M.A. Alumni
Our alumni go on to work in museums, Ph.D. programs, and more. Learn more about a few of our recent alumni and their paths below!
Recent Alumni
Kaitlynn Harless
Email: kaitlynnjmh@vt.edu
Hometown: Pearisburg, Virginia
Undergraduate Institution: University of Colorado Boulder
Research Interests: women & gender, activism, labor, oral history, and food studies
Research Paper Title: "Our Strike in West Virginia": Women's Labor, Militancy, and Activism in the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek Strikes, 1912-1913
Post-Graduation Plans: Applying for jobs in museums and historical societies.
Geographic Areas of Interest: North America
Faculty Advisor: Marian Mollin
Jared Kimball
Email: jaredkimball@vt.edu
Hometown: Buchanan, Georgia
Undergraduate Institution: Brigham Young University
Research Interests: nineteenth century U.S. immigration and politics
Research Paper Title: Die Süd Strategie: Politics of the German 48ers in Richmond, 1852-1864
Post-Graduation Plans: Working in archival or a library and eventually pursuing a Ph.D. in history
Geographic Areas of Interest: North America and Europe
Faculty Advisor: Dan Thorp
Tim Pfeifer
Email: twp13@vt.edu
Hometown: Baltimore, Maryland
Undergraduate Institution: Virginia Tech
Research Interests: U.S. cultural and intellectual history
Research Paper Title: Back to Nature: Bernarr Macfadden's Antimodern Modernism
Post-Graduation Plans: attending Duke University's School of Law
Geographic Areas of Interest: North America
Faculty Advisor: Ed Gitre
Elizabeth Renner
Email: usgrant@vt.edu
Hometown: Longmeadow, Massachusetts
Undergraduate Institution: Virginia Tech
Research Interests: U.S. Civil War and environmental history
Research Paper Title: As if by Magic: Finding Some Comfort During the War
Post-Graduation Plans: attending Northeastern University to study environmental science and law
Geographic Areas of Interest: North America
Faculty Advisor: Paul Quigley
Masters Theses from the past 10 Years
- Christy, Miranda. “That We May Exert Our Influence More Powerfully: Race, Politics and Identity in Ohio’s Southeast Borderland, 1802-1865”
- Dean, Amanda.“We don’t want them in our schools: Black School Equality, Desegregation, and Massive Resistance in Southwest Virginia, 1920s-1960s”
- Evers, Sarah. “The Story of His Life and Work: Public History at The Booker T. Washington Birthplace Memorial (1945-1956)”
- Blake, Erica. “Negotiating Sovereignty: Resistance and Meaning Making at the Bear Mountain Mission in Early-Twentieth Century Virginia”
- Flanagan, Savannah. “Unruly Sisters: Moravian Women, Dissent, and the 18th Century North Carolina Piedmont”
- Pearson, Derek. “The Steep Climb to Low Earth Orbit: A History of the Space Elevator Community’s Battle Against the Rocket Paradigm”
- Adkins, Clay. “The Great Appalachian Flood of 1977: Prisoners, Labor, and Community Perceptions in Wise, Virginia”
- Brabble, Jessica. “Save the Babies: Progressive Women and the Fight for Child Welfare in the United States, 1912-1929”
- Montoya, Sydney. “Creating a Nation: Fiscal Policy, Expansion, and Protest in Pennsylvania”
- Olex, Benjamin. “‘The Painful Task of Thinking Belongs To Me’: Rethinking Royal Navy Signal Reform during the American War of Independence”
- Balli, Tyler. “Reading Zion: Book Cultures of Mormon Youth, 1869-1890”
- Legg, John. “Unforgetting the Dakota 38: Settler Colonialism, Indigenous Resurgence and the Competing Narratives of the U.S.-Dakota War, 1862-2012”
- Stewart, Emily. “Standardization, Segregation, and Professionalization in Virginia Public Schools, 1898-1917”
- Furrow, Heath. “‘We can do very little with them’: British Discourse and British Policy on Shi’is in Iraq”
- Martin, Kaitlyn. “Religious Practices in Classical Thebes”
- Walters, Kathryn. “20,000 Fewer: The Wagner-Rogers Bill and the Jewish Refugee Crisis”
- Wesdock, Ryan. “The Floatplane Controversy: Proscription, Procedure, and Protection in Carroll County, Virginia, 1992."
