Capstones & Theses
Public History History Track students in the History MA program undertake a culminating one-semester capstone project OR a two-semester thesis. The capstone option is for students who know that their History MA is their terminal degree. Choosing Capstone instead of the Thesis also allows students to take two more elective courses. HIST 689 earns 3 credits, and must be undertaken after completion of the Public History Internship (HIST 698).
Capstone projects offer public history students another opportunity to gain hand-on experience in their career field and build their professional portfolio. We expect the capstone to make a contribution to the field of public history, through a project created for an historical organization or community history endeavor, and an essay that places the work in the contexts of professional practice and public history scholarship. All projects must communicate to broad, non-academic audiences.
Many students will base their capstone on work begun in their public history internship, or on a foundation of research already initiated in other classes.
Public History students may wish to undertake a thesis instead of a capstone, working under the supervision of a faculty advisor. Under the supervision of the appointed advisor, the thesis will be defended before a committee of three faculty members. Public History students who write a thesis may choose a research topic that includes a public history dimension.
2019-2022 Capstones
Meghan Arends (2022), “Longfellows in the Civil War Exhibit: Interpretation Guide”
Glyn Blanks (2022), “The USS Albacore Museum: Presenting Material Heritage in the Context of the Cold War”
Charlie Borsos (2022), “Navigating the Navy Yard: Building a Digitally Accessible Tour of the Charlestown Navy Yard”
Rachel Hoyle (2022), “The Governor’s People: Enslaved Lives in the Shirley Household”
Marielle Gutierrez (2021), “A Digital Exhibit about Boston Teachers’ Union”
Mia McMorris (2021), “Women Feeding Boston (Tour)”
Lilian Nunno (2021), “Youth Environmental Activism: A History Day Zine”
Kaylee Redard (2021), “The Many Myths of Miss Emmerton: A Three-Part Podcast Series for the House of the Seven Gables”
Andrew Lucibella (2020), “People of Color in Revolutionary Lexington: A Lexington Historical Society Curriculum for Secondary Students”
Dominique Romero (2020), “The Eleventh Hour: The Fight of Twenty Women of Boston to Save the Old South”
Rosanna Wright (2020), “Parlor Politics: Redefining Domesticity and Femininity in the Nichols House from 1890 to 1960”
Adam Derington (2019), “Interpreting a Culture of Exploitation: Slavery and the China Trade at the Boston Athenaeum”
Kurt Deion (2019), “Adams National Historical Park Self-Guided Tour: Phase Two”
Nina Rodwin (2019), “‘A Woman’s World’: Medical Education, Women and Discrimination”
Madison Vlass (2019), “Gedney’s Hidden History: A Walkiing Tour of Salem’s 20th-Century Italian Immigrant Neighborhood”
Capstones 2015-2018
Sarah Black (2018), “An Extraordinary Look into Ordinary Lives: Uncovering Dorchester’s Industrial School for Girls, 1859-1880”
Ashlie Duarte-Smith (2018), “Ho’oka’awale: Confronting Multigenerational Colonial Trauma with Oral History at Kalaupapa National Historical Park”
Taylor Finch (2018), “The People First: An Era of Community Activism in Dorchester, 1969-1975”
Caroline Littlewood (2018), “A Chat With Mabel: First-Person Interpretation at the Dudley Farm Museum”
Donna Russo (2018), “Mary Bowditch Forbes’ Replica Lincoln Cabin: Preservation of the Past, Education for the Future”
Genevieve Wallace (2018), “What, What When, Where, Why, and How: Costumed Interpretation at the USS Constitution Museum”
Caitlin Burke (2017), “Cambridge Historical Society: Oral History Handbook”
Danielle Cournoyer (2016), “Preserving Historic Landscapes: A Case for Hendersonville”
Tristen Healey (2016), “Boston’s Harbor Islands During the Civil War: A Walking Tour in Georges Island”
Paige Kinder (2016), “Collaborating in Museums: Creating a Joint Venture Between the Commonwealth Museum and the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the US Senate”
Paul Fuller (2015), “The Southwest Corridor Park: A Community’s Response to a Highway”
Judith Marshall (2015), “Exploring Portsmouth Through Craftsmen’s Eyes: A Walking Tour”
Lauren Prescott (2015), “An Ordinary Family: The History of the Reeds”
Theses
Theses 2019-2022
Kristine Malpica (2021), “Uncommon Ground: Pawtucket-Pennacook Strategic Land Exchange in Native Spaces and Colonized Places of Essex County and Massachusetts Bay in the Seventeenth Century”
Genevieve Peterson (2020), “‘Even if it Means Our Battles to Date are Meaningless’ The Anime Gundam Wing and Postwar History, Memory, and Identity in Japan”
Theses 2010-2018
Kathryn Leann Harris (2018), “Innocent Victors: Atomic Identity at the American Museum of Science and Energy in Oak Ridge, Tennessee”
Jonathan Green (2016), “Run Aground: Cultural Transformation in Southeastern Massachusetts’ Aquatic Spaces, 1637-1711”
Lindsay Fulton (2015), “George Loney Wallace and the Wrentham State School: 1906-1930”
Robert Goulding (2014), “Lusitania: An Examination of Captaincy and Seamanship in the Face of Disaster”
Eric Hanson Plass (2014), “‘So Succeeded by a Kind Providence’: Communities of Color in Eighteenth Century Boston”
Eleanor Martinez Proctor (2014), “Constructing A Vernacular Narrative: Communal Memory of Boston’s West End”
Deirdre Kutt (2013), “The Hidden Experience: Untold Stories of Immigrant Agency During the Settlement House Movement in Boston”
Alexis Hanley (2012), “Immigrants as Americanizers: The Americanization Movement of the Early Twentieth Century”
Clara Silverstein Schnee (2011), “One Nation, Two Founding Stories: A Study of Public History at Jamestown and Plymouth”
Bernadine Angelo (2011), “Beckoning the Red Man’s Spirit: Exploring the Boundaries of Gender, Race, Sacred and Commercial Spaces at the Wigwam Spiritualist Temple, Onset, Massachusetts, 1880–1913”
Jeffrey Robinson (2010), “Save The Old South! The Preservation Movement that Saved the Old South Meeting House in Boston, Massachusetts”