Below you will find public-facing and published works of mine.
This research and poster was presented at the 2024 College of Letters and Science Undergraduate Symposium, University of Wisconsin- Stevens Point. The poster would then go on to be displayed in the Collins Classroom Center and is uploaded to the MINDS @ UW repository.
Abstract: This research explores the history of how fear has shaped public and private recreational facilities and how Club Disney is a prime example of this fear in effect. The late 1800s and early 1900s saw a rise in public parks as they were offered up as solutions to societal ills like juvenile delinquency. In the mid-20th century, fear around desegregation prompted the rise of privately owned recreation facilities like swimming pools. In the late 20th century, juvenile delinquency, drugs, and kidnappings prompted anxiety around public recreational facilities, prompting for an increase in private children's recreational facilities like Club Disney. Club Disney, even though being situated in affluent suburbs where this danger would be largely unfounded, capitalized on parents’ anxiety. The centers emphasized the safety and the educational aspects of their facilities to keep parents at ease. Club Disney, even though it had a short life span of two years, is a prime example of how fear can cause a rise in private recreational facilities, particularly by internationally recognizable brands.
For this exhibit, I was a part of a team, and was placed into a de facto team leader role, that researched, wrote, curated, and installed an exhibit on the legacy of activism, negotiation, and resistance by Native American communities in response to land dispossession in and around Stevens Point. The exhibit was on display at the Dreyfus University Center, Stevens Point, WI from Dec 2022-Jan 2023 as well as on display in he Waupaca Public Library, Waupaca, WI from Nov-Dec 2023, as part of the library’s larger “Waupaca History 101" programming. The exhibit is currently uploaded in the MINDS @ UW repository.
Abstract: These panels share stories from within an hour’s drive of Stevens Point. As white settlement transformed the landscape, native people defied demands that they leave. They established places to live, ways of making a living, and connections with one another. To convey such experiences, the Ojibwe scholar Gerald Vizenor uses the term “survivance.” Familiar tellings of Native American history often dwell on tragedy, victimhood, or bare survival. Instead, Vizenor and others call for attention to Indigenous peoples’ “active presence in the world now.” The people described here remained actively present where they were not supposed to be. Their descendants remain actively present today.
I researched and wrote, this biography on Edwin Perkins, the inventor of the drink Kool-Aid, during my time interning at the Oak Park-River Forest Museum in Oak Park, Illinois. The biography is currently uploaded on the OPRF Museum's website.