Joe Anderson

Education
BA with Honours University of Nebraska-Lincoln
MA University of Kansas
PhD Iowa State University

Office: EA3121
Phone: 403.440.8796
E-mail: jlanderson@mtroyal.ca

Main areas of scholarly interest and/or expertise:
Food and Culture; Public History; Agriculture and Rural Life; History of Technology; American Midwest; Environmental History

Main areas of instruction at MRU:
HIST 1100: Introduction to History
HIST 1117: America to 1865
HIST 1119: The United States, 1865-Present
HIST 2216: The American Revolutionary Era, 1763-1800
HIST 2220: The U.S. as a World Power, 1898-1991
HIST 3357: Topics in American Culture
     History of the American Family
     America Eats: Food, Diet, and Agriculture in America
HIST 3358: American Environmental History
HIST 4405: Special Topics in Public History
HIST 4411: The American Civil War and Reconstruction

Current Projects:
The Rural Midwest since World War II, editor (under contract with Northern Illinois University Press)

“Uneasy Dependency: Rural and Farm Policy in the Midwest since 1945,” for The Rural Midwest since World War II, (under contract with Northern Illinois University Press)

“Fixing the Technological Fix: The Rapid Rise, Fall, and Rehabilitation of Cytoplasmic Male Sterility in the Hybrid Corn Industry”

Pigs in America: Four Centuries of Contested Occupation (under contract with Northern Illinois University Press)

Publications:
Industrializing the Corn Belt: Agriculture, Technology, and Environment, 1945-1972. Northern Illinois University Press, 2009

“Lard to Lean: Making the Meat-Type Hog in Post-World War II America,” in Food Chains: From Farm Yard to Shopping Cart, edited by Roger Horowitz and Warren Belasco. Hagley Perspectives on Business and Culture Series, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008

“The People’s University: Cooperative Extension and Outreach,” in Iowa State University: Tradition and Transformation, edited by Dorothy Schwieder and Gretchen Van Houten. Wiley-Blackwell, 2007

“The Vacant Chair on the Farm: Soldier Husbands, Farm Wives, and the Iowa Home Front, 1861-1865,” Annals of Iowa. 66 (3&4) (Summer/Fall 2007): 241-265

“War on Weeds: Iowa Farmers and Growth Regulator Herbicides,” Technology and Culture, 46 (October 2005): 719-744

“’The quickest way possible’: Iowa Farm Families and Tractor-drawn Combines, 1940-1960,” Agricultural History, 76 (Fall 2002): 669-688

Selected Honours and Awards:
Honorable Mention, Benjamin F. Shambaugh Award for the most significant book published in Iowa history, State Historical Society of Iowa, 2010

Research Reserve Grant, Mount Royal University, 2009

Envirotech Prize 2007, awarded by a Society for the History of Technology Interest Group, for best article on the intersection of environmental history and history of technology. “War on Weeds: Iowa Farmers and Growth Regulator Herbicides,” Technology and Culture, 46 (October 2005): 719-744

Manuscript Referee:
Business History Review, Journal of American History, Kansas History,  and Technology and Culture

Reviews:
Agricultural History, Annals of Iowa, Enterprise and Society, H-Environment, Indiana Magazine of History, Journal of Illinois History, Journal of Southern History, Journal of the West, Material Culture, New York History, North Dakota History, Ohio History, South Dakota History, Technology and Culture, and The Historian

Selected Service:
Chair, Program Committee, 2011 Agricultural History Society Annual Conference

Program Committee, 2010 Agricultural History Society Annual Conference

Under Western Skies: Climate, Culture, and Change 2010 Conference Planning Committee, Mount Royal University

Georgia House Speaker Tom Murphy Exhibit Committee, University of West Georgia

Referee for Journal of American History and Technology and Culture

Professional Affiliations:
Agricultural History Society
Alberta Museums Association
Association for Living History, Farm, and Agricultural Museums
Society for the History of Technology