ABIGAIL R. GAUTREAU ABBY.GAUTREAU@GMAIL.COM | THEPASTPRESENTLY.ORG

EDUCATION

Ph.D. Public History, Middle Tennessee State University, 2015 M.St. History, University of Oxford, 2008 B.A. Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, 2006 WORK EXPERIENCE

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Digital History July 2015-present Center for Historic Preservation, MTSU

Graduate Research Assistant, Center for Historic Preservation, MTSU 2011-5

Lead Investigator for the Selma Multiple Property Submission 2013 Center for Historic Preservation, MTSU

Visitor Use Assistant, Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts 2007

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

Adjunct Instructor of History, Motlow State Community College 2015-6 U.S. History to 1877, U.S. History since 1877

Adjunct Instructor of History, Middle Tennessee State University 2015-6 U.S. History to 1877, U.S. History since 1877

Adjunct Instructor of History, Lord Fairfax Community College 2010 Taught “World History 1500 to the Present” as both a traditional course and an online hybrid course. Three sections over two semesters.

PROJECTS

Current: Radical Roots: Civic Engagement, Public History, and a Tradition of Social Justice Activism

A collaborative research project working to identify new historical precedents for core values and practices that define the field, particularly those associated with civic engagement, to develop new critical perspectives on the ways in which those practices have been put to the task of advancing social justice, in the past and today. This project includes 20 public historians, with the goal of developing a comprehensive, interactive digital resource.

Southern Places Digital History Initiative: Selma Digitizing the Center for Historic Preservation’s extensive collection of material collected during fieldwork in Selma, Alabama, including photographs and historic documents, as part of the Southern Places Initiative, a partnership with Walker Library. Creating metadata to improve accessibility. Utilizing a CONTENTdm platform.

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Voices of Selma, Alabama Oral History Project An oral history project dedicated to recording the narratives of youths involved in the Voting Rights Movement in Selma, especially alumni of R.B. Hudson High School.

“R.B. Hudson High School, Selma, Alabama.” National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form. (with Carroll Van West)

“Gatlinburg Inn, Gatlinburg, Tennessee.” National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form (Susan Knowles, Heather Bailey, Abigail Gautreau)

Completed: 2013 “The Civil Rights Movement in Selma, Alabama, 1865-1972.” National Register of Historic

Places Multiple Property Submission Form. (Carroll Van West, Elizabeth Moore Humphreys, Amber Clawson, Jessica French, Abigail Gautreau)

“American Baptist Theological Seminary.” National Register of Historic Places District Nomination Form. (Carroll Van West, Elizabeth Moore Humphreys, Abigail Gautreau, Amber Clawson, Jessica French)

“Oak Hill Farm, Tipton County, Tennessee.” National Register of Historic Places District Nomination Form. (Abigail Gautreau, Carroll Van West, Elizabeth Moore Humphreys)

2012 African American Oral History Project

Completed a series of oral history interviews under the direction of Dr. Martha Norkunas, director of the AAOHP.

Cragfont Historic Structures Assessment Tennessee Historical Commission, Gallatin, Tennessee. (Carroll Van West, Elizabeth Moore Humphreys, Spurgeon King, Michael Gavin, Abigail Gautreau, Angela Sirna, Claire Ackerman, Leslie Couch, Dan Allen, David Sprouse, Julie Warwick)

2011 Glen Leven Historic House & Farm Interpretive Plan

Tennessee Land Trust Society, Nashville, Tennessee. (Caneta S. Hankins, Abigail Gautreau, Kathryn Rosta)

Monteagle Sunday School Assembly Architectural Review (Carroll Van West, Elizabeth Moore Humphreys, Abigail Gautreau, Hallie Fieser, Sean Urrutia, Jessica Bandel, Amy Kostine, Jessica White, Leigh Ann Gardner)

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS 2016 National Council on Public History Annual Meeting “Change Starts Within: Challenging Cultural & Structural Barriers to Inclusive Public History”: a structured conversation with Julie Davis, Lara Kelland, and Craig Stutman.

2015 “Give Us the Ballot”: The Alabama Voting Rights Campaign of 1965 and the Transformation of America’s Political System. (Alabama State University)

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"Voting Rights in the Alabama Black Belt: Dallas and Lowndes Counties” with Charles Mauldin, Sheyann Webb-Christburg, Catherine Flowers, and Joann Mants.

2014 National Council on Public History Annual Meeting

“Sustaining Historic Preservation Through Community Engagement”: a roundtable discussion with Kristen Baldwin Deathridge, Rachel Boyle, Ginna Foster Cannon, Kimberly Connolly Hicks, Theodore J. Karamanski, and Eileen MacMahon.

National Council on Public History Annual Meeting Working Group: “Toward a History of Civic Engagement and the Progressive Impulse in Public History” (N.B. This group has evolved into the Radical Roots project)

2013 Oral History Association Annual Meeting

“Re-seeing Movement History in New Relationships, New Times, Old Landscapes: Hidden Stories in the Life History Context”

Popular Culture & American Culture Association in the South “TLC and the American Working Class”

A Conference Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Desegregation of the University of North Alabama “Selma Civil Rights Multiple Property Nomination Project”

16th Annual US/ICOMOS International Symposium “Whose City?: Race and the Urban Landscape in Selma, Alabama”

National Council on Public History Annual Meeting “‘Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find’: Landmarking the Civil Rights Movement in Selma, Alabama” with Amber Clawson, Jessica French, and Louretta Wimberly

2012 Tennessee Regional Phi Alpha Theta Conference

“Creating a Research Culture for Students through Experiential Learning” with Spurgeon King and Katie Randall

Southeast Conference of the Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting “The Invention of Lying: George Psalmanazar, the Society of Jesus, and the Truth about Asia in the Seventeenth Century”

PUBLICATIONS

“Interview with Abigail Gautreau: PhD Candidate” for the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, Summer 2013. http://www.achp.gov/inclusiveness-abigail.html

“Finding the Segregated Past in a Civil Rights Landscape in Selma, Alabama”: Featured Landscape, The Living Landscape Observer, June 2013 http://livinglandscapeobserver.net/civil-rights-landscape/

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SERVICE AND RECOGNITION

Board Member, Inter-museum Council of Nashville 2015-present MTSU Bart McCash Memorial Scholarship 2013, 2014 History Day, Regional Judge, Middle Tennessee 2011-2, 2014, 2016 History Day, State Judge, Tennessee 2011-2, 2014-5 MTSU Committee on Disability Services 2012-2013 MTSU Graduate Student Association, co-chair of Library Committee 2012-2013 PhD/Faculty Liaison, MTSU History Department 2012 MTSU Graduate History Faculty Committee, PhD Representative 2011-2012 Outstanding Customer Service Award, Wolf Trap National Park 2007 Lura Lee Cannon Stephens Prize awarded to an Outstanding Senior History Major 2006

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