Teaching:
Dr. Young has taught a wide range of courses, including both halves of the U.S. history survey, America in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, The United States in Depression and War, America since 1945, U.S. Women’s History, Women and Politics, and War and American Democracy. Her classes routinely address the following issues: the development of American political institutions, the impact of public policy on the lives of the people, and the role of ideology in American politics. She plans to address these themes in graduate courses. In each of her classes, Dr. Young uses a variety of methods to help students deepen their appreciation for American history and their critical thinking and writing skills.
Research:
Dr. Young’s current book manuscript, “Why We Fight: Congress and the Politics of World War II,” is under contract to Princeton University Press. She recently spent a year at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars working on this project. Based on extensive research in congressional and presidential archives, “Why We Fight” challenges conventional assumptions about wartime politics, specifically the presidential domination of politics and policy. Instead, careful examination of wartime economic and social policy reveals that Congress was an active and important player in wartime governance. Dr. Young is developing another book project, tentatively entitled “Texas and the Transformation of American Politics: From Lyndon B. Johnson to George W. Bush.” This synthetic, analytical work evaluates how and why Texans in Washington inordinately influenced national politics from the middle of the twentieth century to the present. She is also writing a biography of former Texas governor
Miriam Ferguson for publication with the University of New Mexico Press. Finally, she is editing the “Encyclopedia of the U.S. Presidency,” a six-volume reference work that will be the definitive source for the topic. It is under contract to Facts on File and is scheduled for publication in 2008.
Selected Publications:
The Documentary History of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidency, 6 Vols., (Bethesda, Md.: Lexis-Nexis, 2005-2007).
Lou Henry Hoover: Activist First Lady (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004).
Wright Patman: Populism, Liberalism, and the American Dream (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 2000). Winner of the D.B. Hardeman Prize for the best book on Congress (2002).
(with Lewis L. Gould), Texas, Her Texas: The Life and Times of Frances Goff (Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1997).
