Department of History — Dr. Molly Wood
Dr.
Wood, current chair of the history department,
came to
Wittenberg in 1999 after completing a post-doctoral appointment at the
University of South Carolina in Columbia, S.C. Born in Washington,
D.C., she was raised in Richmond, VA, earned a B.A. in history from the
University of Virginia and a masters degree in history from the University
of Richmond. She teaches courses in U.S. history, U.S. foreign
relations, modern world history, women's history and Latin American history.
She also advises students who are interested in graduate study in history.
mwood@wittenberg.edu
(937) 327-7844Dr. Wood's
Website and Course Syllabi
Academic Background
Ph.D.
University of South Carolina, Columbia, S.C.
M.A. University
of Richmond, Richmond, V.A.
B.A. University
of Virginia, Charlottesville, V.A.
Recent Awards and Recognitions
Essay entitled,
“Diplomatic Wives: The Politics of Domesticity and the ‘Social Game’ in the
U.S. Foreign Service, 1905-1941,” reprinted in The Best American History
Essays, 2007.
Jacqueline Jones, ed. The Organization of
American Historians.
(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
Elected to Ohio Academy of History
Executive Council, Spring 2007.Franklin
and Eleanor Library Association Grant (Awarded Spring 2006)
Edith and Frank Matthies Award, Wittenberg University, Spring 2005.
Herbert Hoover Presidential Library Travel Grant, Summer 2005.
Freeman Foundation Travel Grant (travel to Vietnam), Summer 2004
Wittenberg University Faculty Grants, 1999 – 2005.
Selected Publications
“’Commanding Beauty’ and ‘Gentle Charm’:
American Women and Gender in the Early Twentieth Century Foreign Service.”
Diplomatic History
31:3
(June 2007): 505-530.
“Mothers, Wives, Workers and More: The Experience of
American Women on the Home Front during World War I,” in Personal
Perspectives: World War I, Timothy Dowling, ed. (Santa
Barbara, CA:
ABC-CLIO, 2006): 273-296.
“Diplomatic Wives: The Politics of Domesticity
and ‘the Social Game’ in the U.S. Foreign Service, 1905-1941.”
Journal of Women’s History 17:2
(June 2005): 142-165.
“A Diplomat’s Wife in Mexico: Creating Professional,
Political and National Identities in the Early Twentieth Century,”
Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies
25/3 (Winter 2005).
“Neither Peace Nor War: The Experience of American
Diplomats in Occupied Europe,” in Personal Perspectives: World War II,
Timothy Dowling, ed. (Santa
Barbara,
CA:
ABC-CLIO, 2005): 265-280.
“Mapping a National Campaign Strategy: Partisan Women in the Presidential
Election of 1916.”
In We Have Come to Stay: American Women and
Political Parties, 1880-1960, eds. Kristie Miller, Melanie Gustafson and
Elizabeth Israels
Perry.
Albuquerque:
University
of New Mexico
Press, 1999.
Works
in Progress:
Women and the Politics of Informal
Diplomacy: The U.S. Foreign
Service, 1880-1940.
Book manuscript.
A
Diplomat’s Wife in Mexico: Gender, Politics and Diplomacy in the Early Twentieth
Century.
Book manuscript.
Courses Fall 08
HIST 135 Latin American
Civilizations
HIST 201 U.S. History since 1945
Research Interests
My special areas of research interest are U.S. Foreign
Relations and U.S. women in the first half of the twentieth century. I
am currently revising a manuscript which explores the life of Edith
O’Shaughnessy, the wife of an American diplomat in Mexico from 1911-1914
(during the Mexican Revolution).
O’Shaughnessy wrote several books about her experiences in Mexico, but I am
the first scholar to put her writing and her life in historical perspective.
My research on O’Shaughnessy led me to a larger project on the
Foreign Service, focusing on the ways in which the U.S. State Department
expected men and women to represent the U.S. abroad.
This research has taken me to the U.S. National Archives and several
presidential libraries over the past three years.
Other Interests/Info
American
Studies
WHGOM
Women's Studies
CV
