Chair, Department of History
College of Social and Behavioral Sciences Endowed Professor

2009 PRESIDENTIAL DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR OF HISTORY

Office -Social Science 234
Phone - (801)626-7325
Fax - (801)626-7613 
Email - smatt@weber.edu

Research and Teaching Areas: Gilded Age and Progressive Era, consumerism, women, cultural and social, history of emotions

Degrees: B.A., University of Chicago (1989); M.A., Ph.D., Cornell University (1992, 1996)

Courses:

• HIST 1700 American Civilization
• HIST 3070 Women in American History: 1600-Present
• HIST 3090 American Social History
• HIST 3110 American Ideas and Culture
• HIST 3130 U.S. Urban History
• HIST 4050 Gilded Age and Progressive Era
• HIST 4060 Twentieth Century United States: 1919-1945

Books

• Keeping Up With the Joneses: Envy in American Consumer Society, 1890-1930 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003).
  

• "You Can't Go Home Again: Homesickness and Nostalgia in U.S. History,"
   Journal of American History, September 2007.
  "A Hunger for Home: Homesickness and Food in a Global Consumer Society," Journal of American Culture (Spring 2007).
• "Why the Old Fashioned is in Fashion in American Houses," in Producing Fashion: Commerce, Culture, and Consumers, Regina Lee Blaszczyk, editor (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007).
• "There's No Place Like Home: Homesickness and Homemaking in America," in American Behavioral History, Peter Stearns, editor (New York: New York University Press, 2005).
• "Envy and Jealousy," in Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood: In History and Society, Paula Fass, editor, (New York: MacMillan, 2003).
• "Children's Envy and the Emergence of the Modern Consumer Ethic, 1890-1930,"  Journal of Social History (December 2002).
• "The Biography of Juliet Corson," American National Biography (Oxford University Press, 1999)
• "Constance Rourke: A Biographical Sketch," in Women in World History (Yorkin Publications, Waterford CT., 1999)
• Mary Richmond: A Biographical Sketch," in Women in World History (Yorkin Publications, Waterford CT., 1999)
• "Frocks, Finery and Feelings: Rural and Urban Women's Envy, 1890-1930," in An Emotional History of the United States , Peter Stearns and Jan Lewis, eds. (New York: New York University Press, 1998)

Reviews

• The Challenge of Affluence: Self-Control and Well-Being in the United States and Britain since 1950, by Avner Offer, Journal of Social History (Fall 2009)
• Consumers’ Imperium: The Global Production of American Domesticity, 1865-1920 by Kristin L. Hoganson, Journal of Social History (Winter 2009)
• Sold American: Consumption and Citizenship, 1890-1945 by Charles McGovern, Enterprise and Society (2007)
• Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Idea of the Consumer by Kathleen G. Donohue, American Historical Review, (June 2007)
• Born Losers: A History of Failure in America by Scott A. Sandage, American Historical Review (October 2006)
• Raising Consumers: Children and the American Mass Market in the Early Twentieth Century by Lisa Jacobson, Journal of Social History (Summer 2006)
• Birth of a Salesman: The Transformation of Selling in America by Walter A. Friedman, American Historical Review (February 2005)
• The Cute and the Cool: Wondrous Innocence and Modern American Children's Culture by Gary Cross and Some Wore Bobby Sox: The Emergence of Teenage Girls' Culture, 1920-1945 by Kelly Schrum, Journal of American History (June 2005)
• Talk of Love: Why Culture Matters by Ann Swidler, Journal of Social History (Fall 2004)
• Refined Tastes: Sugar, Confectionery, and Consumers in Nineteenth-Century America by Wendy A. Woloson, Journal of Social History (Summer 2004)
• Sowing the American Dream: How Consumer Culture Took Root in the Rural Midwest by David Blanke, in Journal of Social History (Fall 2002)
• 1898: The Birth of the American Century by David Traxel, in New York History (Winter 2001).
  

Awards and Affiliations

• Chair, Department of History 2008-Present
• Presidential Distinguished Professor of History 2008
• Visiting Fellow, Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Collection, 2007
• Research Travel Award, John Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising and Marketing History, Duke University Library, March 2000
• Jeanne Humphrey Block Dissertation Award, The Henry Murray Center, Radcliffe College, June 1993
• Cornell University Women's Studies/President's Council of Cornell Women Summer Research Grant, Summer 1993
• Mellon Fellowship, 1994-95, 1992
• Philip Merrill Fellowship for the teaching of Western Civilization, 1990-1991