Meghan Arends (she/her)
Track: Public History
Areas of historical interest: Women’s history, 20th Century
Meghan is from East Michigan, but currently lives in Dorchester, right by the UMass campus. She graduated from Grand Valley State University in Michigan in the Spring, where she received her Bachelor of Science in History with a minor in English. Meghan has always had dogs, and has two special pups, Lucy, a chocolate lab, and Bailey, a border collie/ lab mix back home. In her limited free time she enjoys watching movies, especially historical dramas, binge watching TV shows, and baking.
Favorite historical story: A piece of local Michigan history: In the 19th century, a man named James Strang claimed he was appointed the successor to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints by Joseph Smith. His faction was classified as the “Strangite” to distinguish it as the Latter Day Saint movement divided. Strang then moved his followers to Beaver Island, a small, relatively inaccessible island in Michigan, and declared himself king under an ecclesiastical monarchy that he established there, despite there having already been Irish immigrants populating the island.
