PhD Candidate (ABD)

Email: tdf2b (at) virginia.edu

Fields & Specialties

Environmental History, History of Technology, 19th Century US

University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia.  PhD, History, expected December, 2012.  Fields: American History, Environmental History, History of Technology, History of Capitalism.  Advisers: Edmund P. Russell, Mark Thomas, W. Bernard Carlson, Peter Onuf.  Dissertation: “Harvesting Power: American Agriculture, British Industrialization, and the Labor of Human Bodies, 1776-1918.” 

University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona.  M.A., History, 2006.  Fields: Environmental History, US West.  Advisers: Katherine Morrissey, Douglas Weiner.  Master’s Thesis: “’Thank God for the Deserts’: Mormon Colonization, Environmental Change, and Climatic Variability in the Little Colorado River Watershed, 1873-1920.”

State University of New York at Binghamton, Vestal, New York.  B.A., History, 2003.

Employment

University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia.  PhD Student, Department of History, 2007-Present.  Instructor, Program of Global Development Studies, 2010-2012.  Teaching Assistant, Department of Science, Technology, and Society, 2008-2010.

University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona.  Research Assistant, Institute for the Study of Planet Earth, 2004-2006.  Teaching Assistant, Department of History, 2004-2006.

State University of New York at Binghamton, Vestal, New York.  Teaching Assistant, Department of Environmental Studies, 2002.

Honors, Awards, and Fellowships

Newberry Library Short-Term Resident Fellowship for Individual Research, $2,000, 2012-2013.

Bankard Fund Pre-Doctoral Fellowship in Political Economy, University of Virginia, $15,000, 2012-2013.

Jefferson Trust Global Development Studies Pre-Doctoral Fellowship (awarded to one PhD student at the University of Virginia), $54,000, 2010-2012.

University of Virginia Library Graduate Fellowship in Digital Humanities (given annually to four graduate students at the University of Virginia “doing significant and innovative work in digital humanities”), $10,000, 2010-2011.

Lynne and Harry Bradley Foundation Research Fellowship, $8,000, 2010.

Alfred D. Chandler Jr. Travel Grant, Business History Society, 2010.

Buckner W. Clay Graduate Fellowship in the Humanities and Technology, Department. of Science, Technology and Society, University of Virginia, $15,500, 2009-2010.

Robert J. Huskey Travel Fellowship, University of Virginia, 2008-2009.

Refereed Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Thomas D. Finger, “Invisible Commodities in World History: The Case of Wheat and the Industrial Revolution,” Under Review.  Submitted to the Bulletin of World History on July 31, 2012.

Thomas D. Finger, “Wheat Ecology and International Markets in Minnesota, 1850-1900” in Minnesota Environmental History, Chris Wells and George Vrtis, editors.  Manuscript accepted for inclusion in volume.

Thomas D. Finger, “Trading Spaces:  Transferring Energy and Organizing Power in the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic Grain Trade,” in New Natures: Joining Environmental History With Science and Technology Studies.  Sara Pritchard, Finn Arne Jorgenson, Dolly Jorgenson, editors.  Manuscript accepted at University of Pittsburgh Press.

Edmund Russell, James Allison, Thomas Finger, John K. Brown, Brian Balogh, and W. Bernard Carlson, “The Nature of Power: Synthesizing the History of Technology and Environmental History,” Technology and Culture 52 (April 2011):  246-259. 

Thomas D. Finger and Barbara Morehouse, “River of Change: An Environmental History of Climate and Water Management in the Upper Little Colorado

            Watershed,” Journal of the Southwest 49, no. 4 (Winter 2007): 531-561.

John Sonnet, Barbara J. Morehouse, Thomas Finger, Gregg Garfin, and Nicholas Rattray, “Drought and declining reservoirs: Comparing media discourse in Arizona and New Mexico, 2002-2004," Global Environmental Change 16 (Feb 2006): 95-113.

Other Publications

Kathryn A. Neeley, Thomas D. Finger, and Jonas Hart, “What Are the Benefits and Challenges of Democratic Decision-Making About Technology?”, in  Technology and Democracy: A Sociotechnical Systems Approach,  edited by Kathryn A, Neeley, 253-258.  San Diego, CA: Cognella, 2010. 

