Contact
| Dept: | HIST |
| Email: | chariton@iastate.edu |
| Office: | 612 Ross |
| Phone: | 515-294-7266 |
Bio
Major Professor: Dr. Jeff Bremer Areas of interest: American Midwest Topics of interest: Nineteenth-century United States, German and Irish immigration, race/ethnicity, religionI am interested in the long nineteenth century in the United States and all the changes that entails. My research examines the intersections between immigration and race/ethnicity through the lenses of religion and voluntary associations, especially Freemasonry. Much of my recent and current work focusses on Irish and German immigration to the American Midwest.
My work has appeared in the Journal of the Lutheran Historical Conference, Race and Ethnicity in the United States: From Pre-Contact to the Present, and the Yearbook of German-American Studies.
My research has been supported by the Albert Bernhardt Faust Research Award and Graduate Student Symposium Grants from the Society for German-American Studies, a Dissertation Fellowship from the State Historical Society of Iowa, and the Roswell and Elizabeth Garst Foundation Fellowship, and I have benefitted from workshops with the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, the State Historical Society of Iowa, the Institute for Humane Studies, and the Nineteenth-Century Studies Association.
Publications (selected):
“‘Some Ceremony Peculiar to Themselves’: The Continuation of a European Masonic Ceremony in Nineteenth-Century Wisconsin,” Yearbook of German-American Studies 56 (2021): 21-40.
“‘No Ill Will’: The Experience of a Black Conservative Lutheran in the Civil Rights-Era South.” Journal of the Lutheran Historical Conference (2018): 181-202.
Book reviews in the Annals of Iowa, the Journal of American Ethnic History, Muscogiana, Western Folklore, and the Yearbook of German-American Studies.
Recent Presentations:
“That Religion in Which All Men Agree: Freemasonry in American Culture Review,” with Robert L. D. Cooper. Masonic Authors’ Guild International. Season 2: MAGI Reviews, podcast, audio, July 29, 2024.
“Researching Germans in the Midwest: Immigration, Settlement, and Research Strategies,” with Michael D. Lacopo. Part of Midwest Family History Research: Migrations and Sources, GRIP Genealogy Institute 2024 (virtual), National Genealogical Society, June 24, 2024.
“Foreign Traditions and Fraternal Bonds: German American Freemasons in the United States,” Max Kade Institute for German-American Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, virtual presentation, April 24, 2024.
“German Americans and Masonic Baptism in the Antebellum United States,” at the 12th International Conference on Freemasonry, Berkeley California, March 30, 2024.
“German Freemasons on the Frontier: Fraternal Lodge No. 221 in Davenport, Iowa,” Iowa History 101, State Historical Society of Iowa, virtual, December 14, 2023.
“Ships in the U.S. Slave Trade, Irish Famine Relief, and Racial Identity Formation," Graduate Research Conference, Institute for Humane Studies, February 10, 2023.
“The Founders of the Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod Encounter American Freemasonry,” at the Lutheran Historical Conference, October 6, 2022.
“An Irishman Among Germans: John B. Hyland and the Turnverein of Madison, Wisconsin,” American Conference for Irish Studies, April 29, 2022.
Education
BA, History and Archaeological Studies, University of Wisconsin La Crosse, 2011