Jeffrey Johnson, Ph.D.
Education:
Ph.D., Washington State University
Contact:
Ruane 133
401.865.1784
j.johnson@providence.edu
Dr. Jeff Johnson is professor of history and director of the graduate program at Providence College. He teaches courses on the Gilded Age/Progressive Era, the American West, and labor history. His work centers on the political, cultural, and social history of the late 19th and early 20th Century American West, and the intersections of class, democracy, and dissent. He has held or currently holds fellowships at the University of Nebraska, the Montana Historical Society, UCLA, Harvard, and Stanford. He is the author of three books:
They Are All Red Out Here: Socialist Politics in the Pacific Northwest, 1895-1925 (The University of Oklahoma Press, 2008).
Reforming America: A Thematic Encyclopedia and Document Collection of the Progressive Era (ABC-Clio, 2017). [Recipient of an American Library Association award and on its 2018 List of “Best Historical Materials”]
The 1916 Preparedness Day Bombing: Anarchists and Terrorism in Progressive Era America (Routledge, 2018).
His next book, “Faithfully Yours: George Herron’s America, 1885–1925,” is forthcoming from the University of Illinois Press.
Books
They Are All Red Out Here: Socialist Politics in the Pacific Northwest, 1895-1925 (The University of Oklahoma Press, 2008 / Paperback, 2023).
Reforming America: A Thematic Encyclopedia and Document Collection of the Progressive Era (ABC-Clio, 2017). [Recipient of an American Library Association award and on its 2018 List of “Best Historical Materials”]
The 1916 Preparedness Day Bombing: Anarchists and Terrorism in Progressive Era America (Routledge, 2018).
His next book, “Faithfully Yours: George Herron’s America, 1885–1925,” is forthcoming from the University of Illinois Press.
Articles, Essays, & Book Chapters
forthcoming “Calmer Waters: Fort Benton, Montana’s Cultural & Commercial Transition from 1870 – 1890,” (with Kris Goss), in America’s Longest River: A Cultural and Environmental History of the Missouri River. Jon Lauck, ed. (Sioux Falls, SD: The Center for Western Studies). 2025.
2025 “‘Sincere but Misguided and Dangerous’: George Herron at Iowa College, 1893-1899,” Annals of Iowa 84 (Winter 2025): 3-28.
2023 “’Raise a Little Hell’: The South Dakota Radical Tradition,” in Old Trails and New Roads in South Dakota History. Jon K. Lauck, ed. (Sioux Falls, SD: The Center for Western Studies), 181-201.
2022 “The Revolution of the Future: Shūsui Kōtoku and California, 1905–1906,” Journal of the West 61 (Spring 2022): 36-43.
2021 “The “Soviet Ark” in Context: The Buford and the Anti-Radicalism of 1919,” (with Daniel Rooney), in The Global Challenge of Peace: 1919 as a Contested Threshold to a New World Order. Matthew Perry, ed. (Liverpool, UK: Liverpool University Press), 181-196.
2020 “Introduction” to Bill Haywood’s Book: The Autobiography of William D. Haywood (New York: International Publishers).
2019 “‘Aliens, Enemy Aliens, and Minors’: Anti-Radicalism and the Jewish Left in the Early Twentieth Century,” in Historicizing Fear: Ignorance, Vilification, and Othering. Travis D. Boyce and Winsome Chunnu-Brada, eds. (Boulder: University Press of Colorado), 194-208.
2018 “Workers against Warfare: The American and Australian Experiences Before and During World War I” (with Verity Burgmann, Monash University, Australia) in Frontiers of Labor: Comparative Histories of the United States and Australia. Greg Patmore and Shelton Stromquist, eds. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press), 39-60.
2016 “‘Equal Opportunity For All. That’s All’: South Dakota’s H.L. Loucks and the Fight for Reform, 1885-1928,” South Dakota History 46, No. 1 (Spring 2016): 1-28.
2015 “Comrade Johns: Oregon’s Socialist Candidate for President in the 1920s” (with Nathan Pederson) Oregon Historical Quarterly, Vol. 116, No. 4 (Winter 2015): 84-107.
2014 “Closed Shops and Open Anarchism: Labor, Radical San Francisco, and the Great War,” Journal of the West 53 (Winter 2014): 32-41.
2013 “Why is There No Socialism in the U.S.? – 100 Years Later,” U.S. History in Global Perspective, Cathy Gorn, ed. (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, 2013), 1-16.
2012 “‘One of the Most Charming of Men’: The Paradox of Copper King Attorney William Scallon.” Journal of the West 51 (Fall 2012): 60-66.
2010 “Raising the Red Flag: Culture, Labor, and the Left, 1880-1920,” in Homer Simpson Marches on Washington: Dissent in American Popular Culture, Timothy Dale and Joseph J. Foy, eds. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2010): 190-202. (Winner: John G. Cawelti Award for Best Textbook/Primer, Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association).
2008 “The Politics of Socialism: Building a Socialist Party in the Northwest, 1901-1905.” Columbia: The Magazine of Northwest History,Vol. 22 (Spring 2008): 32-37.
2006 “The Gilded Age & the Frontier Military: Society and Culture at Fort Assinniboine, Montana Territory, 1879-1905.” Journal of the West, Vol. 45, No. 3 (Summer 2006): 65-71.
2006 “‘The Talking Stage of Socialism Has Passed’: The Beginnings of Northwest Socialism, 1895-1900.” Idaho Yesterdays, Vol. 47, No. 2 (Spring/Summer 2006): 6-29.
Fellowships and Awards
2024 Silas Palmer Fellowship at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University
2024 Historian in Residence, The Foundation for Montana History
2024 Herbert W. Blakely Endowed Award, Center for Western Studies
2023 Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation Fellowship, Boston, Massachusetts
2022 State Historical Society of Iowa Research Grant
2022 Affiliate Fellow, Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska
2018 List of Best Historical Materials, for Reforming America, American Library Association
2015 James and Sylvia Thayer Fellowship, UCLA
2009 Andrew W. Mellon Humanities Grant, Augustana College
2008 NEH Visiting Fellowship, The W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, Harvard University
2008 Young Alumni Award, Carroll College
2007 James H. Bradley Fellowship, Montana Historical Society
