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History Faculty

Dr. Alison Parkerparker

Chair, History Department

Office: 132 Albert W. Brown Building
Phone: 585.395.5694
E-Mail: aparker@brockport.edu

Specialization

  • 19th and 20th Century U.S. History

Education

  • PhD The Johns Hopkins University, History, 1993.
  • MA The Johns Hopkins University, History, 1990. 
  • BA University of California, Berkeley, History and the History of Art, Phi Beta Kappa, 1988.

Awards and Honors

  • Humanities Project Grant, University of Rochester, for organizing a conference "Gender and Race in American History," Spring 2010.
  • NEH Summer Seminar, "Motherhood and the Nation-State in Western Societies Times," Directed by Karen Offen & Marilyn Boxer, Institute for Research on Women and Gender, Stanford University, Summer 2002.

Courses Taught 

  • American History Survey
  • American Women's History & Family History
  • American Legal History
  • Race and Gender in American History

Publications 

Books:

Edited Books:

  • Beyond Black and White: Race, Ethnicity and Gender in the U.S. South and Southwest, edited by  Stephanie Cole and Alison M. Parker, Texas A&M University Press, 2004.
  • Women and the Unstable State in Nineteenth-Century America, edited by Alison M. Parker and  Stephanie Cole, Texas A&M University Press, 2000.

Book Series Editor:

  • Co-editor, with Carol Faulkner (Syracuse University), of a new series, Gender and Race in American History, for the University of Rochester Press, 2008-.

 Articles:

  • "Clubwomen, Reformers, Workers, and Feminists of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era," in Women's Rights in the Age of Suffrage: People and Perspectives, edited by Crista DeLuzio (New York: ABC-CLIO, 2009).
  • The Seneca Falls Convention of 1848: A Pivotal Moment in Nineteenth-Century America." Review essay of Seneca Falls and the Origins of the Women's Rights Movement , by Sally McMillen, for Reviews in American History (Sept. 2008).
  • "Women Activists and the US Congress, 1870s-1920s," in The American Congress: Building of Democacy, edited by Julian Zelizer, (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2004).
  • "Women's Rights and 'Speech Communities' in American Legal History," Review essay of Sandra Van Burkleo, Belonging to the World: Women's Rights and American Constitutional Culture, in Reviews in American History, Vol. 31, N.1 (March 2003).
  • "The Case for Reform Antecedents to the Woman Suffrage Movement," in Votes for Women: A  Concise History of the Suffrage Movement, Oxford University Press, 2002.
  • "'What We Do Expect the People Legislatively to Effect': Frances Wright, Moral Reform, and  State Legislation" in Women and the Unstable State in Nineteenth-Century America, edited by Alison M. Parker and Stephanie Cole, Texas A&M University Press, 2000.
  • "'Hearts Uplifted and Minds Refreshed': The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and the  Production of Pure Culture," in Journal of Women’s History, Summer 1999.
  • "Mothering the Movies: Women Reformers and the Censorship of Popular Culture," in Movie Censorship and American Culture, edited by Francis Couvares, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996.

Conferences and Presentations 

  • Invited Talk: "Disability's Disclosure: The Public Life & Private Ailments of Mary Church Terrell," Johns Hopkins University, Spring 2012.
  • Presenter & Organizer: "'The Picture of Health': Mary Church Terrell's Privatizing of Her Body's Problems," for a Workshop: "The Body and Biography: Feminist Biographers and the Problem of Disclosure,: at the Berkshire Conference on Women's History, June 2011.
  • Invited by the Program Committee to be part of a featured panel on "Gender and Citizenship" at the Organization of American Historians, March 2011.
  • “Women and Electoral Politics in the Long 1920s: Race, Gender, and Political Culture," Chair, American Historical Association, January 2011.
  • “Possibilities and Limits of Biography in Comparative Perspective,” Roundtable Participant, American Historical Association, January 2010.
  • "Breaking Boundaries: Women in Nineteenth-Century American Politics," Roundtable Participant, Organization of American Historians, March 2009.
  • "Re-Envisioning Mary Church Terrell: From Self-Help to a Critique of 'White Lawlessness,'" Seminar on Women’s Biographies, led by Judith Zinsser, Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Summer 2008.
  • "Frances Watkins Harper: Anti-Slavery, Public Advocacy, and 'Christian Affiliation' in the United States," American Historical Association, January 2008.
  • "Justice is Not Fulfilled So Long as Woman is Unequal Before the Law: Women's Rights, Race and Activism in the Writings of Frances Watkins Harper," Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Summer 2005.
  • "Sarah Grimke's Theory of Women's Political Co-Equality," Society for Historians of the Early American Republic (SHEAR), Summer 2002.
  •  “Culture Wars and Censorship,” Organization of American Historians, April, 2000.

Current Project

  • I have recently begun research for a biography on Mary Church Terrell (1863-1954), the first president of the National Association of Colored Women and a co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Last Updated 2/6/12

News

Dr. Wakefield interviewed by Ed Hinton for ESPN on NASCAR, Jimmie Johnson, and Chad Knaus

Dr. Moyer on Le Roy Health Crisis & Salem Witch trials

Dr. Macpherson wins prestigious Goveia Book Prize from the Association of Caribbean Historians

Events

Meet and Greet the Professors, March 21st, 2:30-3:20.  Location TBD.

Robert Marcus Memorial Lecture, April 5, 2012, 7:30 pm, New York Room, Cooper Hall.