U.S. women’s and gender history, public history, oral history, human rights, veterans studies, aviation, and war and society

• Ph.D. Texas Tech University
• M.A., Missouri State University
• B.A., University of Missouri-Rolla

• Gender, Genocide, and Human Rights (Interdisciplinary-First Year Seminar)
• HIST 393 Public History
• HIST 142 U.S. History Survey Since 1865
• HIST 392 Women and Gender in History
• HIST 359 War, Peace, & Memory in America
• HIST 397 Museums, Memorials, and Monuments

Sarah Myers is a historian of public history, gender history, and war and society. As a public historian, she has conducted numerous oral history interviews for her own research on female pilots in World War II and with Pennsylvanian veterans of various wars and conflicts. In her previous role as director of The Keirn Family World War II Museum, a museum she created and opened, she hosted living history events and museum exhibition openings. She has also conducted interviews with documentaries and local and national media outlets on women in aviation, the U.S. military, and the anniversary of historic events. She recently received a National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH) grant to generate dialogue with female veterans at five institutions around the U.S.

Selected Publications

“‘The Women Behind the Men Behind the Gun’: Gendered Identities and Militarization in the Second World War” in The Routledge Handbook of Gender, War, and the U.S. Military, ed. Kara Vuic (Routledge, forthcoming 2017).

“Battling Contested Air Spaces: The American Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II, in Gender and the Second World War: The Lessons of War, eds. Corinna Peniston-Bird and Emma Vickers, Gender and History Series (Houndmills, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 11-24.

“How one ‘Rosie the Riveter’ poster won out over all the others and became a symbol of female empowerment,” co-authored with G. Kurt Piehler, The Conversation, May 25, 2018. Also published in the Houston Chronicle, Plainview Daily Herald, Co.Design, India TV News and the Jacksonville Journal-Courier.

Selected Presentations

Roundtable, “Teaching Women’s Military History in the Academy and the Military,” Towards a More Inclusive Women’s Military History Forum organized by the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative, National Portrait Gallery, Washington D.C., July 2019.

“I never flew an airplane that asked if I were Mr. or a Mrs. or a Ms.:” The Women Airforce Service Pilots' Fight for Veterans Status (1960s-1970s), Betty H. Carter Women Veterans Historical Project at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, March 27, 2019.

Roundtable, “Engaging Students and the Public: Teaching Military History through Museum Exhibits, Podcasts, and Digital Humanities Projects,” Society for Military History, Columbus, OH, May 2019.

“Fighting for Recognition as Veterans: The Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II,” The American Historical Association, Washington, D.C., January 2018. Aired on C-SPAN 3: https://www.c-span.org/series/?ahtv

Grants

National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Dialogues on the Experiences of War Grant, “We are Veterans Too: Women’s Experiences in the U.S. Military,” 2020-2021, (Project Director and Discussion Leader at Women’s Memorial in Arlington, VA), 2020-2021
https://www.neh.gov/news/faculty-member-sarah-myers-receives-grant-national-endowment-humanities