Education

• Ph.D., History, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2011
• B.A., History, University of Pittsburgh, 2004

Biography

Ian Hartman is an Associate Professor of History. He grew up and attended public schools in Western Pennsylvania and completed his PhD at the University of Illinois in 2011. Hartman has been a proud Alaskan and faculty member at UAA since August 2011. His research and teaching interests encompass political and cultural history in the United States. He has published and writes on a range of topics related to race, power, and politics in Alaska, the American West, and the United States more generally. He teaches history from the bottom-up and stresses how regular people have changed the course of American history in ways both big and small. He has collaborated with the Anchorage Museum, the Anchorage School District, and state and local historical societies. Hartman takes seriously the role of history in public life and enthusiastically strives to take the academic discipline beyond the walls of the classroom and campus and into the community.

Teaching Responsibilities

• HIST A131 History of the United States to 1865
• HIST A132 History of the United States since 1865
• HIST A390 Themes in World History
• HIST A440 The History of the American West
• HIST A451 Gilded Age and Progressive Era America, 1877-1917
• HIST A452 America in War and Peace, 1917-1945
• HIST A453 Cold America, 1945-1980
• HIST A454 The United States in the New Gilded Ages, 1980s-Present
• HIST A477 Senior Seminar
• HIST A490 Studies in History (Special Topics)
• HIST A495 Internship

Publications

Books

Black Lives in Alaska: An African American History of the Far Northwest (with David Reamer), Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2022.

Black History in the Last Frontier: African American History in Alaska, National Park Service and the University of Alaska Anchorage, 2020.

Imagining Anchorage: The Making of America’s Northernmost Metropolis, (co-edited with James K. Barnett), Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 2018.

In the Shadow of Boone and Crockett: The Politics of Race, Culture, and Representation in the Upland South, Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2015.

Museum Exhibits and Curatorial Experience

“All Aboard: 100 Years of the Alaska Railroad,” Anchorage Museum, Anchorage, AK (May 2023-January 2024; exhibit commemorates the centennial of the Alaska Railroad and documents its history using text, images, and multimedia).

“Journey, Justice, and Joy: Black Lives in Alaska,” Anchorage Museum, Anchorage, AK (May 2021-February 2022; exhibit space dedicated to the history and culture of Black Alaskans and the broader Circumpolar North). 

Current Projects

A History of the Alaska Railroad
Gold Rush Era in the American West

Recent Articles and Chapters

“Representations of Need and Want,” in Brent Ruswick, A Cultural History of Poverty (London, UK: Bloomsbury Press, forthcoming 2023).

“A ‘Far North Dixie Land:’ Black Settlement, Discrimination, and Community in Urban Alaska,” with David Reamer in Western Historical Quarterly (Spring 2020), 29-48.

“‘A Bonanza for Blacks?’ Limits and Opportunities for African Americans in the Urban North” in Barnett and Hartman, Imagining Anchorage (Fairbanks: Univ. of Alaska Press 2018), 357-374.

“Documenting Alaska’s Past: Key Studies and Future Directions in the History of the Forty Ninth State,” Pacific Northwest Quarterly (Spring 2018), 90-97.

Reviews in

Alaska History
American Nineteenth Century History
Appalachian Journal
California History
Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books
Journal of African American History
Journal of American History
Journal of American Ethnic History
Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era
Journal of Southern History
Journal of the West
H-Environment, H-Net Reviews

Career History/Work Experience

Grants and Awards    

National Park Service (2016-2019; 2020-2024)
National Endowment for the Humanities, Society of Architectural History (2019-20)
University of Alaska Anchorage, Dual Enrollment Student Initiative (DESI) Fellow, 2020
University of Alaska, Center for Community Engagement and Learning (CCEL) Faculty Mini-Grant (2018-19)
Rasmuson Foundation (2017-18)
Selkregg Community Engagement Award (2016-17)
National Endowment for the Humanities, Summer Fellow (2014)
United Academics (AAUP/AFT Local 4996) Faculty Development Award (2018, 2021, 2022, 2023)