My research interests are disclosed under Teaching Interests and Professional Activities. I have spent a great deal of time attempting to explore and to understand the place in which I have lived since 1970. I am working on a biographical study of one of the leading figures in the formation of the Republican Party in Illinois as well as studies of the impact of migration from Vermont on the development of the Midwest and of the migration of Pennsylvania Mennonites and Brethren from south central Pennsylvania to central Kansas in the late 1870s. 

The photo below was taken in early February 2003 at the Library of Congress. Sam Watterston and Harold Holzer presented "Lincoln Seen and Heard" that night.