As a scholar of religion in American life, I explore the tension-filled, but ultimately symbiotic relationship between evangelical Protestantism and industrial capitalism throughout the turn of the twentieth century. My work focuses on how workplace experiences and religious devotions have shaped the political engagements of ordinary people in ways both surprising and profound. For example, my current book project is a microhistory of a Sunday School teacher from Chicago’s West Side named Frank L. Wood who self-identified as a fundamentalist Christian in the 1920s while running for office on the Socialist Party ticket. Similarly, my other projects seek to unsettle reigning paradigms about the political inclinations of American evangelicalism by tracing the religious histories of ordinary people.
On this website you can find out more about my research and teaching, as well as my public history work at the Newberry Library where I am the Assistant Director of the Dr. William M. Scholl Center for American History & Culture. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me at the information on the right.
