Patrick Kelly
Spring 2008 |
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Patrick J. Kelley, Associate Professor of History, received a Ph.D. from New York University. Before coming to UTSA in 1997, Dr. Kelley served as Lecturer in Social Studies at Harvard University and Visiting Professor of History at Tufts University. His first book, Creating a National Home: Building the Veterans' Welfare State, 1860-1900 (Harvard University Press, 1997), focused on the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, the direct bureaucratic precursor to the medical arm of the Department of Veterans Affairs. His article, "'1896 is as Vitally Important to our Country as 1861': The Election of 1896 and the Restructuring Civil War Memory," examines the Republican Party's mobilization of the memory of the secession crisis of 1861 in its effort to defeat the candidacy of William Jennings Bryan. Dr. Kelly has been very active in UTSA's M.A. program and his latest project fits nicely into the proposed Ph.D. program. A transnational study, the topic of Los Algodones: The Time of Cotton (LSU Press, forthcoming) is 1860s trade in cotton between the state of the Trans-Mississippi South and the states of Northeastern Mexico. This study is a history of a cultural geographical and economic region that includes San Antonio. As with his first book, the overarching subject addressed in his second book is state formation: the interrelated and violent stories of nation building in Mexico and the United States during the 1860s. He has received two fellowships in support of his current project: a National Endowment for the Humanities "Extending the Reach" fellowship, and a UTSA Faculty Development Leave.