Recent PhD Graduates

History PhD Graduates

Luneau, Tyson. “A Reimagined Periphery: Environment and the Construction of the French Colonial Empire in North Africa” (Chair: Richard Fogarty)
Winner, UAlbany Distinguished Dissertation Award

Misa, Samantha. “Making War in the Mountains: How Conflict Shaped the Landscapes of New York’s Catskill Mountains, 1860-1945” (Chair: Richard Fogarty)

Peabody, Tina. “Wretched Refuse: Garbage and the Making of New York City” (Chair: Kendra Smith-Howard)

Barker, Joanne. “The Changing Role of the Judiciary in Antebellum New York State” (Chair: Richard F. Hamm)

Haag, Catherine. “Mainstreaming Radicalism: Labor Organizing in Schenectady 1886-1906” (Chair: Gerald Zahavi)

Blanchfield, Joan. "Richard Stankiewicz: His Life, Work, and Times; Artist, Professor, and the Emergence of Abstract Expressionism" (Chair: Dan S. White)

Ruth, Christian. "The Spirit of Cancun: Basic Needs and Development During the Cold War" (Chair: Ryan Irwin) Winner, UAlbany Distinguished Dissertation Award

Pace, Sarah. "The Bourgeoisie and The Divine: Prophecy, Utopias, and Politics in the July Monarchy" (Chair: Richard S. Fogarty)

Patterson, Sarah. "Being Careful: Progressive Era Women and the Movements for Better Reproductive Healthcare" (Chair: Kori Graves)

Krischer, Elana. “Empire State Interrupted: Seneca Sovereignty and Settler Debates Over Land, 1779-1889” (Chair: Maeve Kane) Winner, UAlbany Distinguished Dissertation Award

Morgenson, Eric. “The Last Step to Whiteness: American Jews, Civil Rights, and Assimilation, 1954-1988” (Chair: Barry Trachtenberg)

Sullivan, Evan. “Making Good: World War I, Disability, and the Senses in American Rehabilitation” (Chair: Richard S. Fogarty)

Burns, Jennifer J. Thompson. "Black Trojans: The Free Black Community's Grassroots Abolition Campaign in Troy, New York before 1861." (Chair: Amy Murrell Taylor)

Herman, Bryan. "Science and Culture on the Soviet Screen: Russia and Member Republic Biographical Films during the Early Cold War, 1946-1953." (Chair: Nadieszda Kizenko)

Ingraham, Kevin. "'True Principles of Liberty and Natural Right': The Vermont State Constitution and the American Revolution." (Chair: Richard F. Hamm)

Moir, Nathaniel L. "Bernard Fall and Vietnamese Revolutionary Warfare in Indochina." (Chair: Richard S. Fogarty)

Madison, Josie. “The Education of Thomas Sweeny: A Case Study of Education for the Poor in New York City, 1828-1845" (Chair: Richard F. Hamm)

Mastan, June. "Answering Democracy's Call: U.S. Citizen Enlistees in the First World War Canadian Expeditionary Force" (Chair: Dan S. White)

Nuckles, Erica. "Remarks on a March" A Female Perspective on Gender, Rank, and Imperial Identities during the French and Indian War (Chair: Graham Barker-Benfield)

Veeder, Stacy. "The Republican Race: Anti-Semitism, Assimilation, and Race in France, 1930-1945" (Chair: Richard S. Fogarty)

Hof-Kenyon, Elke. “Warren County, New York: A Microcosm of the Forensic Revolution, 1970-2002" (Chair: Richard F. Hamm)

Ansley, John. “On the Fringes of the Cold War, Shangri-La, and American Consciousness: Lowell Thomas, Jr., and Tibet, 1949-1970" (Chair: Gerald Zahavi)

Gallagher, Patrick. "Poisoned Hope: MIA's, Mythmaking, and Trauma in Defeated Nations" (Chair: Dan S. White)

Palella, John. "For a Love of Beauty and Strength: "A History of Muscularity, Masculinities, & American Culture, 1880-1973" (Chair: Amy Murrell-Taylor)

Spanjer, Daniel. "The Intellectual Life of Lyman Beecher: An Intersection of Calvinism and the Enlightenment" (Chair: Nadieszda Kizenko)

Kelly, Maryann. “Gendered Patriots and Postrevolutionary Ladies: Girl Guiding and Twentieth Century Mexican Girlhood" (Chair: Susan M. Gauss)

McGrath, Thomas. "Nationalism in New England: Keene, New Hampshire and the American Civil War” (Chair: Amy Murrell-Taylor)

Marotta, Theodore. “Defending God: Thomas Paine's Last Crusade and the Contest Over His Memory" (Chair: Richard F. Hamm)

McGraw, Sean Heather. "Striving for Salvation: Margaret Anna Cusack, Sainthood, Religious Foundations and Revolution in Ireland, 1830-1922” (Chair: Nadieszda Kizenko)

