Scholar - Women Also Know History

Participant Info

Keywords: Oral history, public humanities, African American history, urban history, 20th century US history

About Me: Abigail Perkiss is an Assistant Professor of History at Kean University in Union, NJ. Her first book, Making Good Neighbors: Civil Rights, Liberalism, and Integration in Postwar Philadelphia (Cornell University Press, 2014), examines the creation of intentionally integrated neighborhoods in the latter half of the twentieth century.

Perkiss completed a joint J.D./Ph.D. in U.S. history at Temple University. She is the Managing Editor of the Oral History Review, and Vice President of Oral History in the Mid-Atlantic Region. Previously, she earned a graduate certificate from the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in Portland, Maine.

She is currently directing Staring out to Sea: The Story of Superstorm Sandy in Three Bayshore Communities, an oral history project documenting the impact and aftermath of Hurricane Sandy along the Sandy Hook Bay. An outgrowth of the project, Staring out to Sea: Hurricane Sandy on New Jersey’s Forgotten Shore, is forthcoming with Cornell University Press.

Recent Publications: Staring out to Sea: Hurricane Sandy on New Jersey’s Forgotten Shore (Cornell University Press, forthcoming)

Changing the Game: Title IX, Gender, and Athletics in an American University (W.W. Norton, forthcoming)

“Staring out to Sea: The Transformative Potential of Oral History in the Undergraduate Classroom.” Oral History Review 43 no. 2 (2016), 392-407.

Making Good Neighbors: Civil Rights, Liberalism, and Integration in Postwar Philadelphia (Cornell University Press, 2014)

“Reclaiming the Past: Oral History and the Legacy of Integration in West Mount Airy, Philadelphia.” Oral History Review 41 no. 1 (2014), 77-107.

“Managed Diversity: Contested Meanings of Integration in Post-War Philadelphia.” Journal of Urban History 38 no. 3 (2012), 410-429.