211 West 106
Street • New York, N.Y. 10025 • 212-666-7961
jbrown106@gmail.com
• http://www.joshbrownnyc.com
• Professor Emeritus, Ph.D.
Program in History, The Graduate Center, City University of New York.
•
1998-2019, Executive Director, American Social History Project/Center
for Media and Learning (ASHP/CML), The Graduate
Center, City University of New York.
• 1981 to 1998, Creative Director/Associate Director, ASHP/CML.
• 2000-2019, Professor, Certificate
Program in Interactive Technology and Pedagogy, The Graduate Center,
CUNY.
• 2000-2019, Co-director, New
Media Lab, The Graduate Center, CUNY.
• Artist, Life
during Wartime, graphic observations posted on the Internet
(including: History News Network, Historians
for Peace and Democracy, and Public Seminar).
• Author, Johnny Venom, a novel about nineteenth-century New York.
• Contributor, Who Built America? / OER, an open educational resource for college and high school students based on the American Social History Project's WBA? textbook and History Matters website, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation.
• Contributor, "The Visual Culture of the American Civil War and Its Aftermath," a two-week National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute for college and university teachers, Summer 2023.
• Co-writer, The
Visual Culture of the American Civil War, a resource website based
on 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018 National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institutes for college
and university teachers (funded
by National Endowment for the Humanities).
1978 Master of Philosophy in American History, Columbia University.
1976 Master of Arts in American History, Columbia University. M.A.
Thesis: "The 'Dead Rabbit'- Bowery Boy Riot: An Analysis of the Antebellum
New York Gang."
1975 Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, City College
of New York.
2015 Professional Staff Congress-City University of New York Research
Award for Studies
in the Visual Culture of the American Civil War.
2014 Boston Athenaeum Mary Catherine Mooney Fellowship for Studies
in the Visual Culture of the American Civil War.
2012 National Endowment for the Humanities Research Fellowship for Studies
in the Visual Culture of the American Civil War (declined).
2012 Professional Staff Congress-City University of New York Research
Award for Studies
in the Visual Culture of the American Civil War.
2011 American Antiquarian Society Drawn to Art Research
Fellowship in American Visual Culture for Studies in the Visual Culture
of the American Civil War.
2011 Fellowship, Graduate Center, City University of New
York, for Studies in the Visual Culture of the American Civil War.
2010 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship for Studies in the Visual Culture of the American Civil War.
2006 Center for Digital Education Digital Education Achievement
Award for The
Lost Museum website.
2005 National Endowment for the Humanities EDSITEment Citation
for The Lost
Museum website.
2005 Worldfest Houston Platinum Award in Interactive-Educational
Media for The
Lost Museum website.
2005 Horizon Interactive Honorable Mention Award for The
Lost Museum website.
2005 New York Public Library Best of Reference 2005 citation
for History
Matters website.
2005 American Historical Association James Harvey Robinson
Prize for History
Matters website.
2004 American Association for State and Local History Award
of Merit for New Jersey Historical Society exhibit City on Display:
A Newark Photographer and His Clients, 1890s-1940s (guest curator).
2004 UNESCO International Committee of Museums for Audiovisual,
Image, and Sound New Technologies Special Web Art Bronze Award for New Jersey
Historical Society website What
Exit? New Jersey and Its Turnpike (ASHP/CML producer).
2004 National Endowment for the Humanities EDSITEment Citation for Liberty,
Equality, Fraternity website.
2003 Honorable Mention, American Studies Association John Hope
Franklin Publication Prize for Beyond the Lines: Pictorial Reporting,
Everyday Life, and the Crisis of Gilded Age America.
2003 Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication
History Book Award for Beyond the Lines.
2003 Professional Staff Congress-CUNY Research Award for "I Always
Had Pads with Me": A G.I. Artist's Sketchpad, 1943-1944 exhibition
script.
2003 American Association of Museums Media and Technology
MUSE Award Honorable Mention for New Jersey Historical Society website What
Exit? (ASHP/CML producer).
2000 Archivist Round Table of Metropolitan New York Award for Innovative
Use of Archives, for The
Lost Museum website.
1999 National Endowment for the Humanities EDSITEment Citation for History Matters website.
1997 National Endowment for the Humanities Research Fellowship.
1997 Worldfest Houston Silver Award; Chicago International Film Festival
Intercom '97 Silver Hugo Award for Up South documentary.
1996 National Educational Media Network Bronze Apple; Worldfest Houston
Finalist; Filipino American Film and Video Festival; the Museum of Chinese
in the Americas and the Asia Society "Allies and Enemies" Film Festival
for Savage Acts documentary.
1994 American Historical Association James Harvey Robinson Prize;
Finalist, Interactive Media Festival for Who Built America? CD-ROM.
1993 Columbia University Bancroft Dissertation Award.
1992-93 Henry Luce Foundation/American Council of Learned Societies
Dissertation Fellowship in American Art.
1992-93 Academic Fellowship, Columbia University.
1993 American Historical Association John E. O'Connor Award; Chicago
International Film Festival Intercom '93 Silver Hugo Award; New York Festivals
Silver Medal; Council on Foundations Film Festival for Heaven Will Protect
the Working Girl documentary.
1986 National Education Film Festival Second Prize; Houston International
Film Festival Silver Medal; Chicago International Film Festival Certificate
of Merit; Leipzig International Film Festival; Athens International Film
Festival; Museum of Modern Art screening for 1877: The Grand Army of
Starvation documentary.
1985 Houston International Film Festival Bronze Prize for The
Big H video program.
1984 Chicago International Film Festival Intercom '84 Gold Plaque
for Five Points video documentary.
1980-81 President's Fellowship, Columbia University.
• "Afterword," in New York: Art and Cultural Capital of the Gilded Age, eds. Margaret R. Laster and Chelsea Bruner (Routledge, 2018).
• "'Our sketches are real, not mere imaginary affairs': The Visualization of the 1863 New York Draft Riots," in The Civil War in Art and Memory, ed. Kirk Savage, Studies in the History of Art (National Gallery of Art/Yale University Press, 2016).
