Howdy!
Now isn't that just the greeting you would expect with such a picture?  That's me in my Calamity Jane costume (some would say she's my alter ego).  Instead of writing books I research, write and perform scripts--first person narratives, oral biographies.  In addition to Calamity Jane, I perform as three composite figures that bring together the stories of many women:

• Grower is a woman of the Earth Lodge People, but her father was an American trader and one of her grandfathers a French fur trader.  She is known for her farming skills.  She meets the audience in 1804.  She is concerned about white explorers and the settlers who will follow, and she has stories about when the horses came and what trade goods have meant to her people.

• Jo is a Civil War veteran who disguised herself  to enlist and fight with her younger brother.  She raises issues of  domestic violence and gender equality, as well as bringing to life the Bleeding Kansas era, the Civil War, and their aftermath.

• Rosa Fix is a farm woman.  I set the script in 1890.  She lets me talk about everything from farming practices of the time to the Populist movement.  When I take Rosa to elementary schools we skip the politics and they get to do some hand sewing and learn about the daily lives of farm children.

• I began performing Calamity Jane in 1989.  She lets me address issues of identity and the mythic west versus the real west.

Calamity and I are on the Kansas Humanities Council's History Alive! roster, as well as the rosters of the Oklahoma and Nebraska humanities councils.   And as a partner in Ride into History's historic performance touring troupe I am also in the Kansas Arts Commission's Touring Program and on the Heartland Arts Fund roster for America's midsection.  For the Kansas Humanities Council Speakers Bureau I lecture on "Stories from the Barn," and lead book discussions on a wide range of books, mostly about the West and agriculture.  I also conduct workshops on historic performance, mostly through the non-profit group I helped found, Ride into History Cultural and Educational Project, Inc.

Want to catch this academic being a rowdy woman?  Some of my upcoming lectures and performances are listed on the Kansas Humanities Council's website.  (look at "What's Happening in Kansas"). Some of my recent presentations are listed below.

In addition, I present at least one paper a year at a conference.  These conferences are sometimes on history, sometimes public history, and sometimes museum studies.

Through 2004 I was on the Governor's Advisory Committee to the Kansas Sesquicentennial Commission.  That's a long way of saying that I get to help plan Kansas's 150th birthday celebration.   The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed in 1854, and all hell broke loose when Congress decided to let the residents of the territory vote for themselves whether Kansas would enter the Union as a free or a slave state.  I'll be helping communities and historic sites tell the story of the Bleeding Kansas era.  This is a special labor of love for me because my family came to Kansas in 1856.  (I am a fifth generation Flint Hills farm owner.)

My Ph.D. in American History, with an emphasis in agriculture, the West, and women, is from Kansas State University, where I also earned my undergraduate degree.  I have masters degrees in American History and in Library Science from Emporia State University.  I was a university librarian (Kansas State University and Wayne State College in Nebraska) for eleven years.

View my c.v.

My office phone number is 620-341-5533 and my e-mail is jthierer@emporia.edu.

Recent and Forthcoming Presentations

2007

• Museum Presentations
  • “Kaffir Corn: Booming and Boostering a Crop and a Community,” Butler County History Center, El Dorado, Oct. [specifically created for them]
• Book Talks and Speakers Bureau for the Kansas Humanities Council
  • “Between Fences…” Wamego Historical Society, Wamego, Jan. 4; Lead Historian for this Smithsonian Exhibit
  • Scattered People, Manhattan Public Library, Manhattan, Jan. 25
  • “Between Fences…” Winfield Public Library, Winfield, Feb. 11; Lead Historian for this Smithsonian Exhibit
  • Englishman in Kansas. Garnett Public Library, Garnett, March 29
  • “Between Fences…” Santa Fe Trail Center, Larned, April 12; Lead Historian for this Smithsonian Exhibit
  • “Stories from the Barn,” Lansing Historical Museum, Lansing, May 29 “Between Fences…” Fick Fossil and History Museum, Oakley, Lead Historian for this Smithsonian Exhibit
  • Farmer Boy, Council Grove, Oct. 22
  • Buffalo Girls, Newton, Nov. 1
  • Buffalo Girls, Newton, Nov. 17
• Chautauqua-Style Performances (monologue followed by discussion as character, then as scholar)
  • “One Frontier Differently: Amelia Earhart and Calamity Jane,” Horace Mann Elementary School, Wichita, Jan. 24; one assembly and 2 discussions [for Emporia State University, Marjorie Werly used as a part of an “early recruitment” package]
  • And again in Emporia.
  • “Fighting Beside My Brother,” Independence Elementary School, Jan. 26; 4 sessions
  • “Calamity Jane: Wild West Legend,” Ottawa Historical Society, Ottawa, Jan. 28
  • “Grower,” Eisenhower Elementary School, Junction City, Jan. 29, 4 sessions
  • “One Frontier Differently: Amelia Earhart and Calamity Jane,” Topeka Public Library, Topeka, Feb. 19
  • “Calamity Jane: Wild West Legend,” Ellinwood Community Historical Society, Ellinwood, March 8
  • “Bleeding Kansas” Julia Archibald Holmes and “Fighting Beside My Brother” Jo, Emporia State University for the Society of Public History’s Osawatomie Historic Site Fund Raiser, April 2
  • “Calamity Jane Comes to Town!” Franklin Elementary School, Wichita, May 2, one assembly and then from classroom to classroom for more in depth discussion with a historian, researcher, and author
  • “Calamity Jane Wild West Legend,” Mitchell County Museum, Beloit, May 27
  • “Mary Fix: Coming to the New Territory, Kansas,” created for this event, with horse, Symphony in the Flint Hills, Wabaunsee County, June 16 3 times that day, plus numerous photo shoots
  • ”Grower” with horse and travois, also “Calamity Jane” with horse and gear; customized educational programming for the Geary County 4-H Fair Board, Junction City, a residency, July 24-26
  • “Fighting Beside My Brother” Watkins Museum, Douglas County Civil War Lecture series, Lawrence, Aug. 12 [This program also led to the extensive interviews for the Lawrence Journal World Herald, news paper, website, and their voice pod casting]
  • Also, led to Channel 49 Television, ABC local Topeka affiliate program on Women in the Civil War
  • “Grower: This Land Should Not Be Sold!” specifically created for their Western Heritage Days, Alfred Public Library, Nov. 19

