Working Historians

Christopher Kline, an instructor and Learning Community Facilitator for Southern New Hampshire University, discusses his research and teaching interests, why the Whiskey Rebellion broke out in post-Revolutionary Pennsylvania, the evolution of his career, and advice for students looking to break into careers in history. Professor Kline has worked as a history tutor, a member of a museum board, and an adjunct instructor at community colleges and universities.

Chris Kline is the Senior Manager for General Education at Western Governors University. In this episode, Rob, Jimmy, and Chris discuss Chris’s decision to start a doctoral program, the online student experience, the real estate market, the changing work habits that came with the COVID-19 pandemic, the January 6 Insurrection, the need for better education in source analysis and critical thinking, and the lessons we learned about the American government after the 2020 election and the insurrection

Kate Schaefer teaches history at Southern New Hampshire University. In this episode, Kate discusses her research into female spies during the Irish Rebellion of 1916 and World War II. And then there is some chatter about the Sisters of Mercy and the CIA’s suggestions for disrupting Zoom meetings, kinda.

This episode’s recommendations:

Sarah Rose, D-Day Girls: The Spies who Armed the Resistance, Sabotaged the Nazis, and Helped win World War II (Penguin Random House, 2020).  

Trevor Ristow, Waiting for Another War: A History of the Sisters of Mercy, Volume I: 1980-1985 (GWK, 2019).

Simple Sabotage Field Manual (Office of Strategic Services, 1944), available at Project Gutenberg.

Season 1 lasted for four years, and then Rob put the podcast on hiatus because, I dunno, pandemic? Exhaustion? While searching for the meaning of life, he found his old chum Jimmy Fennessy on a remote mountaintop and the two decided to get the band back together and work on Season 2 of Working Historians, which will be bigger and better than ever before! There’s even a website now. In this episode you get a brief teaser of what you can expect from Season 2, however long that one may last.

The Working Historians podcast is switching its hosting site from Soundcloud to Podbean, so Soundcloud subscribers should consider re-subscribing through Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or any of the other dozens of podcast apps out there. In this episode, Rob provides a teaser for upcoming changes to the podcast (including a new website).

Dr. Peter Milich is a historian who specializes in Russian, Soviet, and Eastern European history. As a witness to the collapse of modern nations like the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, Rob and Pete discuss the state of modern international affairs.

This episode’s recommendations:

Alfred McCoy, “The Rise and Decline of US Global Power” (October 25, 2017), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GygmGSwvcI

Dominic Lieven, “The Tsar Liberates Europe? Russia against Napoleon, 1807-1914” (October 8, 2009), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzElqomAATI

Daniel Junge and Steven Leckart, dirs., “Challenger: The Final Flight” (2020), https://www.netflix.com/title/81012137 

Dr. Paul McKenzie-Jones teaches history, focusing on political activism among Native Americans and other indigenous peoples around the world.

This episode’s recommendations:

Nick Estes, Our History is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Resistance of Indigenous Resistance (Verso, 2019), https://www.versobooks.com/books/2953-our-history-is-the-future 

Susan Sleeper-Smith, Juliana Barr, Jean M. O’Brien, Nancy Shoemaker, and Scott Manning Stevens, eds., Why you Can’t Teach United States History without American Indians (University of North Carolina Press, 2015), https://uncpress.org/book/9781469621203/why-you-cant-teach-united-states-history-without-american-indians/

Patricia Nelson Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West (W.W. Norton, 1987), https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393304978 

Dr. Cassandra Clark teaches history at Southern New Hampshire University and Salt Lake Community College and is a public historian with the State of Utah’s Department of Heritage and Arts. In this episode, we will discuss Dr. Clark’s academic and professional background, her work with the State of Utah, and her research on the history of insanity and the environment in the American West, with discussions of eugenics, phrenology, and the changing scientific understanding of how the human brain works.

This week's recommendations

Utah Department of Heritage & Arts, Salt Lake West Side Stories: https://newnationproject.utah.gov/salt-lake-west-side-stories/

Denver Public Library, “When the KKK Ruled Colorado: Not So Long Ago,” https://history.denverlibrary.org/news/when-kkk-ruled-colorado-not-so-long-ago

Janet Miron, Prisons, Asylums, and the Public: Institutional Visiting in the Nineteenth Century (University of Toronto Press, 2011), https://utorontopress.com/us/prisons-asylums-and-the-public-4

Carla Yanni, The Architecture of Madness (University of Minnesota Press, 2007), https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/the-architecture-of-madness

Timothy Tyson, Blood Done Sign My Name (Penguin Random House, 2004), https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/181459/blood-done-sign-my-name-by-timothy-b-tyson/ 

Dr. Guy Ruoff teaches history at Southern New Hampshire University and is Town Supervisor for Scott, New York. In this episode, Guy talks to Rob about his academic and professional background, his present and future political career, and the importance of historical knowledge in the political sphere.

This episode’s recommendations:

The Memory Palace podcast: https://www.prx.org/memory-palace/?gclid=CjwKCAiA7939BRBMEiwA-hX5J-QrMyhtslsmIXC6xsvyk-9w1DAfKaYkcdra6-w-7losaludcCtFDBoC-e8QAvD_BwE