• (with Stephen Brier), “The September 11 Digital Archive: Saving
the Historie s of September 11, 2001,” Radical History Review 111 (Fall 2011).
• "Political Cartoons," in Princeton Encyclopedia of
United States Political History, ed. Michael Kazin (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2010).
• "The Great Uprising and the Collapse of Pictorial Order in Gilded
Age America," in The Great Strike of 1877: New Perspectives, ed.
David Stowell (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2008).
• Visual editor (with David Jaffee), Who Built America? Working
People and the Nation's History (Third edition: Bedford Books, 2008).
• "Historians and Photography," essay in symposium on "Histories
of Photography," American Art, 21:3 (Fall 2007).
• "The Graphic Fight: New York Political Cartoonists and the Spanish
Civil War," in Fighting Fascism: New York City and the Spanish
Civil War, eds. Peter Carroll and James Fernandez (New York: Museum
of the City of New York/NYU Press, 2007), catalog accompanying MCNY exhibition.
• Editor, "My Favorite Labor Novel,"LABOR: Studies in
Working-Class History of the Americas, 4:4 (Winter 2007).
• (Author: visual essays), Forever
Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction, Eric Foner
principal author (Alfred A. Knopf, 2005).
• (Participant), "Interchange: Genres of History," Journal
of American History, 91:2 (September 2004).
• "From
the Illustrated Newspaper to Cyberspace: Visual Technologies and Interaction
in the 19th and 21st Centuries" and "Commentary: Random Thoughts
while on a Virtual Stroll . . .," Rethinking History, 8:2 (June
2004).
• "'The Social and Sensational News of the Day': Frank Leslie, The Days' Doings, and Scandalous Pictorial News in Gilded Age New
York," New-York Journal of American History, 66:2 (Fall 2003).
• "Toward a Meeting
of the Minds: Historians and Art Historians," American Art,
17:2 (Summer 2003).
• "The Bloody Sixth: The Real Gangs of New York," London
Review of Books, 25:2 (January 23, 2003).
• Beyond
the Lines: Pictorial Reporting, Everyday Life, and the Crisis of Gilded
Age America (University of California Press, 2002). Paperback edition
release Spring 2006. [Published also in electronic format as part of the
American Council of Learned Societies' History E-Book Project.]
• "The Fragile City: Orderly Lines of Jittery New Yorkers," New
York Times: The City, Sunday, September 16, 2001.
• (Visual editor), Who Built America? Working People and the Nation's
Economy, Politics, Culture, and Society, two volumes (Second Edition:
Worth Publishers, 2000).
• "Research Note: News Images as Evidence of Social Practice," The
Book: Newsletter of the Program in the History of the Book in American Culture [American Antiquarian Society] 42/43 (July/November 1997).
• "'A Spectator of Life--A Reverential, Enthusiastic, Emotional Spectator'"
[Exhibition and catalog review essay of Metropolitan Lives: The Ashcan
Artists and Their New York, 1897-1917], American Quarterly 49:
2 (June 1997).
• "Reconstructing
Representation: Social Types, Readers, and the Pictorial Press, 1865-1877," Radical History Review 66 (Fall 1996).
• (Visual editor), America's Unfinished Revolution: An Inquiry into
the Civil War and Reconstruction (The New Press, 1996).
• "Gangs in New York City," entries in Encyclopedia of New York
City (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995).
• "'Who Built America?' The Interview," Australasian Journal of
American Studies 14 (Dec. 1995).
• (Co-author), "New Media, Old Politics," History Microcomputer
Review 11:2 (Fall 1995).
• (Visual editor), Who Built America? Working People and the Nation's
Economy, Politics, Culture, and Society, two volumes (Pantheon Books,
1990, 1992).
• (Co-editor), History from South Africa: Alternative Visions and
Practices (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991).
• "Every Picture Tells a Story, Don't It?" [essay on South African
alternative-education comic books] Radical History Review (Winter
1990). Reprinted in History from South Africa.
• "Of
Mice and Memory" [review essay of Maus] Oral History Review 16 (Spring 1988). Reprinted in Hillary Chute, ed., Maus Now: Selected Writing (New York: Pantheon, 2022).
• (Co-author), "The Great Hall: The Civil War and the War at Home," Seaport 21 (Spring 1988).
• "History Workshop Conference, South Africa," Radical History Review 40 (Winter 1988).
• "Telling the Story of All Americans: Milton Meltzer, Minorities,
and the Restoration of the Past," The Lion and the Unicorn 11 (April
1987).
• "Visualizing the Nineteenth Century: Notes on Making a Social History
Documentary Film," Radical History Review 38 (April 1987).
• "Visualizzare l'Ottocento: un documentario di storia sociale americana," movimento operaio e socialista (Fall 1986).
• "Into the Minds of Babes: Children's Books and the Past," in Benson,
Brier and Rosenzweig, eds., Presenting the Past: Essays on History and
the Public (Temple Univ. Press, 1986).
• "The Great American (Marxist) Novel," Radical History Review 31 (December 1984).
• (Editor and contributor), "Comic Books and History: A Symposium," Radical History Review 28-30 (September 1984).
• "Bearing Witness: Michael Lesey and Photography as Historical Resource," Film and History (May 1983).
• "City Aflame" in The American City: Three Essays in Comparative
Urban History, ed. David Rosen, (Educational Broadcasting Corporation,
1983).
• "Into the Minds of Babes: A Journey through Recent Children's History
Books," Radical History Review 25 (Winter 1980-1981).
• (Co-author), "John Lennon," Radical History Review 24 (Fall
1980).
• (Co-author), Factories, Foundries, and Refineries: A History of
Five Brooklyn Industries (Brooklyn Rediscovery, Brooklyn Educational
and Cultural Alliance, 1980).
• "The Deer Hunter: A Review," Radical History Review 20 (Spring-Summer
1979).
2013 "Seeing the Draft Riots," Disunion: Opinionator Column, New
York Times website, July 12.
