuscript collections, the intent is, as with books and articles, to give the author, date, and place of the item cited. This requires the name of the collection containing the item and the location of the collection. The name of the repository is abbreviated in subsequent citations. The location of the repository is given only in the first citation unless required for the sake of clarity.

Examples:

24James Speed to John Speed, Feb. 9, 1831, Speed Family Miscellaneous Papers, The Filson Historical Society, Louisville, Kentucky [hereafter FHS].

25Sidney Maxwell to J.H. Fisher, Apr. 6, 1891, Sidney Maxwell Papers, Box 1, Folder 4, Cincinnati Historical Society Library, Cincinnati Museum Center [hereafter CHSL].

26James Speed to Mary L. Booth, Jan. 10, 1863, Speed Family Miscellaneous Papers, FHS.

27Commercial Club of Cincinnati, Minutes, Dec. 24, 1884, Commercial Club of Cincinnati Papers, 1880-1973, CHSL.

Finally, in the miscellaneous category, please observe the following:

  1. No apostrophe is used in dates such as the 1790s or the 1830s
  2. The possessive of proper names ending in "s" requires an "'s" (thus, John Adams's presidency)
  3. Both hyphens and capital letters are used sparingly. Thus, we do not capitalize words such as president or secretary of state unless they are used with a proper name (President Lincoln, Secretary of State Clay), nor do we capitalize words such as republic or state when they stand alone.
  4. Use spaces between the initials of persons (thus, J. Q. Adams), but not between U.S.
  5. Periods and ends of sentences are followed by two spaces.