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Natalia Shevin I’m a history major and dance minor from New York City. The past two summers in the Oberlin College Archives I have been able to indulge my love for material culture and incessant need to historicize everything. Reading the unpublished records of Oberlin women has revolutionized my understanding of social change. Crafting each biographical narrative is like building them a house: roomy enough for all of their contradictions or complications, but comfortable for them to live in. When I’m not gossiping under the guise of academia, I’m dancing, scrapbooking, or eating babka. |
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Becca Debus I’m a History and Environmental Studies double major, from essentially the entire American coastline (I was a Navy brat; we moved around a bit). I was going to be a Creative Writing major, until I realized that I hate literary fiction, and decided that history contained better stories anyways. Working with these collections in the Oberlin Archives has allowed me to be both a storyteller and a more sedate version of Nancy Drew, as I sift through old papers, searching for the clues that enable me to put together a narrative of the past that still has meaning for the present. This fall, I will happily embark on writing an Honor Thesis that combines my two historical loves -American Feminisms and the Middle Ages. On my days off, I am most likely to be found curled up with a fantasy novel and a nice cup of tea. |
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Kate Diamond
I’m a politics major and a minor in computer science and East Asian studies. I’ve always been interested in history and influential women, and this project was a very rewarding way to combine that interest with my interest in web design. I’m very proud to attend a school that has such a rich history in feminism and civil rights, and I’m delighted to be able to explore that history in such detail and view original documents.
I’m looking forward to working on more web projects with Oberlin Special Collections, but while I’m not doing that, I’ll be discussing books, writing, and learning to cook.
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Joanna Wiley I’m a history major from small-town Pennsylvania considering an MA in art history. Writing for this website led me to a new appreciation for Oberlin College and the women drawn to it over the years. I wouldn’t have traded the experience for anything. Outside academia, I write historical fiction and make oil paintings. Ask me about the Brontë sisters, Gilbert and Sullivan, or cheesy pop ballads from before I was born. |
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Hannah Van Reed I am a member of Oberlin’s class of 2015, graduating with a B.A. in History. I was fortunate to be involved with this project in two capacities; in the spring of my sophomore year I was enrolled in the First Wave American Feminisms class, while during my senior year I returned to the course as a research assistant. At Oberlin, I served as an intern with the Oberlin Heritage Center and completed a history honors thesis chronicling the success of the emerging women’s cycling movement in the United States during the last decade of the nineteenth century. I currently live and work at Middlebridge School in Rhode Island and look forward to continuing to see the many ways in which history can come to life in the classroom. |
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Carol Lasser I retire in 2016 after 36 years of teaching history at Oberlin College. I enjoy trying out new approaches to teaching, and I have delighted in creating americanfeminisms.org with my students, who may now understand more about why the Oberlin College Archives is one of my favorite places in the world. In 1998, I introduced an innovative NEH-funded course “Oberlin History as American History,” teaming college students with high schoolers to undertake joint original research projects. I have chaired the History Department and the Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies Program. I have written widely on women, gender, and teaching my books include Antebellum American Women (with Stacey Robertson, 2010); Teaching American History ( co-edited with Gary Kornblith 2009); Friends and Sisters: Letters Between Lucy Stone and Antoinette Brown Blackwell, 1846-1893, (co-edited with Marlene Merrill, 1987) and Educating Men and Women Together: Coeducation in a Changing World (1987). With Gary Kornblith, I am completing Elusive Utopia: A History of Race in Oberlin, 1833-1920. In 2016, I was elected president of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic.
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