Heartland History

David serves as the field services manager for the Minnesota Historical Society travelling nearly 35,000 miles a year to engage with, and assist, local historical societies, His recent publications include "Building Museums: a handbook for small and midsize organizations" and a history about Sarah Jane Sibly, the first Governor's Wife (modern First Lady) of Minnesota, "Six Miles from St. Paul: the family and society of Sarah Jane Sibley" reveals how Sarah led the first historic preservation effort in Minnesota, and was key to setting social patterns that endure. The story, meticulously researched and illustrated, is told through the observations of her by her family and friends.

Jenny Barker Devine discusses her book, "On Behalf of the Family Farm" which traces the development of women’s activism and agrarian feminisms in the Midwest after 1945, as farm women’s lives were being transformed by the realities of modern agriculture. She has won several prizes for her research, including the Zaffarano Prize for Graduate Student Research at Iowa State University (she was the first nonscientist to win it), the Carrie Chapman Catt Prize for Research on Women in Politics, the Phi Alpha Theta Doctoral Scholarship, and the Ernest G. Hildner, Jr., Faculty Award of Illinois College. She has also received research grants from the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, the Richard S. Brownlee Fund of the State Historical Society of Missouri, and the State Historical Society of Iowa.

Paul Stone Professor of History, University of Minnesota, Humphrey School of Public Affairs discusses regionalist impulses of the early 20th century. Dr. Stone's research focuses on American political and institutional history, behavior in American public life, and Minnesota political history.

Jon Lauck interviews Kevin Ehrman-Solberg, Web Developer and GIS Director for The Historyapolis Project, a collaborative endeavor that relies on the complementary skills of academic historians, community researchers, archivists, museum professionals, students and technologists. We work together to make history that matters in Minneapolis.

Kevin interrogates the intersection of space and historical narrative. His work on pornography bookstores in Minneapolis was recently published in the Middle West Review, where he explores the connections between pornography, gay sexual liberation, feminism, and police power.

Dr. Bill Green discusses race and civil rights in Minnesota history. His recent book, A Peculiar Imbalance in Early Minnesota: 1837-1869, and Degrees of Freedom: The Origin of Civil Rights in Minnesota, 1865-1914, won the 2015 Minnesota Book Award-Hognander Prize.

Michael J. Lansing. Augsburg College,Associate Professor, History Department Chair discusses his research on the North American West, political history, environmental history, and gender history. His current project is The Cradle of Carbohydrates: Minneapolis and the Making of the World’s Food, an environmental and urban history of the city’s central role in the creation and propagation of carbohydrate-rich processed and packaged foods.His books include Insurgent Democracy: The Nonpartisan League in North American Politics (University of Chicago Press, 2015) and the co-authored The American West: A Concise History (Wiley-Blackwell, 2008).

Caitlyn Perry Dial, Interim Director,The Michigan Women’s Historical Center and Hall of Fame

Episode Three David Brodnax, Professor of History at Trinity Christian College in Illinois. Dr. Brodnax broad research interests include African American Midwestern History, U.S. Legal History, U.S. History, Latin American Legal History. Today he discusses his current work , ““Breathing the Freedom’s Air”: The African American Struggle for Equal Citizenship in Iowa, 1830-1900” and the significance the African American experience in the Midwest.

Dr. James H. Madison discusses Indiana history, the importance of local and regional history, and Indiana 's role in the American Civil War

Andrew Seal, PhD candidate , American Studies at Yale University discusses his research on the American Midwest, Midwestern identity, and essentialism.