Mirandola-Mullen, Jackie. "Coastal Parks for a Metropolitan Nation: How Postwar politics and urban growth shaped America's shores" (Chair: Kendra Smith-Howard)

Lenart, Camelia. "The European Response to Martha Graham's Tours during the 1950s and 1960s" (Chair: Dan S. White) Winner, 2015 College of Arts and Sciences’ Distinguished Dissertation Prize

Lippold, Annette. "Christian Marriage Counseling in Weimar and Nazi Germany" (Chair: Dan S. White) Winner, 2015 College of Arts and Sciences’ Distinguished Dissertation Prize

Malavasic, Alice. "F-Street Mess and Slave Power" (Chair: Richard F. Hamm)

Doran, Kwinn. “The Cradle of Globalization: Iroquois-U.S. Conflicts Over Infrastructure Development in the Great New York State Region, 1950-1966” (Chair: Gerald Zahavi)

Jones, David. “Facing the Epokolo: Corporal Punishment and Scandal in Twentieth Century Ovamboland” (Chair: Iris Berger) Winner, 2014 College of Arts and Sciences’ Distinguished Dissertation Prize

Redkey, Elizabeth. "For the Improvement of the Breed of Horse: Thoroughbred Racing and National Security in the Age of Horsepower” (Chair: Richard F. Hamm)

Vivyan, Matthew. “What is your Substance, Whereof are you Made?: Toward the Construction of the Ideal Shakespeare" (Chair: Warren Roberts) Winner, 2014 College of Arts and Sciences’ Distinguished Dissertation Prize

Adin, Mariah. "The Supreme Adventure: Brooklyn's Thrill-Kill Gang and Mid-Century Juvenile Justice" (Chair: Richard F. Hamm) Winner, 2013 College of Arts and Sciences’ Distinguished Dissertation Prize

Anadio, Anthony. “The Voyage of Refinement: The Many Talents of Thomas Cole” (Chair: Warren Roberts)

Evers, John. "Investigating New York: Governor Alfred E. Smith, the Moreland Act, and Reshaping New York State Government" (Chair: Richard F. Hamm)

Johnson, Mark. "Americans are Very Rare: Soldiers of the U.S. Regular Army in Peace and War, 1851-1865" (Chair: Allen Ballard)

LaMay, Kimberly. "The Creation of an American Collective Memory of the First World War: 1917-1941" (Chair: Richard S. Fogarty)

Panzer, Michael. "A Nation in Name, a 'State' in Exile: The FRELIMO Proto-State, Youth, Gender, and the Development of Mozambique, 1962-1975" (Chair: Iris Berger)

Pillsworth, Patricia. "Security, Prestige, and Realpolitik: Sir Eyre Crowe and British Foreign Policy, 1907-1925" (Chair: Dan S. White)

Staude, Ryan. “‘The Center of the Union’: George Washington's Political Philosophy and the Creation of American National Identity in the 1790s” (Chair: Sung Bok Kim)

Angiel, Randal. "Geography, Radioactive Contamination, and Public Health: The Albany-Troy Rainout after 50 Years"

Arpey, Andrew W. "The Van Nest Killings and the Trial of William Freeman: Insanity, Politics, and Race in Antebellum New York"

Bassano, David. "Purity and Partisanship: The Central America Peace Movement in the United States in the 1980s"

Biel, Anna. "Sacrifice in the Name of Sacred Duty: The Representation of the Decembrist Wives in Russian Culture, 1825-Present"

Borden, Mary. "Selling New York State to the Nation: The 1939/40 New York World's Fair”

Botsford, Kenneth G. "Restoring the Dialectic: Lucien Herr, Charles Andler, and the French Hegel, 1888-1934"

Brennan, Denis P. "The Printer's Stand: William Lloyd Garrison and the Liberator." Winner, 2003 College of Arts and Sciences’ Distinguished Dissertation Prize

Brewer, Stewart W. "Spanish Imperialism and the Ch'orti' Maya, (1524-1700); Institutional Effects of the Spanish Colonial System on Spanish and Indian Communities in the Corregimiento of Chiquimula de la Sierra, Guatemala"

Campbell, Robin Dell. "Mistresses of the Transient Hearth: American Army Officers' Wives and Material Culture, 1840-1880"

Cyphers, Christopher J. "In Defense of Liberalism: The National Civic Federation and the Ideological Origins of Business-Initiated Public Policy Reform, 1900-1915"

Decker, Kevin F. "Grand and Godly Proportions: Roman Catholic Cathedral Churches of the Northeast, 1840-1900"

Drake, Robert G. "Manipulating the News: The U.S. Press and the Holocaust, 1933-1945"

Drogan, Mara. "Atoms for Peace, U.S. Foreign Policy, and the Globalization of Nuclear Technology, 1953-1960." Winner, 2011 College of Arts and Sciences’ Distinguished Dissertation Prize

