Participant Info
- First Name
- Shana
- Last Name
- Bernstein
- Country
- United States
- State
- IL Illinois
- s-bernstein@northwestern.edu
- Affiliation
- Center for Legal Studies, Northwestern University
- Website URL
- https://www.legalstudies.northwestern.edu/people/core/bernstein-shana.html
- Keywords
- multiracial civil rights, social justice, Jewish American civil rights, comparative and relational race and ethnicity, food justice (California strawberry farming)
- Availability
- Media Contact
- Additional Contact Information
- PhD
- PhD
Personal Info
- Photo
- About Me
Shana Bernstein (Ph.D., Stanford University) specializes in 20th Century U.S. History, particularly comparative race and ethnicity. Before joining Northwestern’s faculty, she was Associate Professor of History at Southwestern University in Texas. She is a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians and has won fellowships from the Mellon Foundation and the Huntington Library, among other institutions. Her first book, Bridges of Reform: Interracial Civil Rights Activism in Twentieth-Century Los Angeles (Oxford University Press, 2011), reinterprets U.S. civil rights activism by revealing its roots in the interracial efforts of Mexican, Jewish, African, and Japanese Americans in mid-century Los Angeles, and showing how the early Cold War facilitated, rather than derailed, some forms of activism.
Bernstein is currently researching in the field of environmental history, including worker, consumer, and environmental health in the California strawberry industry. She recently published an article in the Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, ‘Health Activism from the Bottom Up: Progressive Era Immigrant Chicagoans’ Views on Germ Theory, Environmental Health, and Class Inequality’ (April 2018).
- Recent Publications
Bridges of Reform: Interracial Civil Rights Activism in Twentieth-Century Los Angeles (Oxford University Press, 2011).
“Health Activism from the Bottom Up: Progressive Era Immigrant Chicagoans’ Views on Germ Theory, Environmental Health, and Class Inequality,” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (April 2018)
“How the Spike in Hate Crimes is Forging Unlikely Alliances and Why Vulnerable Groups Should be Careful about Attempts to Divide Them,” The Washington Post Made By History, November 27, 2018.
“How to Use the Past to Fight for Your Rights Today,” CNN, January 23, 2017.
“Racist Atticus Finch Has a Lesson for Jews,” The Forward, July 27, 2015.
“The Third Shift: How Mom Became the Family’s Bodyguard” (with Kate Baldwin), Talking Points Memo, June 8, 2015.
“Big Business, Government, and Doubt,” The Hill, Congress Blog, April 6, 2015
“How Anti-Semitism in Modern America Could Fuel Cross-Racial Unity,” Talking Points Memo, March 13, 2015
“Not Just Kumbaya: Multiracial Coalitions Yield Pragmatic Results for the Common Good” (with Jennifer Richeson), American Prospect, February 18, 2015
“Many Hands Joined Civil Rights Struggle: Other People on the Margins Fought along with Black Americans,” Austin American Statesman, June 29, 2014
- Media Coverage
- Social Media
- @ShanaBernstein_
- Country Focus
- US
- Expertise by Geography
- United States
- Expertise by Chronology
- 20th century
- Expertise by Topic
- Environment, Race, Urban History
