About Stephen Hausmann

Dr. Stephen R. Hausmann is a Mellon Fellow with the National Park Service working for Mount Rushmore National Monument. Starting in 2025, he will begin teaching as an assistant professor of American environmental history at Appalachian State University. He can be reached at hausmannsr@appstate.edu

NBN Episodes hosted by Stephen:

Olivia Chilcote, "Unrecognized in California: Federal Acknowledgment and the San Luis Rey Band of Mission Indians" (U Washington Press, 2024)

November 30, 2024

Unrecognized in California

Olivia Chilcote
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

California has more unrecognized Native tribes than any other state - what led to this strange state of affairs, and what does this mean in practice? …

Timothy E. Nelson, "Blackdom, New Mexico: The Significance of the Afro-Frontier, 1900-1930" (Texas Tech UP, 2023)

November 22, 2024

Blackdom, New Mexico

Timothy E. Nelson
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

By most accounts, Blackdom, New Mexico existed from 1900-1930. However, as historian and artist Dr. Timothy Nelson argues in his new book, the Black c…

Yolonda Youngs, "Framing Nature: The Creation of an American Icon at the Grand Canyon" (U Nebraska Press, 2024)

October 9, 2024

Framing Nature

Yolonda Youngs
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

Perhaps no American landscape is as iconic as the rainbow rocks of Arizona's Grand Canyon. Yet, as the geographer Yolonda Youngs argues, the Grand Can…

Eric Steven Zimmer, "Red Earth Nation: A History of the Meskwaki Settlement" (U Oklahoma Press, 2024)

October 5, 2024

Red Earth Nation

Eric Steven Zimmer
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

In 1857, the Meskwaki Nation began the long process of piecing their homelands back together. After decades of war, dispossession, and removal at the …

Pamela Riney-Kehrberg, "When a Dream Dies: Agriculture, Iowa, and the Farm Crisis of the 1980s" (UP of Kansas, 2022)

September 13, 2024

When a Dream Dies

Pamela Riney-Kehrberg
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

Unlike a flood or fire, a the Farming Crisis of the 1980s did not have a set beginning of ending. Rather, it was a rolling, often invisible, disaster …

Holly Miowak Guise, "Alaska Native Resilience: Voices from World War II" (U Washington Press, 2024)

August 27, 2024

Alaska Native Resilience

Holly Miowak Guise
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

The Japanese invasion of the Aleutian Islands during World War II changed Alaska, serving as justification for a large American military presence acro…

Wesley G. Phelps, "Before Lawrence v. Texas: The Making of a Queer Social Movement" (U Texas Press, 2023)

August 24, 2024

Before Lawrence v. Texas

Wesley G. Phelps
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

In 2003, in a ruling that bordered on poetic, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in Lawrence v. Texas that sexual behavior between consenting…

Stephen J. Pyne, "Pyrocene Park: A Journey Into the Fire History of Yosemite National Park" (U Arizona Press, 2023)

July 30, 2024

Pyrocene Park

Stephen J. Pyne
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

How is Yosemite National Park a microcosm for our warming, fire-driven, world? Arizona State University emeritus professor Stephen Pyne answers that…

James Mallery, "City of Vice: Transience and San Francisco's Urban History, 1848-1917" (U Nebraska Press, 2024)

July 16, 2024

City of Vice

James Mallery
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

San Francisco began its American life as a city largely made up of transient men, arriving from afar to participate in the gold rush and various atten…

David H. Wilson, "Northern Paiutes of the Malheur: High Desert Reckoning in Oregon Country" (U Nebraska Press, 2022)

June 29, 2024

Northern Paiutes of the Malheur

David H. Wilson
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

Between the mid-19th century and the start of the twentieth century, the Northern Paiute people of the Great Basin went from a self-sufficient tribe w…

Kathleen DuVal, "Native Nations: A Millennium in North America" (Random House, 2024)

June 20, 2024

Native Nations

Kathleen DuVal
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

In this sweeping new history, esteemed University of North Carolina historian Kathleen DuVal makes the case for the ongoing, ancient, and dynamic hist…

Danielle R. Olden, "Racial Uncertainties: Mexican Americans, School Desegregation, and the Making of Race in Post–Civil Rights America" (U California Press, 2022)

