Brown Bag History Series

Bring your lunch and learn! These seasonally recurring events bring highly-qualified speakers to the library to share about varied topics of cultural, historical, or scientific interest. These free programs are presented by the University of Nebraska at Kearney's History Department and History Nebraska at the Kearney Public Library.

Brown Bag Lunch Option 1

Dr. Elaine Nelson (UNO)

  • Wednesday, April 11, 2019
  • Noon–1:00 p.m.
  • Kearney Public Library

Dr. Nelson is a U.S. historian specializing in the North American West. Her scholarship takes into consideration the complicated relationships that formed between the people and places in the Intermountain West and Great Plains. Nelson’s first full-length monograph is a revised manuscript of her dissertation, “Dreams and Dust in the Black Hills: Indigenous People, Promised Lands, and National Identity in America, 1868-1968” and under contract with the University of Oklahoma Press. This study considers how the role of the tourism industry exploited Indigenous cultures, land, and gender to showcase a myth that celebrated western expansion and national identity.

In July 2017 Nelson became the Executive Director of the Western History Association after it moved to the History Department. At UNO the organization will continue to thrive in its mission as the "congenial home for the study and teaching of all aspects of North American Wests, frontiers, homelands and borderlands."Nelson has presented her work at numerous academic conferences and is involved with various professional organizations. Her work has been recognized and supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, American Philosophical Society Phillips Fund Grant, Western Association of Women Historians Founders’ Dissertation Award, Charles Redd Center, Center for Great Plains Studies, and the Nebraska State Historical Society. She also resident fellowships at the Newberry Library, Huntington Library, Cody Institute for Western American Studies, and American Heritage Center.