Projects
Academic, creative, and public history projects.
“By the ballot if we can, but the rifle if we must”: Bleeding Kansas and Topeka’s Constitution Hall
A documentary film about the Free State movement and the contested territorial government centered in Topeka during the Bleeding Kansas years. Through the lens of the physical space of Constitution Hall in Topeka, this film explores issues of political legitimacy, voter fraud, the ethics of violence, racial discrimination, and struggles for freedom in the 1850s that continue to resonate into contemporary times. Partly funded by a grant from Humanities Kansas and produced in conjunction with the Friends of the Free State Capitol.
My Role: Director, Producer, Writer
An exhibition at the Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art at K-State that ran from 2023-2024 and continues with a virtual exhibit. Before 1950, districts in dozens of Kansas towns and cities acquired original art through traveling exhibitions, bequests from the Carnegie Corporation, New Deal art programs, and other avenues. This exhibition explores the vital role American art played—and might play again—in Kansas schools and their communities.
My Role: Consulting Curator
No Mountains in the Way: The Kansas Origins of 1970s NEA Documentary Photography
In 1974-1975, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEA) funded photographers James Enyeart, Terry Evans, and Larry Schwarm to document the buildings, people, and landscape of Kansas. This project, called “No Mountains in the Way,” was an attempt to re-capture the spirit of 1930s FSA photography for the 1970s. The success of the project helped inspire the NEA to create the Photographic Surveys Project (1976-1981), which ushered in a renaissance in regionally focused documentary photography.
My Role: Author, Consulting Curator
“Early Indian Life in Kansas”
This Pony Express Museum digital exhibit documents and critically reinterprets a series of six dioramas depicting Native American cultural practices, originally created by the Kansas WPA’s Museum Extension Project in the 1930s and early 1940s. New interpretive text is developed in consultation with the Indigenous Nations featured in the dioramas. Funded by a grant from Humanities Kansas.
My Role: Project Manager, Consulting Historian
A multiple award-winning podcast series that commemorates Humanities Kansas' 50th anniversary in 2022. Episodes connect local and regional Kansas events from 1972 to national histories. Through it all, we'll consider how and why Humanities Kansas got its start and the enduring importance of the humanities. Winner of the American Association of State and Local History’s (AASLH) Leadership in History Award.
My Role: Director, Writer, Host, Historian
An award-winning documentary film that explores Kansas history and identity during the Great Depression through conflict over post office murals created by New Deal arts programs. Funded by a grant from Humanities Kansas and produced in conjunction with the Birger Sandzen Memorial Gallery.
My Role: Director, Producer, Writer, Historian
A podcast about the intersection of public health, cultural history, and war during the 1918-1920 influenza pandemic. “Pandemic on the Prairie” tells the stories of Kansas and Kansans during this tumultuous time of both a World War and a global pandemic and makes links to similar crises in present times. Funded by a grant from Humanities Kansas and produced in conjunction with the Geary County Historical Society.
My Role: Director, Writer, Host, Historian
An ongoing project that documents and analyzes the various arts and culture programs in Kansas funded by federal government agencies during the New Deal era, as well as Kansas artists who were involved in these programs. Includes a map of Kansas with New Deal artwork locations.
My Role: Author, Historian
Invite me to speak to your group or organization about multiple topics in Kansas and regional history.
My Role: Speaker
A map I compiled using James Loewen’s data on possible sundown towns in the United States and entries from the 1941 edition of the “Negro Motorist Green-Book”.
My Role: Author
Searching for Virginia Rappe, “The Best Dressed Girl in Pictures”
IN PRE-PRODUCTION - What does it mean for someone to be famous for the way they died rather than the way they lived? Virginia Rappe is a name few recognize now, but her death was at the center of an early Hollywood scandal, the downfall of comedic star Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle. Instead of focusing on her death, this project seeks to reclaim the life of Virginia Rappe, including her career as a model and early fashion influencer. This project also explores what the life of Virginia Rappe, and how her death was handled by the media, can tell us about the intersection of gender, sexuality, celebrity, and fashion in the early 20th century.
My Role: Director, Producer, Writer, Historian