2013 Lead historian, "Contextualizing the Visual Archive for Teaching,"
a collaborative project with the American Antiquarian Society, supported
by an Institute for Museum and Library Services planning grant, to build
an enhanced catalog prototype for visual collections.
2012 The
Divided Eye: Studies in the Visual Culture of the American Civil War,
a blog about research on a new book and scholarship, public history, and
history education projects on the visualization of the Civil War.
2009 Principal investigator/co-writer, Picturing
U.S. History: An Online Resource for Teaching with Visual Evidence,
a prototype gateway website demonstrating how the visual record illuminates
the U.S. past (funded by National Endowment for the Humanities).
2009 "The Historian
as Cartoonist: Drawing George W. Bush," History News Network,
January 19.
2007 Co-editor (with Georgia Barnhill and Ian Gordon), "Revolution
in Print: Graphics in Nineteenth Century America," special issue
of Common-place: The Interactive Journal of Early American Life 7:3 (April).
2006 Co-principal investigator, The
911 Digital Archive, website devoted to collecting and preserving,
the history of the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York, Virginia and
Pennsylvania and the public responses to them (funded by the Alfred P. Sloan
Foundation; donated to The Library of Congress in 2003).
2004 Co-executive producer/co-writer, The
Lost Museum: Exploring Antebellum Life and Culture, website 3-D
re-creation and archive of P. T. Barnum's American Museum (funded by National
Endowment for the Humanities). Coverage in New York Times (July 1,
2000) and CBS News Sunday Morning (July 9, 2000).
2004 Co-editor, special issue on "A
Cabinet of Curiosities," Common-place: The Interactive Journal
of Early American Life 4:2 (January).
2004 Co-director, Virtual
New York City, a website on New York City history based on the Old
York Library collection housed at The Graduate Center, CUNY.
2003 "CSI
(1849)," [Review of Murder at Harvard] Common-place:
The Interactive Journal of Early American Life 3:4 (July).
2003 "The
Gang's Not All Here," [Review of Gangs of New York] Common-place:
The Interactive Journal of Early American Life 3:3 (April).
2003 Co-executive producer/creative director, History
Matters: The U.S. History Survey on the Web, website on American
history (funded by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation and NEH).
2002 The
Hungry Eye [serialization of excerpt from an illustrated novel about
19th century New York], Common-place: The Interactive Journal of Early
American Life 2 (January-April).
2001 "The
Past Impaneled" [On-line review essay of Ben Katchor, The Jew of
New York and Chris Ware, Jimmy Corrigan], Common-place: The
Interactive Journal of Early American Life 1:3 (April 2001).
2001 Co-executive producer/co-producer/art, Liberty,
Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution (University
Park: Pennsylvania State University Press), interactive CD-ROM and website
(funded by NEH and the Florence Gould Foundation).
2000 Co-executive producer/visual editor/art, Who Built America?
From the Great War of 1914 to the Dawn of the Atomic Age (New York:
Worth Publishers/Learn Technologies Interactive), interactive CD-ROM (funded
by the National Endowment for the Humanities and Rockefeller Foundation).
1998 Creative director, The
Secret, prototype Web-based serial drama/education program (funded
by a Small Business Innovation Research Grant, National Cancer Institute).
1996 Author/artist, Slithering
through the Ages, a World Wide Web comic strip.
1994-95 Consultant, HarpWeek, interactive CD-ROM index of Harper's Weekly,
1857-1900.
1993 Co-author (visual editor), Who Built America? From the Centennial
Celebration of 1876 to the Great War of 1914, interactive CD-ROM "electronic
book" (Santa Monica: Voyager). History Book Club selection, August 1994;
installation in "Engines of Change" exhibit, National Museum of American
History, Smithsonian Institution.
1992 Co-producer, Five Points, prototype interactive laserdisc
program funded by IBM.
1995 Co-Executive Producer/Co-Director/Art, Savage Acts: Wars,
Fairs and Empire, half-hour video documentary in Who Built America?
Series 2, funded by the Ford Foundation.
1993 Producer/Co-Director/Art Director/Writer, Heaven Will Protect
the Working Girl, a half-hour video documentary in Who Built America?
Series 2.
1990 Producer/Art Director/Co-Writer, A House Divided, 8-minute
video installation introducing the Chicago Historical Society permanent
exhibit "A House Divided: America in the Age of Lincoln." Opened February
1990.
1987 Consultant, Fight Where We Stand, slide/tape program on South African
history, produced by History Workshop, University of the Witwatersrand,
Johannesburg, funded by the Ford Foundation.
1985 Art Director/Co-Writer, 1877: The Grand Army of Starvation,
a half-hour 16 mm film.
1982-86 Art Director/Writer/Script Editor, Who Built America?,
a series of six video documentaries produced by the American Social History
Project, CUNY.
1984 Photo-colorist, Truman: A Self Portrait, a film produced
by the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.
1984 Consultant, Time Travels: A New York Public History Project, slide/tape
programs accompanying historical walking tours of New York, funded by the
New York Council for the Humanities and the J. M. Kaplan Fund.
1981 New York coordinator, Water and the Dream of the Engineers,
a film produced by Cine Research Associates, funded by the National Endowment
for the Humanities, in series "The Changing American City: Why Some
Things Work and Others Don't."
1980-81 Consultant, City Aflame, documentary on the 1863 New York Draft Riot
and 1967 Detroit Riot, part of series of half-hour programs for WNET/Thirteen,
"The American City: Counterpoints in the Urban Experience." Aired
in May 1982.
1978 Research coordinator, Made in U.S.A., American Labor
History Series docudrama television series, sponsored by the NEH.
2010-2013 ITHACA - A Graphic Novel in Several Parts serialized on Common-place website.
2012 Illustration, ""Meet Travis," The Baffler no. 19.
2011 “The First Eight Years of Life during Wartime,
2003–2011,” Radical History Review 111 (Fall).
2010 Cartoon commentary and portrait, LABOR 7:2 (Summer 2010).
2010 Illustration, New Labor Forum, 19:2 (Spring
2010).
