Fields of expertise:
environmental history, urban history, public history, U.S. history, history of science
Catherine McNeur is the award-winning author of Taming Manhattan: Environmental Battles in the Antebellum City (Harvard University Press, 2014). Her latest book, Mischievous Creatures: The Forgotten Sisters Who Transformed Early American Science (Basic Books, 2023) uncovers the lives of Margaretta Hare Morris and Elizabeth Carrington Morris, two unsung pioneers whose discoveries helped fuel the growth and professionalization of science in antebellum America. Prof. McNeur’s expertise is nineteenth-century American environmental history, but she teaches broadly in public history, the history of food, urban history, as well as United States history.
Recent publications:
- Mischievous Creatures: The Forgotten Sisters Who Transformed Early American Science (Basic Books, 2023)
- “Vanishing Flies and the Lady Entomologist,” in Jennifer Bonnell and Sean Kheraj, eds., Traces of the Animal Past (University of Calgary Press, 2022).
- "Parks, People, and Property Values: The Changing Role of Green Spaces in Antebellum Manhattan," Journal of Planning History (online, July 2016; in print, 2017); Guest editor, Special Issue on New York City’s Parks, Journal of Planning History
- Taming Manhattan: Environmental Battles in the Antebellum City (Harvard University Press, 2014)
- “The ‘Swinish Multitude’: Controversies over Hogs in Antebellum New York City,” Urban History 37.5 (2011): 639-660.
Courses taught:
HST 201, History of the United States I
HST 202, History of the United States II
HST 203, History of the United States III
HST333U, Food and Power in American History
HST339U, Environment and History
HST427/527, Topics in the History of Science: Women Scientists & Wikipedia
HST440/540, American Environmental History
HST491/591, Readings in Environmental History
HST492/592, Research in Environmental History
HST495/595, Public History Lab: Heritage Trees
HST495/595, Public History Lab: Podcasts and History
HST495/595, Public History Lab: Peninsula Park
HST495/595, Public History Lab: Hoyt Arboretum
Awards:
- John Eliot Allen Outstanding Teaching Award, Portland State University, 2022
- James H. Broussard Best First Book Prize, Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, 2015
- Victorian Society Metropolitan Chapter Book Award, 2015
- Hornblower Award, New York Society Library, 2015
- George Perkins Marsh Book Prize, American Society of Environmental History, 2015
- Urban History Association Best Dissertation Award, 2012
- Rachel Carson Prize for Best Dissertation, American Society of Environmental History, 2012
Masters Students:
- Taylor Rose, “Seeing the Forest for the Roads: Auto-Tourism and Wilderness Preservation in Mount Hood National Forest, 1913-64,” Fall 2016
- Kira Helene Lesley, “Making Room for Roses: The 1911 Relocation of the Multnomah County Poor Farm,” Winter 2018
- Lyndsay Smith, “A Temperate and Wholesome Beverage: The Defense of the American Beer Industry, 1880-1920,” Spring 2018
- Taylor Bailey, “Delphinids on Display: The Capture, Care, and Exhibition of Cetaceans at Marineland of the Pacific, 1954-1967,” Spring 2018
- Kirsten Straus, “’Beneath this Sod’: Intersections of Colonialism, Urbanization, and Death in Salem and Portland, Oregon,” Fall 2018
- Carolee Harrison, “Environmental Inequalities, Unnatural Disasters, and Suburban Growth in Postwar Portland,” examination track, Winter 2021
- Tanaka Axberg, “Cultures of Death in the United States,” examination track, Spring 2023
Honors Students:
- Carter Ause, “Black and Green: How Disinvestment, Displacement, and Segregation Created the Conditions for Eco-Gentrification in Portland’s Albina District, 1940-2015,” Spring 2016
- Madelyn Miller, “From the Ground Up: The Intersection of Environment and Industry in Portland, Oregon,” Fall 2017
- Joshua Friedlein, “’Totally Inadequate’: The Sierra Club, the Save the Redwoods League, and the Creation of Redwood National Park,” Summer 2018
- Allison Kirkpatrick, “’There is Great and Awful Immorality in this Place’: Environment, Character, and Reform in South Wales, 1847–1919,” Spring 2022
- Ana Bane, “Reclaiming Public Space: How Black Portlanders Transformed Irving Park, 1960s-1980s,” Spring 2023
- Andi Johnson, “Oregon’s Forgotten Embers: The Oregon Women for Agriculture and the State’s Burning Issue, 1969-1990,” Spring 2023