One of the most important memories from my childhood is of my father reading aloud from one of the many state historical markers that lined the paths of our family vacations in Michigan.  On those early trips, my love of history was born.  I started working as a historical interpreter at the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan in high school.  Later, my undergraduate mentor Dr. Gerald Moran at the University of Michigan-Dearborn opened the world of academic history to me and I never looked back.  After completing a BA in history, I went on to earn a Masters in History from Wayne State University in Detroit and then traveled to Williamsburg, Virginia to study for my PhD at the College of William & Mary.  While living in Williamsburg was a colonial historian’s dream, the schooling I received at W&M was even better—especially since the History Department there valued great teaching as much as great scholarship.  In 2004, I began as an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Southern Mississippi, as well as a Fellow of the university’s Center for the Study of War and Society.  I have really enjoyed teaching both undergraduates and graduate students at Southern Miss for the past four years.

I began teaching as a TA and later as the instructor of my own class at William & Mary.  I knew from the first time I set foot in a classroom that I had made the correct career choice.  I love almost every part of teaching (ok—not the grading).  While in graduate school, I taught part-time at Thomas Nelson Community College in Newport News, Virginia—where I soon realized that the future teachers were often the most interested students in class.  At Southern Miss, I routinely teach the American history survey (1607-1877), the history of Colonial America, the American Revolution, War & Society in Early America, and our class on historical research and writing at the undergraduate level.  I also offer a few more specialized classes (one favorite is “Sin, Sex, Spirits, and Scarcity: The Sordid Side of Colonial America”) and several graduate seminars.  As the Director of Undergraduate Studies, I advise history majors—including those in our Social Studies Licensure program.  I care deeply about the quality of education we offer our future teachers.  One way I promote that is to work as a membership chair for the Organization of American Historians, which has a great tradition of working with all history teachers, including those in K—12.  I also try to assist teachers thru my participation in the Teaching American History (TAH) grant program.  When I was first invited to participate in the TAH programs of the American Institute for History Education (AIHE), I jumped at the chance.

I have now taught AIHE seminars in Mississippi, Alabama, Indiana, Florida, and Louisiana and done a few filming sessions for CICERO.  I love talking with other history teachers and sharing the latest content about the history of early America at TAH events.  I am heartened, but not surprised, by the great comments and questions I get from teachers at the seminars.  The TAH program is a great way for teachers to recharge their intellectual batteries and for professors to forge relationships with those who are so important to our students’ early history learning.   

As a professor, I must also research and write about the past.  In that vein, I just finished my first book A Rabble in Arms: Massachusetts Towns and Militiamen during King Philip’s War.  It will be published by New York University Press in 2009.  A social history of all the men who fought in the 1675-1676 conflict from Essex County, Massachusetts, the book examines how and why the men were chosen by their town’s Committee of Militia to fight, and what that tells us about the society and military of New England in the seventeenth century.  The book overturns some old ideas about the nature and social makeup of colonial soldiers, town militias, and New England society.  My next projects include a classroom reader about the American soldier throughout American history, a book about communities at war in early America, and a book for history methods classes which offers students examples of all different types of history.