Keith Chapman '10 Published in Journal of Great Lakes Historical Society

May 15, 2011

May 15, 2011, Greencastle, Ind. — Keith Chapman, a 2010 graduate of DePauw University, is published in the Spring 2011 edition (volume 67, number 1) of Inland Seas, a quarterly journal published by the Great Lakes Historical Society. The essay, titled "Fact vs. Folklore in the Case of Captain Daniel Seavey," is a work of original research and was Chapman's senior seminar paper at DePauw, where he majored in history.

"This paper does not intend to provide a broad biographical synopsis of Captain Seavey -- that is what the limited historical research done by others on Seavey has primarily produced, " writes Chapman in the introduction to his work.  Instead, the essay is intended "to dispel myths and rumors surrounding Seavey while attempting to provide a most accurate, objective, and detailed account of the event that made Captain Seavey famous: his takeover of a schooner, the Nellie Johnson, in June 1908.  This essay will argue that although Seavey's act qualified as piracy, it was an act that was blown tremendously out of proportion by both the local and national media." 

Chapman's writings also "use the the Daniel Seavey story as a case study -- illustrating the pitfalls that occur when popular culture, the media, and public reaction kidnap and ensnare the minds of the general population and, eventually, historians."

"It takes talent and initiative to publish undergraduate research in the humanities, and this is a credit to Keith and also speaks very well of intellectual life here at DePauw," says David Gellman, associate professor of history at DePauw University and interim chair of the department.

Chapman is currently a graduate student at Dartmouth College with partial support of the DePauw history department's Albert J. Beveridge Fellowship, named for the 1885 Indiana Asbury graduate who served in the U.S. Senate and later won a Pulitzer Prize in biography.

Learn more about Inland Seas by clicking here.

On March 27, the Chicago Tribune published an essay by Chapman which recounts the Winter Term 2010 experience he and two DePauw classmates (Wicks Barkhausen and Ted Jacobi) had while traveling across the United States by train.  Access the piece via this article.

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