Participant Info

First Name
Monica
Last Name
Blair
Country
United States
State
MD Maryland
Affiliation
Johns Hopkins University
Website URL
www.monicakblair.com
Keywords
History of Education, K-12 Education, Civil Rights Movement, School Segregation, School Desegregation, School Privatization, digital history, public history, US South
Availability
Media Contact
Additional Contact Information
PhD
PhD

Personal Info

Photo
About Me

Monica Kristin Blair is the historian and education coordinator for the Hopkins Retrospective Project at Johns Hopkins University. Previously, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Southern Methodist University’s Center for Presidential History. Blair’s current book, “Private Schools, Public Money: The Modern History of School Choice” examines the role of race, region, and politics in the school privatization movement. Blair’s book argues that both Democratic and Republican politicians have broken down the monetary divide between public and private education while ensuring that schools labeled as non-public remained beyond the reach of the regulatory state.

Blair also specializes in public and digital history. She was the Executive Producer for seasons two and three of the podcast, The Past, The Promise, The Presidency. From 2018 to 2019, she was the Lead Researcher for the American history podcast BackStory. In that role, Blair partnered with NPR’s Here & Now to research and write biweekly radio segments that historicized the news. As a 2017-2018 Praxis Fellow in the Digital Humanities, Blair co-created UVA Reveal, an augmented reality mobile phone application featuring public history exhibits that overlay the physical landscape of UVA. Blair has created public and digital history content for several other organizations, including Jefferson’s University—Early Life Project (JUEL), Participatory Media, the George A. Smathers Special Collections Library, and the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program.

Blair received her Ph.D. in United States history from the University of Virginia in 2021. She holds an M.A. in southern history from the University of Georgia and a B.A. in history from the University of Florida. Her work has been supported by the Jefferson Scholars Foundation, the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation, the Raven Society, the Bentley Historical Library, the Center for Presidential History, and the Digital Scholars’ Lab, among others.

Learn more at www.monicakblair.com

Recent Publications
Media Coverage
Country Focus
United States
Expertise by Geography
United States
Expertise by Chronology
19th century, Modern, 20th century, 21st century
Expertise by Topic
American Presidents, Capitalism, Government, Higher Ed, Politics, Public History, Race