The Freckled Historian


Peterson wearing glasses and a warm-colored scarf

Lindsey R. Peterson, Ph.D.

Digital Humanities Librarian / Assistant Professor of Practice, University of South Dakota

Working with a talented group of historians and students, I digitally publish and edit nineteenth-century archival records, including the ongoing Civil War & Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi and the developing Dakota Territory Papers Project digital documentary editions. These projects create freely available, discoverable, and accessible resources for the public and scholars, while also providing valuable professional training for the students who work as researchers on our teams.

As a war & society historian specializing in the American Civil War era, I also serve as the Managing Director of the Society of Civil War Historians. My current research analyzes how Union veterans and their families crafted place-specific collective remembrances of the Civil War in the trans-Mississippi West to bolster and defend their vision of westward expansion.


History & Digital Humanities Scholarship

Selected Publications

The Civil War & Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi

Formerly with NEH and NHPRC funding, CWRGM is digitizing, editing, and publishing over 22,000 letters, petitions, and telegrams written to Mississippi’s Governors during the American Civil War and Reconstruction (late-1859–1878). This rich collection of resources—with keyword searchability, transcription, subject tagging, annotation, and educator and scholarly resources—is freely available online at CWRGM.org.


Contact Me

Dr. Lindsey R. Peterson

  • Office 321C, I.D. Weeks Library, 414 E. Clark Street, Vermillion, SD 57069

  • Office Phone: 605-658-3399

  • Office Email: Lindsey <dot> R <dot> Peterson @USD.edu