DuRoss, Michelle. “The Divorce of Isaac and Elizabeth Gouverneur: Sensibility and Law in the Revolutionary Era”

Frazier, Paul. "Prohibition Philadelphia: Bootleg Liquor and the Failure of Enforcement"

Goodier, Susan. "The Other Women's Movement: Anti-Suffrage Activism in New York State, 1865-1932"

Haas, Britt. "As They Saw the Thirties: Activist Youth's Vision of and for America"

Helfrich, Ronald. "Idols of the Tribes: Apologists, Polemicists, Intellectuals, Academics, and Early Mormonism"

Hooper-Hamersley, Rosamond L. "The Patronage of Mme de Pompadour at the Court of Versailles, 1745-1764: Art, Politics, and Enlightenment." Winner, 2002 College of Arts and Sciences’ Distinguished Dissertation Prize

Hurlbut, Joanne E. "Shaker Children: Their Lives, Literatures, and Literacies"

Kayatin, Jr., William F. "Higher Education Unions and Social Responsibility: United University Professions' Response to Social and Political Change in New York State, 1973-1993"

Kozakiewicz, Lauren. "Political Episodes, 1890-1960: Three Republican Women in Twentieth Century New York State Politics." Winner, 2006 College of Arts and Sciences’ Distinguished Dissertation Prize

Kresse, Kenneth A. "Containing Nationalism and Communism on the 'Dark Continent': Eisenhower's Policy toward Africa, 1953-1961"

Lampe, Evan. "Merchants, Traders, and Sailors in the Early American Pacific, 1763-1850"

Lemak, Jennifer A. "Southern Life, Northern City: The History of Albany's Rapp Road Community"

Lesh, Carla. "What a Woman Can Do with an Auto: American Women Automobilists in the Northeast, 1895-1919"

Linnane, Mary Teresa. "From Wexford to Wartime Washington: Robert Brennan's Advocacy of Irish Nationalism and Neutrality in the United States, 1938-47"

Lynch-Brennan, Margaret. "Ubiquitous Biddy: Irish Immigrant Women in Domestic Service in America, 1840-1930"

Marchione, Mollie T. "'I Know Other Reason than a Woman's': The Pioneering Research of Susan M. Kingsbury, Ph.D., in Creating Social Change, 1906-1942"

McCarthy, Michael. “The Battle of Five Forks in Civil War Historiography: The Quest for Honor”

Mullenneaux, Nan. "Walking Ladies: Mid-Nineteenth-Century Actresses' Work, Family, and Culture." Winner, 2008 College of Arts and Sciences’ Distinguished Dissertation Prize

Murray, Candis. "Dynasty: The Legacy of Tudor Scandal in Elizabethan Court Culture"

Nash, Jonathan. "An Incarcerated Republic: Prisoners, Reformers, and the Penitentiary in the Early United States, 1790-1860"

Newman-Getnick, Joy. “Drinking Age Debates”

Oh, Young-In. "As if it was a Land of Language Diversity: Struggles over Immigrants' Language in the United States, 1917-1966"

Ottman, Tod M. "'Government that has a heart and a head': The Growth of New York State Government During the World War II Era, 1930-1950." Winner, 2001 College of Arts and Sciences’ Distinguished Dissertation Prize

Pearson, Chad. "Organize and Fight: Communities, Employers, and Open-Shop Movements, 1890-1920"

Pomakoy, Keith. "Helping Humanity in the Real World: America and the Urge to Rescue, 1895-1945"

Rainbolt, William R. "Images of Journalism in American Films, 1946-1976." Winner, 2004 College of Arts and Sciences’ Distinguished Dissertation Prize

Rivera, Salvador. "Diplomats, Idealists, and Technocrats: The Long Quest for Latin American Integration"

Smith, John Howard. "'They Suffer Only for Righteousness Sake': The Glasite-Sandemanian Movement in the British-American Atlantic World, 1720-1790"

Smyth, Stuart J. "The Evangelical Component of Imperialism"

Sorin, Gretchen. "Keep Going: African-Americans on the Road in the Era of Jim Crow" 

St. Amant, Sonja. "Faith by Demonstration: The Connection Between the History of Paranormal Phenomena and a New Age Spirituality"

Taylor, Carol. "The Troubled Entente: Alexander Izvolsky and Russia's Diplomatic Relations with France and Great Britain, 1906-1910"

Tevebaugh-Kenwryck, Neil A. "Raoul Wallenberg, the American War Refugee Board and the Last Minute Effort to Save Hungary's Jews"

Wittern-Keller, Laura. "'Freedom of the Screen': The Legal Challenges to State Film Censorship, 1915-1981." Winner, 2003 College of Arts and Sciences’ Distinguished Dissertation Prize

Wu, Guo. "Media, Nationhood, and State: Zheng Guanying and the Urban Cultural Sphere in Late Qing China"