Message from American Military and Local History Institute Director

“The Hudson River Valley in War and Peace”

The Hudson River Valley is the home to a plethora of historical sites that tell the story of America’s past through the Revolutionary War, slavery in the region, and the era of FDR. Grounded in American military history and enlivened through the local history of the region,  this course in both military and local history seeks to develop knowledgeable and articulate students of the American experience and to instill a desire to continue to read, to study, and to use the insights from history and leadership during a lifetime of citizenship.  The Hudson River Valley was the center of conflict in the American Revolution and has provided critical resources and support during America’s wars ever since.  At the same time, the local history of the region is rich in a range of subjects from the Huguenots in New Paltz to slavery, World War I and II and the era of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt. On the banks of the Hudson at Marist College and at historic sites throughout the Mid-Hudson, you will learn about war, resistance and local history.  As a future college student and citizen of the United States, you should understand the historical moments and sites that inform how we understand ourselves as citizens. March with us as we live history by walking on the ground that our forbearers trod and by playing the roles and confronting the issues of key historic figures, both military and civilian, throughout our history.  Huzzah!

Dr. Kristin Bayer teaches Asian, Military, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Marist College.  She received her Ph.D. from New York University in History and the History of Women and Gender.  She is the co-director of the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program, faculty advisor to Phi Alpha Theta, the History Honor’s Society, and the chair of the Academic Affairs Committee.  She researches and writes about representation of China and the Chinese. Her publications include “Set in Stone: continuity and omission in possessive representations of the Great Wall”; “Desire, Disguise and Distaste: Early Missionary and Merchant Negotiations in Guangzhou, China,” in Merchants and Missionaries: Trade and Religion in World History; “Contagious Consumption: Commodity Debates over the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century China Trade”; “From Out of this World to the Cold War: Lowell Thomas, Tibet, and the State Department.”