Mike Milligan

My graduate training is in latter 19th century and 20th century American intellectual history with a focus on the post-Civil War South.  My dissertation examines the writings and correspondence of a noted Southern sociologist, folklorist, regionalist, and race relations leader (Howard Odum) who taught at the University of North Carolina from the 1920s through the early 1950s.  My second major in college was economics, consequently I greatly enjoy the study of United States economic and business history (which includes the study of large corporations and business regulation in America).  On numerous occasions here at Penn State I have taught a seminar on monopolies and the history of antitrust; I also regularly teach the Department’s 100-level course in United States Business History and its upper level course in United States Constitutional History since 1877.  A current project is developing a 100-level course in the History of Penn State (being offered for the first time in fall 2017).  I also serve as the undergraduate internship coordinator for the History Department.  So if you are interested in doing an internship I would welcome meeting with you.

Recent Publications:

“Paul Blank ’94: Changing Wal-Mart, and Changing America” [An Interview with Paul Blank, 1st Director of Wake Up Wal-Mart], The Exeter Bulletin, Fall 2008, pp. 23-26.

“A Conversation with Khrushchev,” The Exeter Bulletin, Summer 2003, p. 4.

“The ‘Universal Constant in A World of Societal Variables’: Howard Odum’s Use of the Folk Concept in Folk Sociology, 1930-1953, ”The Folklore Historian, Volume 8 (1991), pp. 5-25.

“The Question of Black Labor and Planter Immigration Ideology, 1865-1910,” Essays in History, Department of History, University of Virginia, Volume 28 (1984), pp. 81-110.

Recent Undergraduate Courses:

HIST020 – American Civilization to 1877
HIST155 – American Business History
HIST302W – Undergraduate Seminar
HIST450 – Constitutional History of the United States Since 1877