Participant Info
- First Name
- Ellen
- Last Name
- Adams
- Country
- United States
- State
- NY New York
- director@minermuseum.org
- Affiliation
- Alice T. Miner Museum
- Website URL
- minermuseum.org
- Keywords
- museums, Colonial Revival, heritage tourism, material culture, Progressive Era, local history, commemoration, history of geography, U.S. imperialism
- Availability
- Media Contact
- Additional Contact Information
- PhD
- PhD
Personal Info
- Photo
- About Me
I received a doctorate in history from the College of William and Mary in 2011. My dissertation, “Ellen Churchill Semple and American Geography in an Era of Imperialism,” examined the development of geography as an academic discipline in the context of U.S. imperialism, and the role of women such as Ellen Churchill Semple in supporting imperialist projects.
Since being appointed Director/Curator of the Alice T. Miner Museum in Chazy, New York, in 2014, I have shifted my focus to the history of the Colonial Revival movement and to museums, public memory, and tourism more broadly. The Alice T. Miner Museum opened in 1924 to house a collection of 18th and 19th century American decorative arts assembled by Miner; the museum building itself is a reconstructed “Colonial Home.” I am particularly interested in the ways early-20th century collectors and museum curators envisioned the Early American past and how their conceptions of history were shaped by their present-day concerns. This scholarship has been incorporated into the script I wrote for a 12-minute introductory video which is shown to visitors at the Alice.
In June 2019 I was appointed Co-Historian for the City of Plattsburgh.
- Recent Publications
“The Foundation of Naval Science: Alfred Thayer Mahan’s The Influence of Sea Power upon History and the Library of Congress Classification System,” Canadian Journal of Academic Librarianship (January 2017). With Joshua F. Beatty.
“Transferware in New York’s ‘North Country’: The Alice T. Miner Museum,” Transferware Collector’s Club Bulletin, XVII, no. 1 (2016).
Review of Anthony, Carl Sferrazza, Ida McKinley: The Turn-of-the-Century First Lady through War, Assassination, and Secret Disability. H-SHGAPE, H-Net Reviews. May 2015.
“Colonial Geographies, Imperial Romances: Travels in Japan with Ellen Semple and Fannie Macaulay,” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 13, no. 2 (April 2014).
- Media Coverage
- http://www.sbmonthly.com/alice-t-miner-colonial-revival-museum-began-gift-porcelain/
- Social Media
- @ellensemple
- Country Focus
- United States
- Expertise by Geography
- United States
- Expertise by Chronology
- 19th century, 20th century
- Expertise by Topic
- Gender, Museums, Public History
