Chair, Department of History
PRESIDENTIAL DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR OF HISTORY
Contact Dr. Matt for graduation clearance: office hours as posted or email for appointment
Office -Social Science 234
Phone - (801)626-7325
Fax - (801)626-7613
Email - smatt@weber.edu
Research and Teaching Areas: U.S. Social and Cultural, History of Emotions, Gilded Age and Progressive Era, Consumerism
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 & Culture
- HIST 3130 U.S. Urban History
- HIST 4050 Gilded Age & Progressive Era 1877-1919
- HIST 4060 20th Century U.S. 1919-1945
- Emotions in U.S. History
Books
Homesickness: An American History (Oxford University Press, 2011)
Related writing: "The New Globalist is Homesick, New York Times op-ed, March 22, 2012
"Home, Sweet Home," New York Times Disunion series, April 19, 2012
"Five Best Books by the Homesick," Wall Street Journal, January 28,2012
Edited Works:
Susan J. Matt and Peter N. Stearns, series editors, History of Emotions (University of Illinois Press)
First Volume: Doing Emotions History, ed. Matt and Stearns (forthcoming in 2013)
Susan J. Matt, ed. A Cultural History of the Emotions: Romanticism, Revolution, and Empire (Bloomsbury: forthcoming)
Articles & Essays
- “Current Emotion Research in History: Or, Doing History from the Inside
Out,” Emotion Review 3 (January 2011): 117-24 - You Can’t Go Home Again: Homesickness and Nostalgia in U.S.
History,”Journal of American History, 94 (2007): 469-497 - A Hunger for Home: Homesickness and Food in a Global Consumer Society,
Journal of American Culture, 30 (2007): 6-17 - “Children’s Envy and the Emergence of the Modern Consumer Ethic, 1890-1930,” Journal of Social History, 36 ( 2002): 283-302
- Recovering the Invisible: Methods for the Historical Study of the Emotions," in Matt and Stearns, eds.,Doing Emotions History (University of Illinois Press: 2013)
- “Emotions in the Marketplace,” in A Destiny of Choice? New Directions in American Consumer History, eds. David Steigerwald and David Blanke (Rowman and Littlefield: 2013)
- "Why the Old Fashioned is in Fashion in American Houses,” in Producing Fashion: Commerce, Culture, and Consumers (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007)
- "Homesickness and Homemaking in America,” in American Behavioral History (New York: New York University Press, 2005).
- "Feelings, Frocks, and Finery: Rural and Urban Women's Envy, 1890-1930,” in The Emotional History of the United States (New York: New York University Press, 1998).
Online Publications:
Susan Matt and Luke Fernandez, "Before MOOCS, 'Colleges of the Air,'" Chronicle of Higher Education, April 24, 2013
Luke Fernandez, Scott Rogers, and Susan Matt, "Concentrating Class: Learning in the Age of Digital Distractions," Educause Review Online, December 10, 2012
"Home, Sweet Home," New York Times Disunion series, April 19, 2012
Reviews
- Friendship: A History, ed. Barbara Caine, Journal of Social History (Spring 2012)
- 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).
MANUSCRIPT REFEREE
Journal of American History
Journal of Social History
Emotion Review
Business History Review
Journal of Women's History
Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era
Journal of American Culture
Civil War History
Awards and Affiliations
- Organization of American Historians, German Residency Fellowship, 2013
- Chair, Department of History 2008-Present
- Presidential Distinguished Professor of History 2009
- Visiting Fellow, Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Collection, 2007
- Endowed professor, College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2005-2008
- 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
- University of Chicago College Honor Scholarship, 1985-1989
- University of Chicago Student Body President, 1988-1989