Professor, History & Political Science
Ph.D., Boston College, 2008
M.A., Boston College, 2002
B.A., University of Oregon, 1999
HIST 114 U.S. History since 1877
HIST 320 Disease and American Society
HIST 320 Robber Barons, Radicals, and Reformers
HIST 320 American Immigration & Ethnicity
HIST 320 Border Crossings: History of the American Border(s)
HIST 401 Gilded Age Gotham
HIST 403 U.S. History in Global Context
My teaching and research interests are in American immigration and ethnicity, the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, transatlantic history, and American social reform. In both my research and teaching I situate the United States in a transnational context. Ideas, people, and materials from outside its borders have shaped the United States from the colonial period to the present. By encouraging students to consider American history in this broader context, I feel they can both better understand the past and engage constructively with a modern world shaped by the forces of globalization.
I am currently working on a local history project on the transition of North Adams from a mill town to a center for tourism and art as well as nineteenth century Irish-American History. I also maintain the collaborative website and mobile app, historicnorthadams.com.
I am a board member for the North Adams Public Library and North Adams Historical Society. I was previously Book Review Editor for the “Journal of American Ethnic History.”
"Quinn: The Life of a Building on River Street," with Nicholas Whitman (Porches Inn at MassMoCA, 2023)
"A Greater Ireland: The Land League and Transatlantic Nationalism in Gilded Age America” (University of Wisconsin Press, 2015)
“Picturing Parnell: American Illustrated Newspapers and Charles Stewart Parnell’s 1880 American Tour,” Annual Meeting of the American Conference for Irish Studies, Savannah, GA, February 2025
“Building an Irish Village: Ireland, Irish America, and the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair,” Annual Meeting of Organization of American Historians,” St. Louis, MO, April 2015.
“‘Heart and Soul for Henry George’: Irish Americans, the 1886 New York Mayoral Race and the Decline of Irish American Radicalism,” Annual General Conference of the American Conference for Irish Studies, Chicago, IL, April 11, 2013
Fall 2025
Sabbatical
