Featured Faculty Research
Pull: Networking and Success since Benjamin Franklin
by Pamela Walker Laird, published by Harvard University Press
2006 Harold F. Williamson Prize, Business History Conference
2006 Hagley Prize in Business History, The Business History Conference & The Hagley Museum
Redefining the way we view business success, Pamela Laird demolishes the popular American self-made story as she exposes the social dynamics that navigate some people toward opportunity and steer others away. Who gets invited into the networks of business opportunity? What does an unacceptable candidate lack? The answer is social capital--all those social assets that attract respect, generate confidence, evoke affection, and invite loyalty.
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Beyond the Reproductive Body: The Politics of Women's Health and Work in Early Victorian England
by Marjorie Levine-Clark, published by the Ohio State University Press
“Levine-Clark's contribution is . . . to present the perspectives of working women themselves. She has skillfully and effectively juxtaposed the women's narratives with the ‘official’ narrative constructed by medical men and social reformers and demonstrated significant points of divergence between them. For example, she has emphasized that working women thought of themselves as able-bodied workers, not as women incapacitated by their reproductive organs. This is one of Levine-Clark's intriguing and provocative conclusions that should prompt historians to reexamine early Victorian ideas about gender, class, and health.” —American Historical Review
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A Nation of Villages: Riot and Rebellion in the Mexican Huasteca, 1750-1850
by Michael T. Ducey, published by University of Arizona Press
The years from 1769-1850 were a turbulent time in rural Mexico. Mexican villagers became skilled insurrectionists. In this book, Michael Ducey asks not just why villagers revolted but how their discontent fit into the political drama of early national Mexico. This region’s peasants were both remarkably diverse and politically astute. Villagers adapted colonial political culture and later republican ideas to fashion local institutions that fit their own needs. Over the course of a hundred years, peasant tactics and political discourse evolved in a constant dialogue with the changing political climate. A Nation of Villages ably demonstrates that rural villagers were more aware of elite ideologies than urban rulers were of the villagers’ political ideas This long-term analysis of one region illuminates how rural people helped shape the republican state.
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Buildings of Colorado
by Thomas J. Noel, published by Oxford University Press
Tracing Colorado's architectural development from its Native American origins, Buildings of Colorado covers the villages of Mexican settlers and mining camps hastily constructed during the Pikes Peak gold rush and later bonanzas. It features the forts, farms, and ranches of pioneers; homes, churches, and schools of early towns; and modern industrial centers and vacation spots. Prehistoric cliff dwellings of the Anasazi Indians at Mesa Verde, the U.S. Air Force Academy north of Colorado Springs, and contemporary ski resorts such as Aspen and Telluride exemplify the dramatically disparate structures of Colorado's built environment.
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Riding High: Colorado Ranchers and 100 Years of the National Western Stock Show
by Thomas J. Noel, published by Fulcrum Publishing
For 100 years, the National Western Stock Show, Rodeo, and Horse Show has celebrated the Western way of life, attracting millions of visitors from around the world. The largest show of its kind in the US, the Stock Show serves as a liaison between the Western agricultural industry and the public and includes demonstrations, exhibits, rodeo events, and livestock auctions. The Stock Show allows hundreds of young people each year to participate in some of the events and to raise many of the animals shown and auctioned.
While detailing the history of the Stock Show through lively text and attractive photos, many of which have never been seen in public before, the book also tells the larger history of ranching in the American West, one of the region’s richest cultural legacies. In an era when large corporations dominate the livestock and agriculture industry in America, the book is a refreshing and nostalgic look back to the time when ranching was the industry of the West.
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