Faculty Specialist - Director of Undergraduate Studies
Ph.D., Western Michigan University (1998)
Nineteenth Century U.S.; Material Culture Studies; Environmental History


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Office: 4436 Friedmann Hall
E-mail: cheryl.lyon-jenness@wmich.edu
Phone: (269) 387-5382

Teaching

I teach courses in 19th and 20th century United States History and in Women's History. I am also the Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of History, and in that role, oversee student advising for history majors and minors and undergraduate curriculum issues.

Research

My current research interests focus on horticultural history with a particular emphasis on ornamental plants as material culture. My forthcoming book, For Shade and For Comfort: Democratizing Horticulture in the Nineteenth-Century Midwest (Purdue University Press) explores the mid-nineteenth-century boom in horticultural interest and analyzes its cultural significance. Currently, I am working on an edited volume of letters drawn from thousands written to Illinois nurseryman John Kennicott between 1855 and 1863.