Randi Storch
Education:
B.A., University of Florida, 1991, with Honors in History, Phi Beta Kappa
M.A., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1992, Department
of History
Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1998, Department
of History
Course Offerings:
HIS 201 History 201 is an introduction to the history of modern America since 1877. In this class we will put names, dates, and places in a larger historical context in order to make connections across decades and between movements. We will emphasize the growth of industrial capitalism, the emergence of the American State, and the relationship of these developments to a variety of groups including business leaders, reformers, women, industrial workers, and African-Americans. Studying these groups in relation to economic and political developments as well as to social movements allows us to begin to understand the historical roots of important issues that are still with us today, such as racial and class divisions, the changing character of work, and the causes of war.
HIS 290 This course will introduce students to the historical profession and to the processes of historical research, interpretation, and writing.
HIS 306 History 306 is an advanced-level course in the history of Modern America from 1877 to 1920. During this period, the United States grew from a largely rural and native-born society into a modern state power with large urban centers, a significant immigrant population, and interest in expanding its economic and political borders to new areas around the world. In this course, we will study these developments by focusing on industrial capitalism, the American labor movement, race relations, gender relations, and the emerging power of the American state.
HIS 307 History 307 is an advanced-level course in the history of Modern America from 1920 to the present. During this period of time, economic depressions, foreign wars (both hot and cold), and domestic reform movements encouraged the rise and fall of liberalism within America’s state and society. In this course we will analyze this development by looking at the relationship between America’s domestic and foreign policies and the activity of the labor movement, business and political leaders, women, and African-Americans.
HIS 317 History 317 is an introduction to the history of women in the United States from colonial times to the present. In this class we will put names, dates, and events in a larger historical context in order to analyze, compare, contrast, and rethink the historical experiences of women in this country. In addition to understanding how class, race, ethnicity, and ideology have shaped the experiences of women in America, we will also look at women in relation to economic, political, and social developments, some of their own making.
HIS 421 What does American history look like when we view it from the perspective of common people? Over the course of the semester, we begin to answer this question by focusing on the experiences of US workers from the advent of this country’s industrialization to the present. Trade unions and industrial relations will be important parts of the story, but our focus will be on the major social, economic, political and cultural changes in working-class life during this era and on the ways in which workers created and reacted to these changes.
HIS 490 This senior seminar will result in a thirty-page research paper based on primary and secondary sources that you discover and analyze. Topics of the seminar vary from labor history, women’s history, and social history more generally. Regardless which topic is offered, the class will always afford you the opportunity to dig deeply into historical sources, to develop research skills, to apply logic to your research and writing, to evaluate evidence critically, to refine your writing, and to participate in a critique of your own work and the work of others.
HIS 545 This graduate readings course focuses on the major issues in the history of women in the United States and pays special attention to pedagogical strategies and materials.
HIS 621 This course is designed to introduce graduate students to the rich historiography of women and gender in the United States. Over the past several years, the field of US women’s history has become enormously enriched and complicated by research in related histories such as those of masculinity, gender, and sexuality. We will look at these developments as a way of sharpening the conceptual frameworks that inform work in women's history. Although the course will move chronologically from the colonial period through the present, it is not meant to be a survey but rather to highlight particular themes within the field.
HIS 646 This course is designed to introduce graduate students to the historiography
of American working-class history, which is broadly defined as the historical
experience of wage-earning people. Although the course will move chronologically,
it is not
meant to be a survey but rather to highlight particular issues
in the field.
His 660 This graduate seminar will result in a thirty-page research paper
based on primary and secondary sources that you discover and analyze. Topics
of the seminar vary from labor history, women’s history, and social
history more generally. Regardless which topic is offered, the class will
always afford you the opportunity to dig deeply into historical sources,
to develop research skills, to apply logic to your research and writing,
to evaluate evidence critically, to refine your writing, and to participate
in a critique of your own work and the work of others.
Research Interests:
My major research interest for over a decade, since I encountered social history my first semester of graduate school at University of Illinois, has been labor and working-class studies with an emphasis on the American Communist party in general and Chicago’s communists in particular. All of my publications, presentations, and research relate in some way to working-class history, Chicago’s communists, and/or American Communist party history more generally.
The central question of my research asks how American communism was experienced
at the local level. Who joined the Communist party and why and what did
they actually do during the worst years of the Depression? Until recently
these questions were difficult ones to answer, but since the early 1990s
previously classified records kept in Moscow have been open to international
scholars making it possible to uncover the most local experiences of communists
in the worst years of the Depression. Formerly untapped documents (including
membership statistics, disciplinary hearings, field organizers’ reports
and neighborhood meeting minutes) written not only by party officials but
by individual rank and file members detail Chicago’s party activities
between 1928 and 1935, revealing Chicago’s communist culture, communist
decision-making processes, and actions taken in the name of American communism.
From this rich archive, American communism emerges as more diverse and pertinent
than previously imagined.
Selected Publications and Paper Presentations:
Red Chicago, University of Illinois Press, Forthcoming.
“’The Realities of the Situation’: Revolutionary Discipline
and Everyday Political Life in
Chicago’s Communist Party, 1928-1935,” Labor: Studies in Working
Class History of
the Americas 1:3 (Fall 2004), 19-44.
“The United Packinghouse Workers of America: Civil Rights, and the
Communist Party
in Chicago,” in Kerry Taylor, Bill Issel and Robert Cherny’s
eds., American Labor and the Cold War (Rutgers University Press, 2004),
72-84.
“Teaching Class: Labor and Working Class History in the US Survey,” Teaching
History: A
Journal of Methods (Spring 2004), 14-23.
“Moscow’s Archives and the New History of the Communist Party
of the United States,”
Perspectives (October 2000), 44-50.
November 2004, “’They Could Stay in the Toilet and Play with the Babies’: Women’s Personnel and Political Struggles within the CPUSA,” Social Science History Association Conference, Chicago, Illinois.
October 2004, “What We Now Know to Be True About the Communist Party USA,” Central New York Council of Social Studies Teachers, Syracuse, New York.
June 2002, “Bringing Class to Class: The US Survey and Labor and Working-Class History,” How Class Works Conference, Stony Brook, New York.
October 2000, “Cleaver and Sickle: Red Unionism in Chicago’s Meatpacking Industry, 1928-1935, ” Social Science History Association Conference, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
May 1999, “The UPWA, Civil Rights, and Chicago’s Communist Party,” Southwest Labor Studies Conference, San Francisco, California.
October 1998, “The Rise and Fall of Chicago’s Revolutionary
Unions: From the TUUL to the AFL,” North American Labor History Conference,
Detroit, Michigan.
Teaching Awards:
1998 All-Campus Teaching Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, University of Illinois
1998 Humanities Council Award for Undergraduate Teaching, University of Illinois
1998 LAS College Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, University of Illinois
1996 John G. and Evelyn Hartman Heilgenstein Award for Excellence in Undergraduate
Teaching in the Department of History, University of Illinois