Curriculum Vitae

Academic Positions

  • Assistant Professor of History, The University of Houston-Victoria, Fall 2014-Present
  • Lecturer, The University of Texas-Pan American, Fall 2013-Spring 2014
  • Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow, Rice University, Fall 2012-Spring 2013

Education

  • Ph.D., History, Rice University, 2012
  • M.A., History, Rice University, 2009
  • B.A., Honors History, magna cum laude, The University of Texas at Austin, 2007

Books

  • Making the Bible Belt: Texas Prohibitionists and the Politicization of Southern Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017).
  • The American Yawp: A History of the United States, Volumes I & II, Co-Edited with Ben Wright (Online; Stanford: Stanford University Press, Forthcoming January 2019).

Articles

  • “The Heathen at our Doors: Missionaries, Moral Reformers, and the Making of the ‘Mexican Problem’” Western Historical Quarterly 49 (Summer 2018), 127-153.
  • “Making ‘South Texas’: Race, Religion, and the Definition of a Region, 1877-1920,” The Journal of South Texas 25 (Fall 2012), 20-31.
  • “Conquering Salem: The Triumph of the Christian Vision in Turn-of-the-Twentieth-Century Texas,” The Southwestern Historical Quarterly 114 (January 2012), 232-257.
  • “Compelled to Dissent: The Politicization of Rev. John Joachim Zubly, 1760-1776,” Georgia Historical Quarterly 94 (Winter 2010), 453-478.

Reviews

  • Review of Michael Lewis, The Coming of Southern Prohibition: The Dispensary System and the Battle over Liquor in South Carolina, 1907-1915, in Southern Spaces (Forthcoming).
  • Review of Janet Schmelzer, Our Fighting Governor: The Life of Thomas M. Campbell and the Politics of Progressive Reform in Texas, in The Journal of Southern History 82 (February 2016), 201-202.
  • Review of David O’Donald Cullen and Kyle G. Wilkison, editors, The Texas Right: The Radical Roots of Lone Star Conservatism, in The Journal of Southern History, in The Journal of Southern History 81 (May 2015), 524-545.
  • Review of Robert Wuthnow, Rough Country: How Texas Became America’s Most Powerful Bible-Belt State, in The Journal of Southern Religion 16 (2014), http://jsreligion.org/ issues/vol16/locke.html.
  • Review of H. Paul Thompson, Jr., A Most Stirring and Significant Episode: Prohibition in Black Atlanta, in The Journal of Southern History 80 (August 2014), 739-740.
  • Review of Kelly McMichael, Sacred Memories: The Civil War Monument Movement in Texas, in Southern Historian 32 (Spring 2011), 94.
  • Review of Paul H. Carlson, Deep Time and the Texas High Plains: History and Geology, in Journal of Southern History 74 (November 2008), 1038.
  • Review of Wayne Grimsley, James B. Hunt: A North Carolina Progressive, in Journal of Southern History 74 (May 2008), 539-540.

Misc. Publications

  • “Prohibition” and “Temperance,” in Religion and Politics in America: An Encyclopedia of Church and State in American Life, edited by Frank J. Smith (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, July 2016).”
  • Co-Author, “A Free and Open Alternative to Traditional History Textbooks,” Perspectives on History: The Newsmagazine of the American Historical Association (March 2015), 22-23.
  • “The Risks of Religious Politics,” Op-Ed, Houston Chronicle (June 4, 2012).
  • “Blackface” and “The Jazz Singer” in Movies in American History: An Encyclopedia, edited by Philip DiMare (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, 2011).