2009 Interior art, Dipti Desai, Jessica Hamlin, and Rachel
Mattson, History as Art, Art as History:Contemporary Art and Social
Studies Education (Routledge).
2009 (with Peter N. Carroll), Robeson
in Spain, special graphic history issue of The Volunteer (publication of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives) 26:2 (June 2009).
2009 Cover illustration, The Bush-Cheney Years (Historians
Against the War e-pamphlet).
2009 Cover illustration/Cartoon commentary, "Depression," LABOR 6:4 (2009).
2008 My Mimeographed
Career; Part One: 1968, autobiographical comic strip in Students
for a Democratic Society: A Graphic History, ed. Paul Buhle (Hill and
Wang).
2008 The Academic
Gulag: A Tribute to Roy Rosenzweig, Radical History Review 102.
2007-2009 (with Peter N. Carroll), Robeson
in Spain, serialized in The Volunteer, publication of
the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives.
2007 Cartoon commentary, "Great
Moments in Labor History VII," LABOR 4:2 (2007).
2006 Cartoon commentary, "Great
Moments in Labor History VI," LABOR 3:2 (2006).
2005 "Life during Wartime," positions: east
asia cultures critique, special issue: Against Preemptive War,
13:1 (Spring 2005).
2005 Cartoon commentary, "Great
Moments in Labor History V," LABOR 2:3 (2005).
2004 Cartoon commentary, "Great
Moments in Labor History IV," LABOR 1:4 (Winter 2004).
2004 Cover art, New Labor Forum (Spring 2004).
2004 Cartoon commentary, "Great
Moments in Labor History III," LABOR 1:3 (Fall 2004).
2004 Cartoon commentary, "Great
Moments in Labor History II," LABOR 1:1 (Spring 2004).
2003 Cartoon commentary, "Great
Moments in Labor History I," Labor History 44:2 (May 2003).
2002 Logo, Teach-out
on the Prospects for War, The Graduate Center, CUNY (August 2002).
2002 Comic strip, "Working
Class Icon," Labor History 43:3 (Fall 2002).
2000 Cover art, New
Labor Forum (Fall/Winter 2000).
2000 CD cover booklet, design, photography, Iconoclast, "Paradise" (Fang).
1999 Logo, The Gotham Center for New York City History, The Graduate
Center, CUNY.
1997 Cover photo, Judy Hilkey, Character is Capital: Success Manuals
and Manhood in Gilded Age America (University of North Carolina Press).
1997 Masthead SAWSJ Links, newsletter of Scholars, Artists and Writers
for Social Justice.
1995 Logo and icons, Center for History and New Media, George Mason
University, World Wide Web home page.
1995 Comic
strip review of recent New York historical fiction, Radical History
Review. (Spring).
1995 CD cover booklet, design, photography, Iconoclast, "Blood
is Red" (Fang).
1993 Comic strip, "The Pueblo Uprising of 1680," Scholastic Search
Magazine (Sept. 1993).
1993 Maps and diagrams, David Halle, Inside Culture: Art and Class
in the American Home (University of Chicago Press).
1992 CD cover booklet, design, photography, Iconoclast, "The
Speed of Desire" (Fang).
1990-92 Comic strip, "Osborne at the End of History," Radical
History Review.
1990 CD cover, design, art, Iconoclast, "City
of Temptation" (Fang).
1984-89 Comic strip, "Adventures
in the Skin Trade," Radical History Review.
1989 Logo, New York State Labor History Association.
1988 Design, The Africa Fund,
1987 Annual Report, American Committee on Africa.
1988 Cover art, Seaport, South Street Seaport Museum (Summer,
1988).
1988 Promotional illustrations, HBO television series prospectus,
the John Parsons Group.
1987-94 Cover design, American Quarterly, journal of the American
Studies Association.
1987 Caricatures, "Homes for the Poor: A History of Public Housing
in New York City," exhibition produced by the LaGuardia Archives, LaGuardia
Community College.
1987-90 Cartoons, Labor Against Apartheid, newsletter of the
New York Area Labor Committee Against Apartheid [also distributed by Impact
Visuals].
1986 Illustrations, Benson, Brier and Rosenzweig, eds., Presenting
the Past: Essays on History and the Public (Temple University Press).
1985 Logo, "3-D Sax," experimental jazz saxophone performance series,
Jane Ira Bloom.
1985 Cover art, Jeff McMahan, Reagan and the World: Imperial Policy
in the New Cold War (Monthly Review Press).
1984 Logo, "Past Meets Present," NY Council for the Humanities public
history conference.
1984 Maps and diagrams, David Halle, America's Workingman: Home
and Work Among Blue-Collar Property Owners (University of Chicago Press).
1984 Caricatures, MARHO: The Radical Historians' Organization, Visions
of History: Interviews with Radical Historians (Pantheon).
1983 Film poster, brochure, ads, Before the Nickelodeon: The Early
Cinema of Edwin Porter.
1982 Cartoons, Institiute for Labor Education and Research, What's
Wrong with the U.S. Economy? (South End Press).
1981 Comic book(with H. Saunders), Kochemusa: The Shadow Mayor.
Notices in Village Voice, Westsider, Chelsea Clinton News,
and In These Times, September 1981. Featured in New-York Historical
Society exhibit, "New York on the Brink: The City's Fiscal Crisis of the
1970s," Spring 2000.
1981 Map, Victoria DeGrazia, The Culture of Consent: Mass Organization
of Leisure in Fascist Italy (Cambridge University Press).
1981 Promotional cartoons, Shortcuts, radio series on National
Public Radio.
1980 Editorial cartoons, In These Times.
1979 Map, David Ment, The Shaping of the City: A Brief History
of Brooklyn (Brooklyn Rediscovery).
1979 Map, David Ment, et al., Building Blocks of Brooklyn: A Study
of Urban Growth (Brooklyn Rediscovery).
1979-present Cover art, illustrations, caricatures, Radical History
Review.