• Workshops
  • “Preserving the Past Through Performance,” two workshops, Admire, January and August, 2007
  • “Preserving the Past Through Performance,” a specific workshop created for Save Our History Grant, the History Channel and the Kansas Arts Commission, Glascock Arts and Humanities Council, Glasco, April 14-15, 28-29
  • “Night at the Santa Fe Trail Museum” and Workshop based on Young Docents researching and interpreting this Museum’s artifacts and then using performance to share this research, Larned, July 11-15
  • “Perform me the Stories of Leavenworth County,” a specific Preserving the Past type of workshop created for the Leavenworth County Historical Societies, Oct 13-14, Dec. 1
• Youth Chautauqua Programs
  • Youth Chautauqua, Kansas Humanities Council, Medicine Lodge, Kansas, June
  • Youth Chautauqua, Kansas Humanities Council, Baldwin, Kansas, June
  • Youth Chautauqua, Nebraska Humanities Council, Kearney, Nebraska, June 5-6, June 23-24

2008

• Upcoming one week tour North Dakota
  • 3 Museum tour and a workshop funded by the North Dakota Humanities Council
• Conference Presentation listed on my Vita
  • Missouri Valley History Conference, Omaha, Nebraska, March 2008
  • 6 ESU students on 2 panels at this conference
• Upcoming (not on Vita yet)
  • Day-long Pre-Conference session on the creation of First Person Narratives and their uses in Public History and Museum setting was accepted, Mid West Museum Association and Mountain Plains Museum Association co-conference, Kansas City
  • Paper, Kansas Museum Association
• Book Talks and Speakers Bureau for the Kansas Humanities Council
  • “Stories from the Barn,” Santa Fe Trail Center, Larned, Jan. 27
  • Dancing at the Rascal Fair, El Dorado, Feb. 6
  • The Ox-Bow Incident, El Dorado, April 9
  • “Between Fences…” Garden City Senior Center, May 29
    *I served as the lead Historian for this Smithsonian Exhibit, therefore KHC asked me to continue to offer this lecture.
• Chautauqua-Style Performances (monologue followed by discussion as character, then as scholar)
  • “Calamity Jane: Wild West Legend,” Kansas Day Program 6 classrooms, Lincoln Elementary School, Independence, Jan. 25
  • “Calamity Jane: Wild West Legend,” Leavenworth County Conservation District, Lansing, Jan. 26, KHC HA!
  • "Calamity Jane: Wild West Legend,” Kansas Day Program 7 classes, Franklin Elementary School, Junction City, Jan. 30
  • “Calamity Jane: Wild West Legend,” Cherokee Strip Land Rush Museum, Arkansas City, March 29
    • Part of Mid-America Arts Exhibit “Cowgirls”
    • After Jane then a lecture and a discussion of the Roles of Cowgirls
  • “Fighting Beside My Brother” Smokey Hills Museum, Salina, April 3
  • “Calamity Jane: Wild West Legend,” Kansas Electric Cooperatives Annual Meeting, Aug. 4
  • “Calamity Jane: Wild West Legend,” Brown County Historical Society, Hiawatha, Aug. 7

• Workshops
  • “Preserving the Past Through Performance,” two workshops, Admire, January and August, 2008
  • “Creating an Oral Biography Using Your Library’s Resources” x 2, Shawnee County Public Library, Topeka, Feb. 18 [specifically created for them]

Last Updated May 23, 2008