Anthony DeStefanis

Anthony Destefanis

Phone
614-823-1509

Email
adestefanis@otterbein.edu

Office
Towers Hall 215

Associate Professor of History
Department of History & Political Science

Anthony DeStefanis specializes in modern U.S. history with an emphasis on labor and the working class and immigration, race, and ethnicity. His current research uses the Colorado National Guard and the 1913-14 southern Colorado coal strike to examine military strikebreaking. He charts the development of both Colorado’s mining industry and the Colorado National Guard to understand how the confluence of capital’s growing power, cultural politics, and the imperatives of state building created a state with a formidable National Guard that was willing to break strikes, as well as state officials who continually used the Guard as a club against striking workers. He is currently working on a book manuscript titled, “Guarding the Empire: Soldier Strikebreakers on the Long Road to the Ludlow Massacre.”

Dr. DeStefanis earned his PhD in history at the College of William and Mary. At Otterbein, he teaches courses on U.S. labor and working-class history, immigration, the African American civil rights movement, the history of sexuality, and the Cold War. He also offers a team-taught course on the history and literature of the Vietnam War.

DeStefanis grew up in Providence, Rhode Island, in a working-class family with his grandparents and great-grandparents all immigrating to the United States from Italy. This family history helps to explain his interest in labor and working-class history and immigration, race and ethnicity. DeStefanis went to college in Rhode Island, moved to Virginia for graduate school, and his first teaching jobs were in Florida. He came to Columbus in 2008 when he was hired at Otterbein and has enjoyed exploring Ohio and the mid-west. In his free time, he likes to cook, run, read, practice yoga, go to live concerts, and work on his house in Old Town East, one of the oldest neighborhoods in Columbus.

Education

  • Ph.D., The College of William and Mary, 2004
  • B.A., Rhode Island College, 1992

Research, Creative, & Professional Work

  • Modern U.S. history
  • U.S. labor and working-class history
  • Immigration, race and ethnicity
  • Gender and sexuality
  • The U.S. and the world
  • Publications

    Articles and Book Chapters

    • "Governor Elias Ammons and the 1913-1914 Southern Colorado Coal Strike" in The Ludlow Massacre and Beyond: The Colorado Fuel and Iron Company and Its Legacy. Denver: University of Colorado Press, 2014.
    • “The Road to Ludlow: Breaking the 1913-14 Southern Colorado Coal Strike,”Journal of the Historical Society, 12 no. 2 (September 2012): 341-390.
    • "Violence and the Colorado National Guard: Masculinity, Race, Class, and Identity in the 1913-14 Southern Colorado Coal Strike," in Mining Women: Gender in the Development of a Global Industry, 1670-2005, eds., Jaclyn Gier Viskovatoff and Laurie Mercier. New York: Palgrave/MacMillan, 2006.

    Book Reviews and Encyclopedia Entries

    • Review of Reform or Repression: Organizing America’s Anti-Union Movement. By Chad Pearson. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. Labor: Studies in the Working-Class History of the Americas, Winter 2017.
    • Review of The Rise of the Chicago Police Department: Class and Conflict, 1850-1894. By Sam Mitrani. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2013. Labour/Le Travail, Fall 2016.
    • Review of Matewan Before the Massacre: Politics, Coal, and the Roots of Conflict in a West Virginia Mining Community. By Rebecca J. Bailey. Morgantown, West Virginia: West Virginia University Press, 2008. Labor: Studies in the Working-Class History of the Americas, Summer, 2010.
    • Review of Radicalism in the Mountain West, 1890-1920: Socialists, Populists, Miners, and Wobblies. By David R. Berman. Boulder, Colorado: University Press of Colorado, 2007. Pacific Historical Review, August 2009.
    • Review of Colorado's Volunteer Infantry in the Philippine Wars, 1898-1899. By Geoffrey R. Hunt. Albuquerque, New Mexico: University of New Mexico Press, 2006.Pacific Historical Review, August, 2008.
    • "The Ludlow Massacre" entry in The Encyclopedia of U.S. Labor and Working-Class History, ed. Eric Arnesen (New York: Routledge, 2006).

    Affiliations & Awards

    Awards

    • Humanities Advisory Committee, Summer Writing Award, Otterbein University, 2009, 2014 & 2018
    • Humanities Advisory Committee, Faculty Project Grant, Otterbein University, 2012 & 2015
    • Humanities Advisory Committee, Faculty Travel Grant, 2011 & 2012
    • Humanities Advisory Committee, Research Grant, Otterbein University, 2011
    • Scholar-in-Residence, 2010-2012, "Bringing Theory to Practice" Project focused on better integrating the 5 Cardinal Experiences into the Otterbein educational experience.
    • Faculty Development Committee, Professional Development Mini-Grant, Otterbein College, 2009
    • Organizing Internship, the United Steelworkers of America, 2000
    • Graduate Teaching Fellowship, Department of History, College of William and Mary, 1999-2000
    • College-Wide Research Grant, College of William and Mary, 1999
    • Scholarship, The Order of the White Jacket Alumni Association, College of William and Mary, 1997, 1999
    • Dissertation Research Grant, The Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, Brigham Young University, 1998
    • The Senator Claiborne Pell Medal for Excellence in the Study of U.S. History, Rhode Island College, 1992

    Professional Affiliations

    • Labor and Working-Class History Association
    • Organization of American Historians