May 22, 2024

Racial Uncertainties

Danielle R. Olden
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

Mexican Americans have often fit uncertainly into the white/non-white binary that has goverens much of American history. After Colorado, and much of t…

Daniel P. Ott, "Harvesting History: McCormick's Reaper, Heritage Branding, and Historical Forgery" (U Nebraska Press, 2023)

May 20, 2024

Harvesting History

Daniel P. Ott
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

Cyrus McCormick invented the revolutionary mechanical reaper in 1831...right? At least, that's how the story has been told for decades. In Harvesting …

Andrés Reséndez, "Conquering the Pacific: An Unknown Mariner and the Final Great Voyage of the Age of Discovery" (Mariner Books, 2022)

April 27, 2024

Conquering the Pacific

Andrés Reséndez
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

The Pacific Ocean is twice the size of the Atlantic, and while humans have been traversing its current-driven maritime highways for thousands of years…

Steven C. Beda, "Strong Winds and Widow Makers: Workers, Nature, and Environmental Conflict in Pacific Northwest Timber Country" (U Illinois Press, 2022)

April 26, 2024

Strong Winds and Widow Makers

Steven C. Beda
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

Imagine an environmentalist. Are you picturing a Birkenstock-clad hippie? An office worker who hikes on weekends? A political lobbyist? What about a m…

John William Nelson, "Muddy Ground: Native Peoples, Chicago's Portage, and the Transformation of a Continent" (UNC Press, 2023)

March 23, 2024

Muddy Ground

John William Nelson
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

The birchbark canoe is among the most remarkable Indigenous technologies in North America, facilitating mobility throughout the watery world of the Gr…

Christina Gish Hill et al., "National Parks, Native Sovereignty: Experiments in Collaboration" (U Oklahoma Press, 2024)

March 20, 2024

National Parks, Native Sovereignty

Christina Gish Hill, Matthew J. Hill, and Brooke Neely
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

The history of Native people and the National Park Service in the United States is fraught. Dispossession, cultural insensitivity, and outright erasur…

Sarah Keyes, "American Burial Ground: A New History of the Overland Trail" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023)

February 25, 2024

American Burial Ground

Sarah Keyes
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

The Overland Trail into the American West is one of the most culturally recognizable symbols of the American past: white covered wagons traversing the…

Marc Arsell Robinson, "Washington State Rising: Black Power on Campus in the Pacific Northwest" (NYU Press, 2023)

February 2, 2024

Washington State Rising

Marc Arsell Robinson
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

In the late 1960s, as the United States was wracked by protests, assassinations, and political unrest, students in Washington State seized the moment.…

Charlotte Coté, "A Drum in One Hand, a Sockeye in the Other: Stories of Indigenous Food Sovereignty from the Northwest Coast" (U Washington Press, 2022)

January 30, 2024

A Drum in One Hand, a Sockeye in the Other

Charlotte Coté
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

Food is at the center of everything, writes University of Washington professor of American Indian Studies Charlotte Coté. In A Drum in One Hand, A Soc…

Robert Michael Morrissey, "People of the Ecotone: Environment and Indigenous Power at the Center of Early America" (U Washington Press, 2022)

January 10, 2024

People of the Ecotone

Robert Michael Morrissey
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

By putting the Midwest at the center of Vast Early America, University of Illinois historian Robert Morrissey reconfigures the power dynamics in the s…

Peter Richardson, "Savage Journey: Hunter S. Thompson and the Weird Road to Gonzo" (U California Press, 2022)

December 15, 2023

Savage Journey

Peter Richardson
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

Hunter S. Thompson was never a hippie, but his writing nonetheless helped define the counterculture and the San Francisco scene of the 1960s and early…

Lindsey Claire Smith, "Urban Homelands: Writing the Native City from Oklahoma" (U Nebraska Press, 2023)

December 10, 2023

Urban Homelands

Lindsey Claire Smith
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

What do Tulsa, Santa Fe, and New Orleans have in common? When viewed from the perspective of Indigenous arts and culture, the answer is quite a bit. I…

Mia Mask, "Black Rodeo: A History of the African American Western" (U Illinois Press, 2023)

November 24, 2023

Black Rodeo

Mia Mask
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

Did you know Sidney Poitier was a western icon? In a genre best known for John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, African American actors and directors have pl…