Katherine C. Grier Department of History University of South Carolina Columbia, SC 29208 (803)777-9786 (803) 777-4494 FAX Katherine.Grier@sc.edu

MY CURRENT POSITION is Assistant Professor in the Department of History, where I began teaching in the fall of 1998. My primary responsibilities are associated with the Public History Program, where I advise the students pursuing a Master of Arts degree in the Museum Studies and Material Culture track. My areas of scholarly specialization include

• material culture studies the history of everyday life in the United States the history of animal-human interaction
• museum studies, especially issues associated with collection development and interpretation and with exhibition development.

MY PREVIOUS EMPLOYMENT EXPERIENCE includes six years as a staff member (ultimately Acting Director) of the Obert C. and Grace A. Tanner Humanities Center, University of Utah. At the same time I served as Assistant Professor in the Department of History , teaching courses on the history of everyday life, material culture studies, and museum studies. From 1985 to 1990 I was Historian at The Strong Museum, Rochester, New York. My responsibilities included conceptualizing, planning, and writing for publications, exhibitions, public programs, and symposia. Between 1979 and 1982, I served as a curator and assistant planner for the historic sites owned and operated by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Austin, Texas. My duties including research and writing for historic furnishing plans; acquiring objects for historic site collections; preparing house tours; installing historic furnishings following architectural restoration; collections management and research; preparing and monitoring conservation contracts, and training field staff in museum methods. MY EDUCATION includes a bachelor of arts degree in political science from Princeton University (1975) and a Master of Arts in History Museum Studies, Cooperstown Graduate Programs, New York State Historical Association and State University College, Oneonta (1980). I attended the Ph.D Program in the History of American Civilization in Department of History, University of Delaware from 1982 to 1985 and completed my degree in 1988. MY WORK AS A SCHOLAR OF AMERICAN MATERIAL CULTURE. I study American social and cultural history using material culture as my lens. "Material culture" is a term that originated in anthropology. Putting the words "material" and "culture" together suggests that artifacts -- things made an used by people in the past -- give physical presence to culture, the distinctive understanding of "the way the world works" that is shared by a group of people. That is the premise underlying my research. I add artifacts to the range of written documents traditionally used by historians. The list of publications in my Full Vita offers a sampling of the subjects that interest me. Much of my work explores what it meant to be "middle class" in the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I have written about

• the evolution of spatial arrangements and furnishing in houses changes in household routines and social life involving food preparation and service the ways consumers obtained information on desirable goods in the nineteenth century, the uses of material culture in the performance of gender identity, the evolution of pet keeping in nineteenth and early twentieth century households, and
• changing ideas about cruelty and kindness to animals.

MY CURRENT RESEARCH reconstructs and interprets the changing relationships of people and animals in the past. I am completing a book-length manuscript titled PETS IN AMERICA: A HISTORY, which I anticipate will be published in 2002. This book examines the expansion of pet keeping in the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I use a wide range of written sources (diaries and letters, magazines, books of advice, government records, and so on) and artifacts from pet portraits to bird cages to reconstruct the lived experience of pet keeping in households and the ideas underlying this change. The project also discusses the commercialization of pet keeping: the development of pet stores, special pet foods and medicines, equipment, and other products intended to enhance the relationships of people and the animals they cared for.
 

Full Vita
Graduate Courses offered by Kasey Grier
Undergraduate courses
Undergraduate public history internship program
Learn more about material culture studies at USC
Learn more about museum studies at USC
Learn more about the Pets In America project
Want To See Something Cool? Pet Memorabilia