Presentations

  • “America’s Pastor, Texas’s Apostle: Billy Graham’s Five-Decade Membership at First Baptist Dallas” Southern Historical Association Annual Meeting. Dallas, Texas. November 9-12, 2017 (forthcoming).
  • “The American Yawp and Open-Source History,” The Association for Information Science and Technology 2017 Symposium, “The Information and the Technology of Open Humanities,” April 18-19, 2017 (forthcoming).
  •  “Is Collaboration Worth It?” Roundtable Participant & Co-Organizer, The American Historical Association Annual Meeting. Denver, Colorado. January 5-8, 2017.
  • “Democratizing the Digital Humanities: The American Yawp as Case Study,” Invited Talk, Scholars’ Lab Speaker Series, The University of Virginia. March 19, 2015.
  •  “Open Texts, Digital History, and Democratic Scholarship,” Invited Talk, Talking History Series, The University of Mary Washington. March 17, 2015.
  • Panel Chair, “Baltimore and the Backcountry, 1760-1835,” Southern Historical Association Annual Meeting. Atlanta, Georgia. November 13-16, 2014.
  • “Academic Communities & Crowd-Sourced History: Creating The American Yawp,” First Annual Texas Digital Humanities Conference, University of Houston, Houston, Texas. April 10-12, 2014.
  • “Grassroots Righteousness: Calvert District Methodists and the Allure of Moral Politics,” Texas State Historical Association Annual Meeting. San Antonio, Texas. March 6-8, 2014.
  • “Subduing the Saintly: Anticlericalism and the Anti-Prohibition Movement in the South,” Southern Historical Association Annual Meeting. St. Louis, Missouri. October 31-November 3, 2013.
  • “‘Coming into Another Country’: Race, Religion, and Early-Twentieth-Century Perceptions of Houston, Texas,” The Past and Present of Race and Place in Houston, Texas. Rice University, Houston, Texas, February 26-27, 2013.
  • “The Burden of the Bible Belt: Senator Morris Sheppard and the Politics of a Christian Nation,” American Historical Association / Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era Annual Meeting. New Orleans, Louisiana, January 3-6, 2013.
  • “A ‘Frenzied Fanaticism’: The Scandal of Politicized Religion in Texas, 1908-1918,” Texas State Historical Association Annual Meeting. El Paso, Texas, March 3-5, 2011.
  • “The ‘Rural Evangelical Virus’ Reconsidered: Agrarian Resistance to Moral Reform in Texas, 1910-1914,” Agricultural History Society Annual Meeting. Winter Park, Florida, June 10-12, 2010.
  • “Making ‘South Texas’: Race, Religion, and the Definition of a Region, 1877-1920,” Southwestern Social Science Association Annual Meeting. Houston, Texas, March 31-April 3, 2010.
  • “The Southern Cleric: Religious Identity and Social Division, 1876-1918,” University of Texas American Studies Graduate Student Conference. Austin, Texas, September 24-25, 2009.
  • “Challenging a Culture: White Evangelicals and the Prohibition Movement in Texas, 1885-1918.” Southwestern Social Science Association Annual Meeting. Denver, Colorado, April 8-11, 2009.

Digital Projects & Publications

  • Co-Developer/Co-Editor, The American Yawp (www.americanyawp.com), Fall 2014-Present
    • A free and online, collaboratively built American history textbook.
    • *Winner, 2014 DH Awards’ “Best Use of DH for Public Engagement” Prize*
  • Developer, The Abolition Seminar (www.abolitionseminar.org), Fall 2013-Spring 2014
    • An online learning project funded by the Library Company of Philadelphia and the National Endowment for the Humanities

 Courses Taught

  • University of Houston-Victoria
    • United States History before 1877
    • United States History since 1877
    • Texas History
    • Gilded Age & Progressive Era
    • U.S.-Mexico Borderlands
    • The South (Graduate)
    • Religion in American History (Graduate)
    • Gilded Age & Progressive Era (Graduate)
  • University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley (formerly University of Texas-Pan American)
    • United States History before 1877
    • United States History since 1877
  • Rice University
    • Religion in American History
    • American Progressivism
    • American Conservatism
    • Academic Writing and Argument

Professional Service & Development

  • Chair, Martín de León Symposium Committee, Fall 2015-Present
  • Sponsor, History & Humanities Association, UHV, Fall 2014-Present
  • Member, Scholarship Oversight Committee, UHV, Fall 2015-Present
  • Sponsor, Walter Prescott Webb Society, UHV, Fall 2014-Spring 2015
  • Member, Core Curriculum Committee, UHV, Fall 2014-Spring 2015
  • Referee, Oxford University Press, Fall 2014
  • Referee, Journal of Southern History, Fall 2014
  • Faculty Leader, Dissertation Writing Group, Center for Written, Oral, and Visual Communication, Rice University, Fall 2012 – Spring 2013
  • Participant, Seminar in Pedagogical Methods, Rice University, Fall 2009
  • Teaching Assistant, Douglas Brinkley, History of the Cold War, Rice University, Fall 2009
  • Graduate Student Association Representative, Rice University, Fall 2008 – Spring 2009
  • Research Assistant for Dr. Allen J. Matusow, Rice University, Fall 2008 – Spring 2009
  • Editorial Assistant, The Jefferson Davis Papers, Rice University, Fall 2007 – Spring 2008

Media 

  • Quoted, “Is Collaboration Worth It?” Inside Higher Education (January 6, 2017).
  • Interviewed, “Compiling an Open History Textbook,” AHA Today (April 20, 2015).
  • Interviewed, “Free American History!” Inside Higher Education (March 11, 2015).
  • Interviewed, “A Conversation with Ben Wright and Joseph Locke, Editors of the American Yawp,” The American Historian (February, 2015).

Awards

  • Humanities Research Center Sarofim Teaching Fellowship, Rice University, 2012 (declined)
  • Dunlevie Teaching Fellowship, Rice University, 2010-2011
  • William and Madeline Welder Smith Research Travel Award, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin, 2009-10
  • Graduate Student Fellowship, Rice University, 2007-2012
  • Martin Parmer Scholarship in Texas History, University of Texas at Austin, 2007

Affiliations

  • The Association of American Historians
  • The Southern Historical Association
  • The Texas State Historical Association
  • Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era