- Wild, Emily. “The Women of Waterford, Virginia: Gender, Unionism, Quakerism and Identity in the American Civil War”
- Boggs, Ellen. “That mountain is like a drug store”: Knowledge and Medicine in Southern Appalachia, 1900-1933"
- Brown, Katie. “‘When This You See, Remember Me’: Visual Culture and Civil War Soldiers’ Views of Permanence"
- Harmon, Emily. “Shaping the City from Below: Urban Planning and Citizens’ Battle for Control in Roanoke, Virginia, 1907-1928"
- Hemmingson, Grace. “‘This was a man’: Masculinity and Student Life at Virginia Military Colleges, 1905-1920”
- Atkins, David. “‘Perfectly White’: Light-Skinned Slaves and the Abolition Movement 1835-1865"
- Caprice, Kevin. “Won but Not One: The Construction of Union Veteranhood, 1861-1917"
- Cherry, Earl K. Jr. “Training Virginians: The Rural Training Schools of Virginia’s Segregated Education System, 1895-1955”
- Keller, Chris. “‘The Freshest and Yet Oldest Sound’: Flatt & Scruggs, Martha White, and the Negotiation of Change and Nostalgia”
- MacDonald, Jonathan. “Reel Guidance: Midcentury Classroom Films and Adolescent Adjustment"
- Nehrt, Jenny. “Promoting Positivity: Securing Memphis’s Image in Times of Crisis"
- Williams, Rebecca. “Weird Old Figures and a New Twist: Cultural Functions of Halloween at the Turn of the 20th Century" Additionally, Rebecca completed a video project as a part of the public history thesis option.
- Bolt, Carmen. “Dammed If You Don’t: The Palmertown Tragedy of 1924 in Collective Memory”
- Evenson, Sara. “Consuming Trade in Mid-Eighteenth Century Albany”
- Skiles, Debra Faith. “Building Cultural Bridges: American Women Missionaries in Korea, 1885-1910”
- Gogan, Claire. “To Play Jewish Again: Roots, Counterculture, and the Klezmer Revival”
- Nowland, Nicholas. “A Unique Hell in Southwestern Virginia: Confederate Guerrillas and the Defense of the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad“
- Carlson, Kristin. “Christian Duty in the Crisis of Secession: A Comparison of Charleston and Philadelphia”
- Kelley, Lucas. “Suffrage for White Men Only: The Disfranchisement of Free Men of Color in Antebellum North Carolina”
- Seabrook, Tom. “Tributes to the Past, Present, and Future: Confederate Memorialization in Virginia, 1914-1919”
- Slough, Spenser. “Germans on the Western Waters: Artisans, Material Culture, and Hybridity in Virginia’s Backcountry, 1780-1830”
- Stoltz, Taylor. “Aristocrats, Republicans, and Cannibals: American Reactions to French Women in Violence”
- Zlokas, Rosemary. “Consuming Beauty: The Impact of Prescriptive Beauty Literature on College Women, 1940-1950” Website created as public history thesis project: www.consumingbeauty.com
- Ames, Eric. “‘United in Interest and Feeling’: The Political Culture of Union in the Virginia Borderland, 1850-1861.”
- Dowrey, Alexandra. “The Classics and the Broader Public in Philadelphia, 1783-1788: Avenues for Engagement.”
- Hight, Alison. “‘What are ye, little mannie?’: the Persistence of Fairy Culture in Scotland,1572-1703 and 1811-1927.”
- Jones, Adam. “‘The land of my births and the home of my heart’: Enlistment Motivations for Confederate Soldiers in Montgomery County, Virginia, 1861-1862.”