1975-81 Free-lance mural painting. Clients included individuals (e.g.,
John Lennon and Yoko Ono) and businesses (e.g., Show & Tell). Featured in New York Times, Dec. 13, 1979.
1972-76 Knit designer-mechanic, Gastonia Textiles, Highlander Ltd.,
New York City. Designed double-knit fabric, worked on Mellor Bromley Digitex
computer system, and operated and maintained circular and flat-bed double-knit
machines.
1968 Map, Report on 1968 Democratic National Convention, Ramparts (September 1968).
2008 Life during Wartime:
2003-2007, Exhibition Hallway, The Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue,
New York (January 10-February 29).
2004 Participating artist, Life
during Wartime 1, Tactical
Action, Gigantic Artspace, 59 Franklin Street, New York (April
14-June 10).
2003 Guest curator, City on Display: A Newark Photographer
and His Clients, 1890s-1940s, New Jersey Historical Society exhibition
(October 8 opening).
1986-87 Co-writer, Cooper Union/New York City Public History Project
exhibition, "The Great Hall: A History of Protest, Reform and Education,"
sponsored by the J. M. Kaplan Fund, Skaggs Foundation and the N.Y. State
Council on the Arts.
Consultant
1995-2003 Consultant, "Brooklyn at Work," Brooklyn Historical Society
exhibition, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
1994 Consultant, American Craft Museum exhibition, "Revivals! The
Survival of Diverse Craft Traditions in America, 1920-1945."
1993-94 Consultant, Empire Stores Interpretive Project, planning
a museum about work and workers, sponsored by the Brooklyn Historical Society,
N.Y. State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, and N.Y.
City Dept. of Parks and Recreation.
1993-94 Consultant, Echoes: A People's History, a multimedia
performance based on Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States.
1990 Consultant, New York Transit Museum exhibition, "From Private
to Public: Mayor LaGuardia and the Subways," sponsored by the New York Transit
Authority.
1988 Consultant, Port Washington Public Library exhibition, "In the
Service: Workers on the Grand Estates of Long Island, 1890s-1940s," funded
by N.Y. State Council on the Arts.
2017-present Content development consultant, "Free and Equal: The Promise of Reconstruction in America," an NEH and Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation-supported development project to create an interpretive center and supporting digital programming in the City of Beaufort, SC.
2017 Advisor, "Black Citizenship in the Age of Jim Crow," 2018-19 exhibition, New-York Historical Society.
2012-present Member, Advisory Board, Caroline and Erwin Swann Foundation for Caricature
and Cartoon, Library of Congress.
2009 Program Committee, "Destined for Men: Visual Materials for Male
Audiences, 1750-1880," American Antiquarian Society, November 2009.
2008-2009 Program Committee, "Home, School, Play, Work: The
Visual and Textual Worlds of Children," American Antiquarian Society,
November 14-15 and Cotsen Children's Library, Princeton University, February.
2006 Member, American
Antiquarian Society.
2006-2009 Member, Editorial Board, Encyclopedia
of American Studies Online, American Studies Association.
2006 Member, Advisory Committee, Center
for Historic American Visual Culture, American Antiquarian Society.
2006 Evaluator, Education Division: Grants for Teaching
and Learning Resources and Curriculum Development, National Endowment for
the Humanities.
2006 Evaluator, Digital Innovation Fellowships, American
Council of Learned Societies.
2005 Evaluator, Public Programs: Planning Grants for Museums, Libraries
and Special Projects, National Endowment for the Humanities.
2004-2018 Member, Advisory Board, Center
for the Humanities, The Graduate Center, CUNY.
2003-2020 Member, Editorial Board, Common-place:
The Interactive Journal of Early American Life.
2003-2011 Member, Executive Committee, Board of Governors, Abraham
Lincoln Brigade Archives.
2003-present Associate Editor, Arts and Media, LABOR: Studies in Working-Class History
of the Americas.
2001-2003 Associate Editor, Arts and Media, Labor History.
2001-present Board of Advisors, Labor
Arts Web site (sponsored by Bread and Roses, the Robert F. Wagner
Labor Archives, and the Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation).
2001 Member, U.S. History Initiative Taskforce, City University of New York.
2000-present Advisory Council, The eLincoln Prize, Gettysburg College.
2000-2012 Board of Advisors, Place
Matters, Web site devoted to initiative to preserve places significant
to histories of New York City's diverse communities.
1999-2002 Member, Eric Barnouw Prize Committee, Organization of American Historians
(Chair 2000-2001).
1999-2002 Member, Nominating Committee, American Studies Association.
1998-2010 Editorial Board, Journal
for MultiMedia History.
1998-present Board of Advisors, Roy Rosenzweig Center
for History and New Media, George Mason University.
1997 Panelist, Media Projects, New York Council for the Humanities.
1995-2012 Member Board of Directors, City
Lore, Inc., a folklife center dedicated to the documentation, preservation
and presentation of the living cultural heritage of New York.
1985-present Member Board of Directors, American Social History Productions,
Inc. A nonprofit corporation producing multimedia historical materials.
1978-present Member Editorial Board, Radical
History Review.
2018 Ben Brown World War II Photographic Scrapbook (1942-45), New-York Historical Society.43-page scrapbook containing labeled photographs taken by my father of soldiers and their daily lives as well as images of the towns and countryside they passed through and liberated during the campaigns in Italy and North Africa.
2011 Ben Brown World War II Drawings Collection (1942-45), New-York Historical Society. 131 drawings and paintings by my father that includes images of soldiers and their daily lives as well as images of the towns and countryside they passed through and liberated in Italy and North Africa.
2022 Guest speaker, "Comics as History: Maus: A Survivor's Tale," Foothill College Community Reading Project, Los Altos Hills, California, November 15.
2021 Lead faculty, "The
Visual Culture of the American Civil War and Its Aftermath," a three-week remote National Endowment
for the Humanities Summer Institute for college and university teachers, June 28-July 1, July 5-7, July 12-14.
2021 Guest Faculty, "Freedom's Lawmakers: Misremembering and Reclaiming Black Reconstruction Leadership," NEH Summer Institute, University of South Carolina, July 23-24.
