Department of History

A Chicago native, Aaron Shapiro arrives at Auburn having most recently served as national historian for the U.S. Forest Service in Washington, D.C., where he was involved with a wide variety of public history projects including historical films, websites, oral histories, interpretive planning, exhibit development, historic preservation, and heritage tourism initiatives. In addition, Shapiro worked on collections management and federal records issues and regularly provided historical policy papers for staff. As agency historian, he developed relationships with interagency and non-profit partners to further the goals of the agency history program. Before joining the Forest Service, Shapiro was Assistant Director of the Scholl Center for Family and Community History at Chicago 's Newberry Library. At the Newberry, he served as academic director for two Department of Education Teaching American History grants, working cooperatively with the Chicago Public Schools and Chicago-area cultural and non-profit institutions. He also served as a Visiting Lecturer in History at the University of Chicago where he taught courses in environmental history and 20th century US history.

Shapiro received his MA and PhD in History from the University of Chicago and a BA in History from the University of Pennsylvania . He is particularly interested in questions regarding the intersection of people and place and changing perspectives of the cultural and natural landscape. His current research explores the transformation from extractive industry to tourism in the Upper Midwest and addresses questions about the history of land use and environmental change, modern environmental politics, the relationship between work and leisure, and broader cultural transformations in twentieth century urban and rural America. Shapiro is the author of several articles, including "Promoting Cloverland: Regional Associations, State Agencies, and the Creation of Michigan's Upper Peninsula Tourist Industry," Michigan Historical Review 29 (Spring 2003): 1-37, and "Up North on Vacation: Tourism and Resorts in Wisconsin 's North Woods," Wisconsin Magazine of History (Summer 2006): 2-13. He is currently revising his manuscript, One Crop Worth Cultivating: Tourism in the Upper Great Lakes, 1910-1965 for publication.

Shapiro currently serves as Chair of the Education Committee of the American Society for Environmental History.

• BA, University of Pennsylvania
• PhD, MA, University of Chicago

Articles

• "'Air Conditioned by the Cool Breezes of Lake Superior': Vacationing in Michigan's Copper Country After World War Two," in Kim Hoagland, Terry Reynolds, and Erik Nordberg, eds., New Perspectives on Michigan's Copper Country (Houghton, MI: Quincy Mine Hoist Association, 2007)
• "Wisconsin Dells, Indiana Dunes, Ozarks, and Spas," in Richard Sisson, Christian Zacher, and Andrew Cayton, eds., The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006)
• "Up North on Vacation: Tourism and Resorts in Wisconsin 's North Woods," Wisconsin Magazine of History (Summer 2006): 2-13
• "Promoting Cloverland: Regional Associations, State Agencies, and the Creation of Michigan's Upper Peninsula Tourist Industry," Michigan Historical Review 29 (Spring 2003): 1-37

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