Ian Hartman is a Professor of History. He grew up and attended public schools in Western Pennsylvania and completed his Ph.D. at the University of Illinois in 2011. Hartman has been a proud Alaskan and faculty member at UAA since August 2011. His research and teaching interests encompass political and cultural history in the United States. He has published and writes on a range of topics related to race, power, and politics in Alaska, the American West, and the United States more generally. He teaches history from the bottom-up and stresses how regular people have changed the course of American history in ways both big and small. He has collaborated with the Anchorage Museum, the Anchorage School District, and state and local historical societies. Hartman takes seriously the role of history in public life and enthusiastically strives to take the academic discipline beyond the walls of the classroom and campus and into the community.
Selected Publications:
Books
- Black Lives in Alaska: An African American History of the Far Northwest (with David Reamer), Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2022.
- Black History in the Last Frontier: African American History in Alaska, National Park Service and the University of Alaska Anchorage, 2020.
- Imagining Anchorage: The Making of America’s Northernmost Metropolis, (co-edited with James K. Barnett), Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 2018.
- In the Shadow of Boone and Crockett: The Politics of Race, Culture, and Representation in the Upland South, Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2015
Museum Exhibits and Curatorial Experience
- “All Aboard: 100 Years of the Alaska Railroad,” Anchorage Museum, Anchorage, AK (May 2023-January 2024; exhibit commemorates the centennial of the Alaska Railroad and documents its history using text, images, and multimedia).
- “Journey, Justice, and Joy: Black Lives in Alaska,” Anchorage Museum, Anchorage, AK (May 2021-February 2022; exhibit space dedicated to the history and culture of Black Alaskans and the broader Circumpolar North).
Current Projects
- A History of the Alaska Railroad
- Gold Rush Era in the American West
Recent Articles and Chapters
- “Representations of Need and Want,” in Brent Ruswick, A Cultural History of Poverty (London, UK: Bloomsbury Press, forthcoming 2023).
- “A ‘Far North Dixie Land:’ Black Settlement, Discrimination, and Community in Urban Alaska,” with David Reamer in Western Historical Quarterly (Spring 2020), 29-48.
- “‘A Bonanza for Blacks?’ Limits and Opportunities for African Americans in the Urban North” in Barnett and Hartman, Imagining Anchorage (Fairbanks: Univ. of Alaska Press 2018), 357-374.
- “Documenting Alaska’s Past: Key Studies and Future Directions in the History of the Forty Ninth State,” Pacific Northwest Quarterly (Spring 2018), 90-97.
Reviews in
- Alaska History
- American Nineteenth Century History
- Appalachian Journal
- California History
- Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books
- Journal of African American History
- Journal of American History
- Journal of American Ethnic History
- Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era
- Journal of Southern History
- Journal of the West
- H-Environment, H-Net Reviews
Grants and Awards
- National Park Service (2016-2019; 2020-2024)
- National Endowment for the Humanities, Society of Architectural History (2019-20)
- University of Alaska Anchorage, Dual Enrollment Student Initiative (DESI) Fellow, 2020
- University of Alaska, Center for Community Engagement and Learning (CCEL) Faculty Mini-Grant (2018-19)
- Rasmuson Foundation (2017-18)
- Selkregg Community Engagement Award (2016-17)
- National Endowment for the Humanities, Summer Fellow (2014)
- United Academics (AAUP/AFT Local 4996) Faculty Development Award (2018, 2021, 2022, 2023)