2018 Principal Investigator/Lead faculty, "The
Visual Culture of the American Civil War and Its Aftermath," a two-week National Endowment
for the Humanities Summer Institute for college and university teachers, July 11-22.
2017 Paper, "Rise and Fall: Political Cartoons, Caricature, the Civil War, and the Transformation of Visual Satire," Joint annual conference, American Printing History Association and Center for Historic American Visual Culture, American Antiquarian Society: "Good, Fast, Cheap: Printed Words & Images in America before 1900"(October 7).
2017 Guest faculty, "American Material Culture: Nineteenth-Century New York," NEH Summer Institute, Bard Graduate Center, July 24, 25.
2017 Panelist, “Learning to See the Past: A Roundtable Discussion in Honor of David Jaffee,” Society for Historians of the Early American Republic annual meeting, July 22.
2017 Guest faculty, "America’s Reconstruction: The Untold Story," NEH Summer Institute, University of South Carolina, Beaufort, July 12, 14.
2017 Guest speaker, “Everything You Wanted to Know About Academic Professionalization (But Were Too Busy Updating Your CV to Ask),” Summer Institute cosponsored by the New York Metro American Studies Association (NYMASA) and Center for Study of Ethnicity and Race, Columbia University, June 27.
2016 Presentation on the image of Irish immigrants in nineteenth-century pictorial media, Tenement Museum, November 15.
2016 Lecture, "Seeing the New York City Draft Riots; or, Overcoming the Logocentric Approach to Historical Evidence," Worldfest Speaker Series, Valparaiso University, October 4.
2016 Principal Investigator/Lead faculty, "The
Visual Culture of the American Civil War and Its Aftermath," a two-week National Endowment
for the Humanities Summer Institute for college and university teachers, July 11-22.
2016 Co-convenor/Comment, "Material and Visual Culture of the 'Long' Nineteenth Century," symposium, Bard Graduate Center, May 6.
2016 Lecture/Workshop, "Seeing the Civil War," American Antiquarian Society, April 28.
2015 Guest Faculty, "The News Media and the Making of America, 1730-1865," NEH Summer Institute, American Antiquarian Society, August 5.
2015 Guest faculty, "America’s Reconstruction: The Untold Story," NEH Summer Institute, University of South Carolina, Beaufort, July 15, 17.
2015 Guest faculty, "American Material Culture: Nineteenth-Century New York," NEH Summer Institute, Bard Graduate Center, July.
2015 Guest faculty, "City of Print: New York and the Periodical Press," NEH Summer Institute, New York City College of Technology, June 18.
2015 Panelist, "A Radical Promise? Building Institutional Contexts in this Interdisciplinary Moment," American Historical Association Annual Meeting, January 2.
2014 Lecture, "Panic in the Parlor: Reporting and Reading Pictorial Newspapers in Gilded Age America," Bard Graduate Center, October 30.
2014 Panelist, "1865," in Cultural Life during Wartime, 1861-1865, Flair Symposium, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin, September 20.
2014 Principal Investigator/Lead faculty, "The
Visual Culture of the American Civil War," a two-week National Endowment
for the Humanities Summer Institute for college and university teachers, July 7-18.
2014 Respondent, "Visualizing 19th Century New York,"
Mapping New York Symposium, Bard Graduate Center, April 25.
2014 Guest speaker, "Sketch Reporting," Getting the Picture:
The History and Visual Culture of the News, seminar series, Visual Studies
Research Institute, University of Southern California, January 29.
2013 Lecture, "Seeing the Civil War through Nineteenth-Century
Eyes," School of Arts and Sciences, College at Old Westbury, SUNY,
November 27.
2013 Paper, "'Our sketches are real, not mere imaginary
affairs': The Visualization of the 1863 New York Draft Riots," The Civil
War in Art and Memory: A Symposium, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual
Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., November 8-9.
2013 Session comment, Civil War Symposium, co-sponsored
by the Newberry Library and Terra Foundation for American Art, Newberry
Library, Chicago, October 17-18.
2013 Guest faculty, "American Material Culture: Nineteenth-Century
New York," NEH Summer Institute for college and university teachers,
Bard Graduate Center, July 22-24.
2013 Panelist, "The Civil War Draft Riots at 150:
Remembering and Depicting the Largest Civil Insurrection in the Nation's
History," Museum of the City of New York, July 15.
2013 Paper, "'Our sketches are all real, not mere
imaginary affairs': The Visual Documentation of the New York Draft Riots,"
in session "Through Nineteenth-Century Eyes: Seeing Race, Class, and
War in the New York Draft Riots of 1863," Organization of American
Historians Annual Meeting, San Francisco, April 12.
2013 Panelist, "Show and Tell: A Roundtable of Comic
Book and Graphic Novel Creators," Northeast Modern Language Association
Annual Meeting, Boston, March 23.
2013 Panelist, "The Other Side of Currier & Ives,"
Museum of the City of New York, February 13.
2012 Principal Investigator/Lead Faculty, "The
Visual Culture of the American Civil War," a two-week National
Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute for college and university
teachers hosted by ASHP/CML at the CUNY Graduate Center, July 9-20.
2012 Lead faculty, "Seeing the American Civil War:
How Visual Culture Recorded, Interpreted, and Remembered the Conflict,"
Center for Historic American Visual Culture summer seminar (American
Antiquarian Society), June 17-22.
2012 Comment, "Improvising Communities of Print during the
American Civil War," session at American Historical Association Annual
Meeting, Chicago, January 8.
2011 Lecture at opening of exhibition "Illustrating the
War: Selected Engravings from Harpers Weekly and Leslie's Illustrated
Civil War" at the Mandeville Gallery, Union College, October 18.
2011 Guest faculty, “American Material Culture: Nineteenth-Century
New York,” NEH Summer Institute, Bard Graduate Center, July 5-29,
2011.
2011 Guest faculty, “Picturing Reform: How Images
Transformed America, 1830-1880,” Summer Seminar, Center for Historic
American Visual Culture, American Antiquarian Society, June 19–24.
