Lori Ann Lahlum, Professor | Graduate Coordinator

Profile

A native of North Dakota, Dr. Lori Ann Lahlum teaches courses on the American West, environmental history, Minnesota history, and specialized courses on northern grasslands history. Dr. Lahlum’s research is focused on woman suffrage, life in Norwegian America, including cross dressing, pregnancy, the history of Norwegian immigrant women, landscape, and agriculture in the northern prairies and plains, and the Scandinavian Republican League.

Professor Lahlum also chairs the Northern Great Plains History Conference Council and is actively involved in the Western History Association, the Coalition for Western Women’s History, and the North Dakota Suffrage Centennial Committee. She enjoys speaking to Norwegian heritage groups and local organizations in the northern grasslands. With the Nineteenth Amendment ratification centennial in 2020, Professor Lahlum is happy to speak about woman suffrage in the region.

Education

• Ph.D., University of Idaho, 2003

Fields of Study

• American West
• Women's History
• Norwegian America
• Gender History

Courses taught

• History 190: United States to 1877
• History 191: United States Since 1877
• History 430/530:  Minnesota History: 1862
• History 452/552:  Minnesota History
• History 470/570: American Frontier
• History 471/571:  20th Century American West
• History 486/586:  American Environmental History
• History 495W:  Senior Seminar:  Minnesota World War I

Representative Publications

• With Molly Rozum, eds., Equality at the Ballot Box: Votes for Women on the Northern Great Plains. Pierre, SD: South Dakota Historical Society Press, forthcoming 2019.
• With Betty A. Bergland, eds., Norwegian American Women: Migration, Communities, and Identities. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2011.
• “Women, Work, and Community in Rural Norwegian America,” in Norwegian American Women, edited by Betty A. Bergland and Lori Lahlum, 79-117. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2011.
• “Mina Westbye: Norwegian Immigrant, North Dakota Homesteader, Studio Photographer, ‘New Woman’.” Montana: The Magazine of Western History 60 (Winter 2010): 3-16.
• “Growing Up in Norwegian-American Communities: A Preliminary Study of Childhood, Adolescence, and Young Adulthood,” in Norwegian-American Essays 2008: “Migration and Memory,” edited by Øyvind T. Gulliksen and Harry T. Cleven, 105-136. Oslo: NAHA-Norway, 2008.
• “‘Everything was changed and looked strange:’ Norwegian Women in South Dakota.” South Dakota History 35 (Fall 2005): 189-216.