In this History Speaker Series event, Dr. Margaret MacDonald discusses her professional and academic career, her advocacy work as a public historian, and her research on Carolyn Beatrice Parker, the first Black woman known to receive an advanced degree in physics and worked on the Dayton Project, part of the Manhattan Project, during World War II.

Dr. Peggy Macdonald is a public historian and adjunct professor. She has taught at Southern New Hampshire University, Stetson University, Indian River State College and the University of Florida, where she received a Ph.D. in history. A native Floridian, Dr. Macdonald has written about local and Florida history for FORUM Magazine, Gainesville Magazine, Our Town Magazine, and Senior Times. In 2014, the University Press of Florida published her book, Marjorie Harris Carr: Defender of Florida's Environment.

Recommendations:

Jack Davis, The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea (W. W. Norton, 2017)

Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (Anti-Slavery Society, 1845)

At this event, Dr. Matt Schandler discusses the effects of artificial intelligence on the study, research, and writing of history. Topics of discussions include the origins of Generative AI; emerging historical applications beyond text, image, and video; working with bots; AI in academic settings; AI output as source material; academic integrity and AI use; best practices and dangerous practices; and future-proofing one's skillset.

Matt Schandler is a historian of technology, data scientist, and political scientist who studies the histories of domestic digital technologies, environmental technological systems. artificial intelligence, digital gaming, and information technologies. In addition to teaching the undergraduate capstone course at SNHU, he teaches courses on The History of Everything; Data Science for the Social Good; World History and Technology; and Technology, Society, and Public Policy at Chestnut Hill College.

In this episode, Will McLean Greeley discusses his recent book, a Connecticut Yankee Goes to Washington: Senator George P. McLean, Birdman of the Senate, a biography of politician George MacLean, a Gilded Age and Progressive Era reformer and conservationist whose best known accomplishment was the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. Will Greeley holds degrees in political science and archive administration and worked in government and corporate market research before his recent retirement.

In this episode, Kristen Engel discusses her experiences in a graduate program at the University of Connecticut and her dissertation research, which uses courtly spectacle to examine the portrayals of political and cultural ideals in the courts of Henry VII and Henry VIII, which led to political and cultural transformations in early Tudor England. She teaches history at Southern New Hampshire University and is the editor-in-chief of “The Court Observer” for the Society for Court Studies.

In this episode, Dr. Jamie Goodall discusses her new book, The Daring Exploits of Pirate Black Sam Bellamy: From Cape Cod to the Caribbean, which describes the political, cultural, legal, and economic relationships between pirates and the coast of colonial New England. Dr. Goodall teaches American history at Southern New Hampshire University and is a historian with the U.S. Army Center of Military History in Washington, D.C.

In this episode, Dr. Allen York discusses his new book, Our People Are Warlike: Civil War Pittsburgh and Home-Front Mobilization, which connects the wartime experience of Pittsburgh into the larger narrative of the war revealing how the mobilization of the community was shaped by both prewar and frontline events and forces. Dr. York teaches military history at Southern New Hampshire University and Liberty University.

Recommendations:

Ana Maria Spagna, Pushed: Miners, a Merchant, and (Maybe) a Massacre (Salt Lake City: Torrey House Press, 2023).

Dr. Luke Peterson teaches Arabic and Middle Eastern history at Southern New Hampshire University and Duquesne University. In this episode, Dr. Peterson discusses his new book, The U.S. Military in the Print News Media: Service and Sacrifice in Contemporary Discourse, which “analyzes the history of the popular discourse in the United States concerned with the U.S. military and its engagement in foreign wars from the Spanish-American War through to the U.S. invasions of Iraq and the War on Terror.”

Jazlyn Sanderson is the Director of the Museum of Native American History in Bentonville, Arkansas. In this episode, Jazlyn talks to Southern New Hampshire University’s David Buresh about the benefits of having a history degree and how to get into the museum field. David and Jazlyn go into different types of internships within the Museum of Native American History, as well as how to make yourself stand out in the industry overall.

This episode was originally broadcast on Southern New Hampshire University’s Passion and Practicality podcast feed.