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Dr. Nora Pat Small

Professor of History

Office: 2526 - Coleman Hall
Phone: 217-581-6380
Email: npsmall@eiu.edu


Nora Pat Small's Vita

Currently national service to the museums profession consists of serving as the National Program Committee representative for the Committe on Museum Professional Training, a standing Professional Network committee of the American Alliance of Museums (formerly the American Association of Museums).

For 2012-13 I will also be serving as search chair for our department position in History/Historical Administration, and as chair of the Council on Graduate Studies.

Office hours vary by semester. Please call or email for information.


Frequently Taught Courses


HIS 2010 US History to 1877

HIS 5050 American Architectural History

HIS 5060 Historic Preservation in the United States

Education

BA, University of Delaware, Art History

Master of Architectural History, Certificate in Historic Preservation, University of Virginia; Master's Thesis: Lighthouses of the Eastern Seaboard

PhD, Boston University; Dissertation: "Beauty and Convenience: The Architectural Reordering of Sutton, Massachusetts, 1790-1840"

Professional Organizations

Vernacular Architecture Forum

Society of Architectural Historians

American Association of Museums, Committee on Museum Professional Training (COMPT) board member

American Association for State and Local History

Society for the History of the Early American Republic

Speakers Bureau

For more information, please visit the Speakers Bureau Webpage.

U.S. Architectural History and Vernacular Architecture Architecture of the Early American Republic Historic Preservation in the United States and locally

Research


My research focuses on the built environment of the early Republic in the US. I am currently exploring the relationship between Federal building programs (specifically lighthouses) and the building trades prior to 1850, and the transformation of a utilitarian structure and landscape (the lighthouse and environs) into a picturesque icon.

Publications

Beauty and Convenience: Architecture and Order in the New Republic, University of Tennessee Press, 2003

Conference Presentations

Most recent:

Commenter, Panel on “The CCC and the Land Lincoln: Interpreting a Layered History at Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site,” Illinois History Conference, Springfield, September, 2011

"The Economic and Iconic Power of Lighthouses in the Early Republic," presented at the Society for the History of the Early American Republic conference, July, 2009

" 'To Embrace or Breach': Fence Meanings and Metaphors," in conjunction with Dr. Debra Reid, lecture delivered at multiple sites in conjunction with local openings of the Smithsonian Institution's Museums on Main Street exhibit "Between Fences," Fall 2005-Spring 2006, and Fall 2008-Spring 2009

Community

Charleston Historic Preservation Commission, ex officio member

Lincoln-Sargent Farm Foundation Board, secretary



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