After Kenyon

The American Studies major or concentration is beneficial for students thinking about future careers in academia, law, museums, public history, or education. Kenyon American Studies graduates use their training in a number of different ways. Below is a sample of what some of our graduates are doing.

Elizabeth Pillsbury '98
After working on environmental and campaign finance reform issues for non-profits in Pittsburgh and Boston, she entered the History PhD at Columbia University in 2002.

She is currently working on a project about water pollution in the New York harbor and Jamaica Bay during the progressive era. The paper is entitled: "Filthy Waters, Fattened Oysters, and Typhoidal Fevers: The New York Sewage Battles, 1880-1925.

Elizabeth adds, "My interests are all over the map, but I'm particularly interested in environmental, public health, legal, and urban history in the late 19th and 20th centuries."

Andrew Kahrl '01:
While at Kenyon, Andrew majored in history with an American Studies concentration. He is a history Ph.D. candidate at Indiana University. He is focusing on music, religion and African American culture in the Deep South in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. At the same time, Andrew is working as a research assistant on the Liberian Collections Project, a research and archival project aimed at collecting and preserving materials related to Liberia's history and culture. Information on the collections can be found at www.onliberia.org.

Elizabeth Belanger '97
Elizabeth is currently attending the Ph.D. program in the Brown University Department of American Civilization. She is in her 6th year of study at Brown where she's developed research interests in women's history, the urban built environment, visual and spatial theory and cultural geography.