My research interests are in the nineteenth-century, and I specialize in Civil War and Reconstruction, and the Gilded Age; the social history of soldiers; politics and political culture; and the memorialization of the Civil War. My book, Unsentimental Reformer: The Life of Josephine Shaw Lowell (Harvard University Press, 1998) analyzes the life of a major, and controversial, figure in charity reform through the lens of gender, class, and ideology. Two essays on Lowell and the Shaw Family will be published shortly:  "Give This Man Work!: Josephine Shaw Lowell, The Charity Organization Society of the City of New York, and the Depression of 1893," in Social Science History (Summer 2001) and "It was a Sacrifice We Owed: The Massachusetts 54th and the Shaw Family," in Hope and Glory: Essays on the Massachusetts 54th, University of Massachusetts Press, December, 2000.  I am currently writing a book on the memorialization of Ulysses S. Grant, who was a symbol of unionism and nationalism during and after the Civil War. The Grant book is a foundation for a larger project on the political culture of soldiers during the years 1861-1865.

TEACHING INTERESTS

I began teaching full-time for the UCLA history department in 1993. For several years now I have taught two upper division courses covering the period from 1850 -1900. I have developed a multi-media approach to the teaching of history, and I use slides, music, short films, and handouts. Teaching the large and impersonal lecture courses that are the fate of UCLA professors has been both a challenge and a great experience. Every quarter I learn something valuable from my students about how to communicate historical materials to large groups. I anticipate many years of engagement with pedagogical issues. I have developed two seminars for my UCLA students. This first is entitled: "The Soldier's History of the Civil War." This class, limited to 15-20 students, explores the inner tensions of northern and southern soldiers through the writing of a research paper on one carefully selected regiment. The point is to try to answer the questions: why did they enlist? why did they fight?; why did they stay?. In the second seminar, students study how the civil war is commemorated in both popular and high culture.

This past summer, I offered a travel/study course that gave students an opportunity to study intensively the political, social, economic, cultural, and military history of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania first through lectures, discussion, and research on the UCLA campus, and then on a field trip to Gettysburg where students visited the town, the college, and the battlefield in depth. We also visited other civil war sites, including Harpers Ferry, West Virginia; Antietam National Military Park in Maryland; Richmond, Virginia, and Washington D.C.