Lauren B. Acker
Lecturer of History
Department of History and Geography
Georgia College & State University
Campus Box 047
Milledgeville, GA 31061
(478) 445-7380
lauren.acker@gcsu.edu
EDUCATION
University of California Los Angeles, Ph.D. United States History, June 2012
University of California Los Angeles, M.A. United States History, June 2008
Cornell University, College of Arts and Sciences, B.A. History, Magna Cum Laude, May 2006
RESEARCH
General Research Interests:
United States History, Southern History, African American History, Gilded Age/Progressive Era,
Jim Crow Era, Ethnic History, Jewish History, Urban History, Political History, Public History
Dissertation:
“Savannah’s New South: The Politics of Reform, 1885-1910”
Committee Members: Joan Waugh (chair), Brenda Stevenson, David N.
Myers and David O. Sears
PUBLICATIONS
Review of Blair L.M. Kelley, Right to Ride: Streetcar Boycotts and African American
Citizenship in the Era of Plessy v. Ferguson (University of North Carolina Press, 2010) in Essays
in History, (University of Virginia, 45, 2011).
Review of Crystal N. Feimster Southern Horrors: Women and the Politics of Rape and
Lynching, (Harvard University Press, 2009) in The Florida Historical Quarterly (Winter, 2011).
Editor and Writer, Women in the Civil War: A Unit of Study for Grades 8-10 for the National
Center for History in the Schools (The Regents, University of California, 2010).
Contributing Editor, Between Battles: Civil War Soldier’s Letters, 1861-1865 from the Gilder
Lehrman Collection, with introductions by the 2005 Gilder Lehrman History Scholars (New
York: The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, 2010).
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CONFERENCE PAPERS:
November 2010
“The Politics of Progress in Savannah, Georgia,” presented at the Southern
Historical Association Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina, as part of
the panel entitled, Race and the Politics of Power from Reconstruction to
Jim Crow.
February 2010
“AGITATE in a dignified way for your rights”: Sol C. Johnson and the
Savannah Tribune,” presented at the Fourth Annual New Perspectives on
African American History and Culture Conference at the University of
North Carolina, Chapel Hill, as part of the panel entitled, Black Leaders
and the Pursuits of Power.
December 2009
“Mayor Herman Myers and the Politics of Jewish Identity in Savannah,
Georgia,” presented at the Association for Jewish Studies Conference in
Los Angeles, as part of the panel entitled, Race, Religion, and
Representation: Jews in the Postbellum South.
FELLOWSHIPS, AWARDS AND HONORS
2014
2012
2009
2009
2008
2008
2005
NEH Summer Institute Participant, Westward Expansion and the
Constitution in the Early American Republic, University of Oklahoma
Summer Postdoctoral Fellowship, UCLA History Department
Research Fellow, Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Rosecrans Research Travel Stipend, UCLA History Department
Carey McWilliams Research Travel Stipend, UCLA History
Department
Graduate Summer Research Mentorship, UCLA Graduate Division
Gilder Lehrman History Scholar, Gilder Lehrman Institute of American
History
COURSES TAUGHT
Georgia College:
HIST 2111: American History to 1877
HIST 2112: American History since 1877
HIST 4415: Georgia: Colony and State
University of California, Los Angeles:
HIST 97D: Separate and Unequal: The South in the Age of Segregation
HIST 97D: The Problem of the Color Line: The South in the Twentieth Century
Golden West College (Online):
HIST G170: History of U.S. to 1876
HIST G175: History of the U.S. from 1876
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RELATED WORK AND RESEARCH EXPERIENCE
2009-2012
Graduate Assistant and Liaison for Summer Seminar, Gilder Lehrman
Institute of American History, UCLA,
2011
Education Coordinator for Summer Seminar, Gilder Lehrman Institute
of American History, UCLA
ACADEMIC SERVICE
2011-2012
Graduate Representative, Undergraduate Affairs Committee, UCLA
2007-2009
Social Action Committee, History Graduate Student Association, UCLA
2008-2009
Membership Committee, Southern Historical Association
AFFILIATIONS:
Southern Historical Association
American Historical Association
Organization of American Historians
Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era
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