Dr. Stephen P. Rice

Associate Professor of American Studies

Educational Background: B.A., Gonzaga University, double major in English and Philosophy; M.A., History, Yale University; Ph.D., American Studies, Yale University

Arrived at Ramapo College: 1996

Areas of Specialization: Nineteenth-century American society and culture; American labor history; cultural history of technology in America

Courses Regularly Taught: Introduction to American Studies; Pursuing the American Dream; Technology and Culture in America; Class in America; Introduction to U.S. History I; Early American Nation

Scholarship: Minding the Machine: Languages of Class in Early Industrial
America will be published by the University of California Press in 2004. I have published articles on nineteenth-century American social and cultural history in several journals, including New York History and the Indiana Magazine of History. I am now working on a new book on commercial wood engraving in nineteenth-century America titled Picture Nation.

Points of Interest: My interests tend to focus on American culture from the early nineteenth century through the 1920’s. I’ve studied and written about a number of different cultural forms, from antebellum exhibits of machinery to wood-engraved illustrations to regional fiction stories published in the 1890’s. I try to inform all of my teaching with the kind of interdisciplinary work I do in my research and writing. In addition to courses in American studies, I also teach courses in history and a course titled “Work, Class, and Culture in Industrializing America” in the college’s MALS program. I have also taught in the literature program.