Young Historian is On the Map

Most of the year, Lawrence Culver can be found in a campus classroom at Utah State University or in his office in Old Main. It’s his research interests that take him to more exotic locations, and his friends once chided him about his doctoral studies.

“As a doctoral student, my friends ribbed me about my ‘research trips’ to places such as Palm Springs,” he said. “Even though I visited numerous archives, conducted oral history interviews and plowed through vast amounts of tourist ephemera, somehow it was difficult to prove that I had not simply reinvented dissertating as a vacation.”

Well, that “vacation” paid off, and Culver completed his dissertation in an award-winning effort. His doctoral dissertation, “The Island, the Oasis, and the City: Santa Catalina, Palm Springs, Los Angeles, and Southern California’s Shaping of American Life and Leisure,” won the 2005 Rachel Carson Prize for the best dissertation in environmental history.

An assistant professor of history at Utah State University since 2004, Culver has earned a new honor, a recognition that puts him on the map — to use the language of one of his specialty areas. Culver was named the country’s “Top Young Historian” for the week of June 3, 2007, by the History News Network.

“The History News Network is an Internet-based site that was organized several years ago,” Culver said. “It provides a public forum for historians to discuss history, to put current events into perspective and to discuss contemporary politics.”

The site also provides a venue for op-ed pieces and a place for historians to discuss and write about current research. Housed on the George Mason University Web site, History News Network is a non-profit organization based in Seattle, Wash.

Culver’s major area of research includes the United States’ southwest borderlands; the American West; cultural, environmental and urban history; and the histories of tourism, recreation, architecture and urban planning.

At USU, during spring semester 2007, Culver also earned a teaching honor when he received a recently created award that acknowledges top teaching. Culver was among the inaugural group of five USU faculty to receive the Excellence in Instruction for First-Year Students award. The award recipients were selected from a group of more than 100 faculty members who were nominated by freshman students.

“The Utah State faculty creates a rigorous academic environment while providing students the personalized support they need to bridge the gap between the past and present,” said Noelle A. Call, director of USU retention and first-year experience. “When a world-class research professor knows your name and really cares, it becomes a springboard to success.”

An observer at an off-campus summer course taught by Culver — a course designed for public school history educators — immediately saw his appeal as a teacher. He was animated and engaged, while sprinkling his information- and illustration-packed lecture with humorous asides.

In its award to Culver, History News Network included a number of comments by students, and many appreciated his humor.

“Dr. Culver made it really fun and it was organized very well,” one student commented. “He was also really funny and that made the class better.”

“You are the best history teacher I have ever had,” another student said. “I can tell you love the subject by the way you teach.”

Praise for Culver’s dissertation, which he is now revising into a book, is also high. The review committee read nine dissertations before selecting Culver’s for the Rachel Carson Prize.

“The winning manuscript considers the lifestyle of leisure in southern California, arguing that Catalina Island, Palm Springs and Los Angeles contributed to the formation of a distinct American suburban culture in the 20th century,” the review committee wrote. “Lawrence Culver asks us to think about all the ways that Palm Springs changed the way Americans thought about leisure: modernist desert architecture, the golf course residence and the Hollywood vacation colony. … [Culver’s dissertation] is innovative and it pushes environmental history in interesting directions.”

“Someone who studies leisure and tourism in American history is likely to encounter bewilderment, not to mention some humor, at their expense,” Culver said in response to the “Top Young Historian” award on the History News Network Web site. “What I really enjoy about being an historian is using and communicating historical knowledge in very different ways — in research and writing in the profession, through teaching, from surveys to graduate seminars, and through public history — in museum exhibits, public advocacy and in research projects, such as one I completed examining race and access to recreational space in Los Angeles.”

That report is now being used to advocate for increased parkland and access to recreational opportunities for all the residents of Los Angeles.

“Being able to use historical knowledge to help people in the present is an especially rewarding aspect of being an historian,” Culver said.

In various courses at USU, Culver uses different teaching techniques. Classroom technique is different in an upper division course and in graduate seminars as compared to large survey courses for undergraduates. In his history 1300 course — U.S. Institutions, a course made up primarily of freshmen — Culver said he provides a general overview of American history and works with primary documents so students get an understanding of how historians interpret documents. For those not accustomed to a large lecture course, Culver provides lecture notes and tips on how to write an essay, especially for an essay exam. He encourages attendance at activities outside the classroom.

“I want the students to know that Utah State University is more than a place you come to and take classes,” he said. “It’s an intellectual community, and I want them to be a part of that community.”

Culver said he is both flattered and slightly mortified to be named a “Top Young Historian.”

“It’s certainly nice to receive recognition and to be noticed by people in the discipline, especially at an early stage in my career,” Culver said. “I’m very flattered by it.”

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Writer: Patrick Williams, (435) 797-1354 [patrick.williams@usu.edu]

Contact: Lawrence Culver (435) 797-3101 [Lawrence.Culver@usu.edu]