About
Katherine Massoth is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Louisville and an affiliated faculty member in Latin American and Latino Studies and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She is also the Faculty Advisor for UofL’s chapter of Phi Alpha Theta - Nu Xi, the National History Honor Society.
Dr. Massoth is a historian of North America, especially the American West and U.S.-Mexico Borderlands, from the Spanish Colonial Era through the nineteenth century. Her specialties include Women's and Gender History of the United States and Mexico, Southwestern History, Cultural History, and Social History. As a historian of the Americas, she teaches history courses on women and gender, borderlands, the American West, and chicanx/latinx studies. She also incorporates her background in digital humanities and oral history into her teaching and community engagement.
Her research focuses on the history of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, specifically the role of women in performing ethnic identity, transborder trade systems, foodways, and cultural networks. Her book manuscript, Keeping House: The Borders of Gender Roles, Cultural Practices, and Domesticity in Territorial Arizona and New Mexico, is currently under review. Her book manuscript brings light to the persistent roles of women in shaping daily politics in the North American Southwest after U.S. annexation in 1848.
Prior to coming to Louisville, she received her Ph.D. and M.A. in History from the University of Iowa and two Bachelor of Arts degrees in History and Social Science-Secondary Education from the University of California at Irvine. At Iowa, she was a founding member of History Corps, a digital humanities and oral history project that uses community and academic collaboration to create interpretive projects that demonstrate how the humanities affect everyone’s lives.
Her research and writing have received support from the American Historical Association, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the New Mexico Office of the State Historian, the Huntington Library, the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University, the Coalition for Western Women’s History, and the Charles Redd Center.
Courses Taught at UofL
History of World Civilizations II
American History, 1492-1865
History of Gender and Ethnic Identity on the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands
Food Across the U.S.-Mexico Border
Women’s History, 1700 to Present
Introduction to Latino Studies