Research & Publications – American Athena

Research and Publications

My scholarship examines ordinary people, rural spaces, and the Midwest during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, exploring the intersections of lived experiences, preservation, interpretation, and historical memory.

On Behalf of the Family Farm: Iowa Farm Women’s Activism Since 1945 (University of Iowa Press, 2013).

Works in Progress

American Athena

Follow @American_Athena on Instagram. I am recreating an 1814 school-girl embroidery of George Washington’s Mount Vernon. This. piece is held by the Khalaf Al Habtoor Archives at Illinois College.

Khalaf Al Habtoor Archives at Illinois College

Thanks to funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, I have worked to build and make accessible campus and community collections.

Mightier than Missiles: Surviving the Cold War in Rural America

This project considers how local communities implemented federal civil defense measures to prepare ordinary Americans for the unthinkable consequences of nuclear war.

Videos

Using Mines, Caves, and Missouri’s Underground Spaces as Fallout Shelters During the Cold War, State Historical Society of Missouri, December 2022.

Iowa History 101: Extension Homemakers Clubs in Iowa, 1920-1960, State Historical Society of Iowa, September 2021.

Iowa History 101: Women in Wartime and the 1918 Flu Epidemic at Iowa State College, State Historical Society of Iowa, March 2021.

Putting Down Roots: Women and Agriculture in Iowa, German American Heritage Center and Museum, Davenport, Iowa, June 2022.

Writing and Essays

Protection for All Citizens

Civil Defense and the Problem of Evacuating Missouri’s Urban
Centers during the Cold War, 1950–1970,” Missouri Historical Review 18, no. 2 (April 2024), 169-190.

3000 Tons to Lose

The Iowa Cooperative Extension Service, Farm Women, and Weight Control,
1948-1961,” in Back Stories: The Kitchen Table Talk Cookbook, ed. Cynthia C. Prescott and
Maureen S. Thompson. (Grand Forks, ND: Digital Press of the University of North Dakota, 2021), 263-274.

The Light of Science & Religion

Women’s Education, Conquest, and Emerging Midwestern
Identities on the Illinois Frontier, 1830-1850,” Middle West Review 9, no. 2 (Spring 2023), 37-49.

A Stamp of Femininity

The Sorosis Literary Society, Women’s Intellectual Discourse, and Regional Identity in Jacksonville, Illinois, 1865-1900,” in Jon K. Lauck, Paul Murphy, Andrew Seal, Joe Hogan, and Gleaves Whitney, eds., The Sower and the Seer: Perspectives on the Intellectual History of the American Midwest (Madison, WI: Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2021), 34-50.

Why, you can be a journalist, kid

The Emerald Goose and Women’s Journalism at Iowa State College during World War I”, The Annals of Iowa 75(4), 376-405.

Hands-on History in a Hands-off Era

with Samantha Sauer, History@Work, National Council on
Public History, 7 April 2022.

Meeting the Mission

Designing and Growing Archival Advocacy, Access, and Awareness,” with
Samantha Sauer, Archival Outlook (May-June 2023), 8-9, 17.

Mightier Than Missiles

The Rhetoric of Civil Defense for Rural American Families, 1950-1970, Agricultural History 80, no.4 (Fall 2006), 415–435.