Education

My dissertation — “The Expansionist Cause: Union Civil War Commemorations as Weapons of Colonization in the American West” (supervised by Dr. Susannah J. Ural) — examines how western Union veterans and their families commemorated the American Civil War in the trans-Mississippi West. Using analytical methods of gender, race, region, and memory, I argue western Union veterans and their families constructed a western-centric memory of the war to bolster their efforts to colonize indigenous peoples.

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My M.A. thesis, completed under the supervision of Dr. Kurt Hackemer, examined Iowa women’s involvement in wartime Local Ladies’ Aid Societies and the post-war Woman’s Relief Corps. Based on this research, “‘We Are Now at Gettysburg’: Gender and Place in the Iowa Woman’s Relief Corps’ Monument to Jennie Wade“ appeared in the December 2022 issue of Civil War History and “’Iowa Excelled Them All’: Iowa Local Ladies’ Aid Societies Relief on the Civil War Frontier, 1861–1865” appeared in the fall 2016 issue of The Middle West Review.

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As a senior at Alta High School, I was a finalist in the Individual Documentary category for my film on the birth control pill at the National History Day national competition in Washington, D.C.

Working under the direction of Dr. William Feis, I presented Honor’s research on the film and novel Gone With The Wind and the Lost Cause. This research sparked my continued interest in Civil War memory studies.