2011 Panelist, "Political Cartoons of the Civil War
and Their Role in Shaping History," National Archives and Records Administration,
Center for the National Archives Experience, Washington, D.C., January 6.
2010 Panelist, symposium marking exhibition opening, Denys
Wortman [Rediscovered]: Drawings for the World-Telegram & Sun, 1930-1953,
Museum of the City of New York, November 18 (co-sponsored by the Center
for Cartoon Studies and the Society of Illustrators).
2010 Presentation and workshop on political cartoons in
history, Tenement Museum, September 30.
2010 Guest faculty, "Interpreting Historical Images
for Teaching and Research," NEH Summer Seminar, Center for Historic
American Visual Culture, American Antiquarian Society, June 24-25.
2010 Paricipating scholar, "American Visions: Towards
Modern America, 19th-early 20th century," Picturing America School
Collaboration Conference, Newark Museum, April 23-24.
2010 Participating scholar, "Interpreting the American
Landscape," Picturing America School Collaboration Conference, Newberry
Library, April 16-17.
2010 Presentation, "Teaching with Prints, Photographs,
and Ephemera," Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting,
Washington, D.C., April 10.
2010 Panelist, "Eyewitness News: When Prints were
Truth," SGC Philadelphia (Southern Graphics Coucil) conference, Tyler
School of Art, Philadelphia, March 26.
2010 Roundtable participant, "The Artifact in the
Age of New Media," Bard Graduate Center, February 3.
2009 Participating scholar, "Interpreting the American
Landscape," Picturing America School Collaboration Conference, Newberry
Library, October 23-24.
2009 James Russell Wiggins Lecture in the History of the
Book in American Culture, "Catching His Eye: The Sporting Male Pictorial
Press in the Gilded Age," American Antiquarian Society, October 16
2009 Lecture "Augustus Saint-Gaudens’s New York,”
in symposium accompanying Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition, October
2.
2009 Guest faculty, "Interpreting Visual Materials
for Research and Teaching," NEH Summer Seminar, Center for Historic
American Visual Culture, American Antiquarian Society, June 15-19.
2009 Comment, "Visualizing 'Bleeding Kansas,' the 'Yellow Peril'
and 'Crimes of Passion'," Organization of American Historians Annual
Meeting, Seattle, March 28.
2009 "Seeing Race and Rights," New-York Historical
Society, January 6.
2008 Moderator/Panelist, "The Persuasive Image," in "Picturing
Politics," a symposium presented by the Illustration Program, Parsons
The New School for Design and The Politics Department, New School for Social
Research, November 15.
2008 Panelist, "Beyond Portraits of Dead White Men: Art History
as Social History," Society for Historians of the Early American Republic
(SHEAR) Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, July 17-20.
2008 Lectures/workshops, "Seeing Americans in the Gilded Age
Pictorial Press" and "Seeing the Boom and Bust," NEH seminars
for community college teachers, Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center,
May 19 and 20 and June 2 and 3.
2007 Panelist, “The Artist and Intellectual in a Time of Political
Conflict,” Museum of the City of New York, June 5.
2006 Comment, "Visualizing Citizenship: Images of Workers and
the Struggle for Social Identity," session at American Studies Association
Annual Meeting, Oakland, October 13.
2006 Forever Free, presentations with Eric Foner about co-authored
book: New-York Historical Society, January 12; Brooklyn Public Library,
February 4.
2006 Paper, "Gaps in the Fabric: Visualizing the Past in Cyberspace,"
in session: "Picturing the Past: History Photographed, Filmed, Drawn,
and Digitized," American Historical Association Annual Meeting, Philadelphia,
January 8.
2005 Comment, "Locating
Self, Nation and Race in the Mid-19th Century Periodical's ‘World,'" session at American Studies Association annual meeting, Washington, D.C.,
November 4.
2005 Paper, "Printed Ephemera and the Web," in
session:"State of the Field: Visual and Material Culture," Organization
of American Historians Annual Meeting, San Jose, April 2.
2004 Comment, "Wielding the Engraver's Knife: Popular Illustration
as Ideological Tool in Civil War America," session at American Studies
Association Annual Meeting, Atlanta, November 11.
2004 Participant, "Conversation in the Humanities: Ben Katchor
and Joshua Brown," The Graduate Center, Nov. 4.
2004 Comment, "H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online Session:
Aural and Visual Literacy in the Social Science Classroom," American
Historical Association Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., January 9.
2003 Paper, "The
Days' Doings: The Gilded Age in the Profane Pictorial Press," in
session "A New Visual Dispensation? Sex, Gender, and Race During Reconstruction
and the Gilded Age," American Studies Association Annual Meeting, Hartford,
October 2003. Also presented at Smithsonian Museum of American Art/Archives
of American Art, Washington, D.C., January 8, 2004.
2003 Panelist, "Was America Born in the Streets? Gangs of New
York and Political Violence in Historical Perspective," Society for
Historians of the Early American Republic (SHEAR) Annual Meeting, Ohio State
University, July 19, 2003.
2002 Paper, "From the Illustrated Newspaper to Cyberspace: Visual
Technologies and Interaction in the 19th and 21st Centuries" in "Technology
and Society" session, Japanese Association for American Studies annual meeting,
Meiji University, Tokyo, June 2.
2002 Paper, "The Lost Museum: Reconstructing a 19th-Century Experience
in the Digital Age," graduate seminar in American Studies, Ritsumeikan University,
Kyoto, June 4, and public lecture sponsored by U.S. Embassy at Hokkaido
University, Sapporo, Japan, June 6.
2002 Paper, "Fractured Views: 19th-Century New York City in the Pictorial
Press, 1865-1877" at American Studies seminar, University of Tokyo, Komaba
Campus, June 10.
2002 Discussant, "American Art and Reconstruction: The 1870s," session
at "American Art at the Crossroads" symposium, organized by the Ph.D. program
in Art History and the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Graduate Center,
CUNY, April 19.
