I am a social and cultural historian, centered on the United States in the twentieth century, but extending my work forward to the present and backward well into the nineteenth century. My research interests generally focus on the rich and complex intersection between religion, media and culture, and the cultural implications of media and other socially constructed technologies. In my first book, Redeeming the Dial: Radio, Religion, and Popular Culture in America (UNC Chapel Hill, 2002), I told the story of radio evangelism during radio’s Golden Age, exploring some of the medium’s early innovators as well as the devotional culture of their listeners. I have also conducted unpublished research into the religious aspects of United Nations NGOs.
Book in progress: Squarely on the Wrong Side of History: Massive Resistance and the Struggle for Southern Schools [working title]. This project interrogates the widespread conception of the “wrong side of history” through focused attention to Southern communities that closed their schools rather than integrate them in the wake of the 1954 Brown v. Board decision, and the subsequent rise of white private academies including those that self-identified as Christian schools. The book will explore the religious, cultural and ethical dimensions of massive resistance as a window onto the moral economy of historical memory, taking the story from the mid-1950s to the mid-1980s.
Current Research Projects:
Applied history inquiry employing a local collection of early twentieth-century social service agency records at the Worcester Historical Museum. I am working with undergraduate students to digitize, transcribe, code, and create a public open-access database.
Article in progress, “The Yovails in Israel,” a chronicle of a Christian (Mormon) folk dance troupe on tour across Israel in 1964, as an example of Cold War citizen diplomacy and Latter-day Saint philo-Semitism.
“WRVR: A Pioneering Noncommercial Station” Digital Exhibit for the American Archive of Public Broadcasting (2022)
Primary Source Sets for Digital Public Library of America (2017-2018)
Blog Posts for Juvenile Instructor (2011-2018)
Blog Posts for Teaching United States History (2012-2014)