Alumni Updates

Every year we look forward to sharing the progress of our alumni!

Publications

Coming Home to Nez Perce Country: The Niimíipuu Campaign to Repatriate Their Exploited Heritage

Trevor Bond (PhD 2017), associate dean for Digital Initiatives and Special Collections at WSU, published Coming Home to Nez Perce Country: The Niimíipuu Campaign to Repatriate Their Exploited Heritage (WSU Press, 2021).

In 1847, missionary Henry Spalding shipped two barrels of “Indian curiosities”—exquisite Nez Perce shirts, dresses, baskets, horse regalia, and more—to an Ohio friend. The collection eventually made its way to a historical society, and in 1993, the tribe learned they could reclaim their materials. But only if they could raise $608,100 fast.

Greg Hall (PhD 1999) authored a book forthcoming in August: Writing Labor’s Emancipation: The Anarchist Life and Times of Jay Fox (University of Washington Press).
Jay Fox (1870–1961) was a journalist, intellectual, and labor militant, whose influence rippled across the country. In Writing Labor’s Emancipation, Hall traces Fox’s unorthodox life to shed light on the shifting dynamics in U.S. labor radicalism from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century.

Hall is a professor of history at Western Illinois University.

Leveraging an Empire: Settler Colonialism and the Legalities of Citizenship in the Pacific Northwes

Jacki Hedlund Tyler (PhD 2015) has published her first book, Leveraging an Empire: Settler Colonialism and the Legalities of Citizenship in the Pacific Northwest (University of Nebraska Press).
Through an evaluation of Oregon’s exclusionary laws, Leveraging an Empire examines the process of settler colonialism in the evolving region of the Pacific Northwest between the years 1841 and 1859. Oregon laws—through nuanced emphases and new articulations—related to national issues of slavery, immigration, land ownership, education, suffrage, and naturalization.

Tyler is an assistant professor of history and director of Social Studies Education at Eastern Washington University.

Awards

Jennifer Binczewski (PhD 2017) won the Pacific Coast Conference for British Studies award for the best article published by a society member in 2020 for “Power in Vulnerability: Widows and Priest Holes in the Early Modern English Catholic Community,” in British Catholic History 35, no. 1 (2020): 1-24. In addition, Binczewski won the 2021 Harold J. Grimm Prize for the best article in Reformation Studies (any discipline) published the previous year, awarded by the Sixteenth Century Society & Conference for her article, “Power in Vulnerability: Widows and Priest Holes in the Early Modern English Catholic Community,” in British Catholic History 35, no. 1 (2020): 1–24.

Dulce Kersting-Lark (MA 2013) won the Esto Perpetua Award from the Idaho State Historical Society. The award honors people and organizations who collect, preserve, and promote state and local history. Kersting-Lark is also the new head of the University of Idaho Library’s special collections and archives, and serves on the board of the Idaho Association of Museums.

Brad Richardson (BA, WSU Vancouver, 2012), director of the Clark County Historical Museum, was awarded the David Douglas Award by the Washington State Historical Society. This award honors the significant contribution of an individual or organization through projects, exhibits, publications, or educational products that inform or expand appreciation of Washington state history.