2002 Panelist, "Beyond Photojournalism," in session on "New Directions
in Journalism History" at the American Journalism History Association-Association
for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Joint Journalism Historians
Meeting, Hunter College, March 23.
2001 Panelist, "September 11, 2001," American Studies Association
Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., November 10.
2001 Chair, "Making It Public: Putting Multicultural Research Online,"
American Studies Association Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., November
10.
2001 Chair, "Gangs of New York--More than the Movie," Gotham Center
New York City History Conference, October 9.
2001 Chair, "Illustrating the City: Artists and Everyday Life in
New York," Gotham Center New York City History Conference, October 9.
2001 Chair, "The Lost Museum: Barnum's American Museum in the 19th
and 21st Centuries," Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting,
Los Angeles, April.
2001 Presentation, "New Media History," American Association of Colleges
and Universities Annual Meeting, New Orleans, January 19.
2000 Paper and Presentation, "Virtual Humbugs: Barnum's Museum in
the Digital Age," American Studies Association Annual Meeting, Detroit,
October 13.
2000 New Media History Workshop, South African National Cultural
Heritage Training and Technology Program Summer 2000 Institute, Michigan
State University, August.
1999 Paper, "Fractured Views: New York in the Pictorial Press, 1865-1877,"
South Street Seaport Museum, June 12.
1999 Chair, "The Long March through Media: The American Social History
Project Reflects on 18 Years of Presenting the Past," National Council on
Public History Annual Meeting, Lowell, Massachusetts, Friday, April 30.
1999 Paper, "Talking Heads, Visual Silence, and Other Hazards: Reflections
on Making Social History Documentaries," and Workshop, "New Media, MultiMedia,
InterMedia: Prospects for the Digital Documentary," Department of History,
SUNY Albany, April 9, 1999.
1999 Respondent, "Historical Research and Resources in the Digital
Age: Libraries and Institutional Cooperation," Session co-sponsored by H-Net,
American Historical Association Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., January
9.
1996 Moderator, "The Challenge of Change," panel at 10th Annual City
Lore Film and Video Festival, Disturbing the Peace: Strategies for Social
Change, Hunter College, May 4.
1996 Presentation, "Making the Transition: Filmmakers Go Digital,"
P.O.V. Interactive and Foundation for Independent Video and Film workshop,
New Media Production for Independent Film and Video Makers, June 2.
1992-99 Co-convenor: Bowery Seminar, New York Institute for the Humanities,
New York University/Cooper Union.
1990 Paper: "Reconstructing Representation: Social Typing, Readers,
and the Pictorial Press, 1865-1877," American Historical Association Annual
Meeting, New York, Dec. 30.
1990 Presentations: "Words, Pictures, and the Past: Comic Books and
Changing Representations of History," at the History Workshop Popular History
Conference, University of the Witwatersrand, and at University of the Western
Cape and University of Cape Town, South Africa, Feb. 1990.
1988 Presentations: "Fight Where We Stand: A Media Project on South
African History," at Columbia University African Studies Seminar, the Southern
Africa Research Project Meeting at Wesleyan University, and the Oral History
Association Annual Meeting.
1987 Presentation: "The Visual Image in Popular History," People's
History Day, History Workshop Conference, "The Making of Class," University
of the Witwatersrand, Feb. 13.
1986 Paper: "Documentary Film and the Visualization of 19th Century
American Social History," African Studies Institute Seminar, University
of the Witwatersrand, Oct. 6.
1986 Paper: "Visualizing the Working Class Past," Organization of
American Historians Annual Meeting, New York City, April 12.
1985 Paper: "Visualizing Nineteenth-Century American Social History,"
American Historical Association Annual Meeting, New York City, December
30.
1984 Paper: "History, Pictures and the Producing Classes," The Future
of Labor History: Toward a Synthesis, Northern Illinois University conference,
October 10.
1984 Panelist: "Writing the History of the American Working Class,"
Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, April 5.
1983 Paper and slideshow: "The American Working Class--A Visual Silence,"
History Workshop 17, "Industrialization--and After," Manchester, England,
November 11.
1983 Respondent: "'Mysteries' Exposed: Depictions of New Americans
in New York City," American Studies Association Biennial Convention, Philadelphia,
November 3-6.
1982-86 Senior Research Scholar, Graduate School of the City University
of New York.
1979-80 Research associate, "The Labor and Work Experience in New
York," N.Y. Council for the Humanities-sponsored project coordinated by
James Shenton, Columbia Univ.
1979 Writer/researcher, Citibank pamphlet on 55 Wall Street, chronicling
the history of the building (1836-1979) and its relationship to the growth
of the bank and the city.
1979 Teaching assistant, National Endowment for the Humanities Seminar,
"Ethnicity and Race in Urban America," Columbia University.
1978-79 Assisted in oral biography of Roger Baldwin, under Dr. Alan
Westin, Columbia Univ.
1977-78 Research associate, National Endowment for the Humanities
Seminar, "Ethnicity and Race in Industrial America," Columbia University.
1977 Researcher, Free Enterprise Forever! Scientific American
in the 19th Century, James Shenton, ed. (New York: Images Graphiques,
1977).
2002 Member of American Studies Association delegation to Japanese Association for American Studies annual meeting in Tokyo. Presented papers at conference, at seminars in Ritsumeikan University (Kyoto) and University of Tokyo, and at a public event at Hokkaido University (Sapporo) sponsored by the U.S. Embassy.
1996 Member of delegation, Association of American Publishers International Freedom to Publish Committee, Jakarta, Indonesia. Participated in "Experiments in Freedom" seminar with Indonesian writers and interviewed publishers, writers, scholars, and jurists about censorship and free expression.
1990 Instructor, workshop on educational comic books, South African Council for Higher Education Development. Ran two-day workshop for largest anti-apartheid education program in South Africa on comic-book techniques in teaching history and literacy.
1986 Instructor, History Workshop, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. Taught historians, trade unionists, community activists, and alternative educators techniques of audio-visual presentation in a series of workshops, and advised production of a pilot slide/tape production, funded by the Ford Foundation.