Interests

My research seeks to understand how Americans have, over time, used objects to make sense of their pasts. I am particularly interested in the physicality of historical experience and our belief in the power of things to transport us through time. I like boats too.

Select Projects

Born in the USA: Birth and Commemoration in American Public Memory (edited collection), forthcoming from University of Massachusetts Press, Public History in Historical Perspective series. [view]

“The Shenandoah River Gundalow: Reusable Boats in Virginia’s Nineteenth-Century River Trade,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 118 (December 2010): 314-49. [view]

Here, George Washington was Born: Memory, Material Culture, and the Public History of a National Monument (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2008). [view] [buy] [review]

“Administrative History of the George Washington Birthplace National Monument,” (Washington, D.C.: National Park Service, 2006). [view]

Western Railway of Alabama Recording Project (Historic American Engineering Record, 1999). [view]

"Pennsylvania Boatbuilding: Charting a State Tradition," Pennsylvania History, a Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 69 (Spring 1998). [view]

Recent Media Appearances

Kim Fischer, “Students Consider Historic Penitentiary's Haunted Attraction,” 31 October 2011.

Peter Crimmins, “Setting sale: USS Olympia now on the market,” newsworks, 31 March 2011.

Peter Crimmins, “Site of Historic Presidential Home Stirs Controversy,” All Things Considered, National Public Radio, 15 December 2010. [listen]

Kerry Grens, “Haunted house at mental hospital stirs debate,” WHYY Philadelphia, 24 September 2010. [listen]

Dianna Marder, “Memoir rooted in cherished, storied objects,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, 8 April 2010.

“Classes explore city history beyond the Liberty Bell,” Temple University News Communications, 29 October 2009. [watch]

Alex Schmidt, “Old Visitor Center is New Battle of Gettysburg,” Morning Edition, National Public Radio, 7 October 2008. [listen]