Research Funding

Newberry Library Short-Term Resident Fellowship for Individual Research, $2,000, 2012-2013.

Larry J. Hackman Research Residency, New York State Archives, $1,800, 2010.

Anna K. and Mary E. Cunningham Research Resident, New York State Library, $1,000, 2010.

Lynne and Harry Bradley Foundation Research Fellowship, $8,000, 2010.

Department of History Summer Travel Grant, University of Virginia, 2008.

Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Institute Pre-Doctoral Grant, University of Arizona, $1,500, 2005.

Desert Southwest Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Grant, National Park Service, 2004-2005.

Invited Lectures

“Economies and Ecologies: A Historical Back-and-Forth.” University of Virginia, Department of Architecture, Global Sustainability, November 8, 2011.

“The Environment: History, Justice, and Policy.”  University of Virginia, Department of Science, Technology, and Society, November, 2010, April, 2011.

Conference Presentations

“The Metaphysics of Wheat: Ecology, Energy, and the Origins of the Western Industrial Diet” to be presented at the American Society for Environmental History Annual Conference, Toronto, Canada, April 2013.

“Wheat Ecology and International Markets in Minnesota, 1850-1900” presented at the Minnesota Environmental History Conference, St. Paul, Minnesota, June 2012.

“Calories, Commerce, and Customs: Agrarian Revolt and the International Grain Trade, 1837-1914” presented at the Policy History Annual Conference, Richmond, Virginia, June 2012.

“Money, Machines, and Markets: Rethinking the International Origins of American Industrial Agriculture” presented in absentia at the Agricultural History Society Annual Conference, Manhattan, Kansas, June 2012.

“‘We are the slave of those whom we created’: Energy, Capital, and Society in the Grange Movement, 1868-1900” presented at the American Society for Environmental History Annual Conference, Madison, Wisconsin, March 2012.

“Maintaining Railroads and Ordering Natural Knowledge in New York State, 1840-1900” presented at the American Society for Environmental History Annual Conference.  Phoenix, Arizona, April 2011.

“This Mighty Instrument of Concord: American Commercial Agriculture and British Industrialization, 1800-1900” presented at the North American Conference of British Studies. Baltimore, Maryland, November 2010.

“The Engines of Industry: American Agriculture, British Industrialization, and the Bodies of Urban Laborers, 1800-1900” presented in absentia at the Society for the History of Technology Annual Conference.  Tacoma, Washington, September 2010.

“Networks of Energy: An Environmental and Technological Analysis of the North Atlantic Grain Trade, ca 1800-1900,” presented at the Bringing STS into Environmental History Conference.  Trondheim, Norway, August 2010 (one of two graduate students to present).

“This Mighty Instrument of Concord: Comparative Advantage, Corn Laws, and the Construction of Naturalized Free Trade,” presented at the Association of Business Historians Conference.  York, England, July 2010.

“A Natural Theology of Free Trade in the Nineteenth Century,” presented at the Business History Conference. Athens, Georgia, March 2010.

“Understanding Economies as Ecologies: A Spatial Analysis of the North Atlantic Grain Trade,” presented at the “Taking Up Space” Conference. Durham, North Carolina, January 2010.

“KatrinaSIM: A Simulation of Decision-Making about Technology in a Democracy” with Kathryn Neely, Jonas Hart, and Matthew Howell, presented at the Humanities and Technology Association Annual Conference. Charlottesville, Virginia, September 2009.

“The Nature of Exchange: British Tourists and New York’s Commercial     Landscape, 1800-1860,” presented at the American Society for   Environmental History Annual Conference. Tallahassee, Florida, February 2009. 

Conference Sessions Chaired or Commented Upon

Commentator, “Envirotechnical Systems and Regimes” Page Barbour Series, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, October, 2011.

Service to Department and School

Member, Planning Committee, Global Development Studies Major, University of Virginia, 2010-Present.

Representative, Graduate Student Council.  University of Virginia Graduate School of Arts and Science, 2008-2010.

Service to University

Member, Graduate Student Advisory Council, Committee for the History of the Environment, Science, and Technology,  University of Virginia,  2010-Present.

Member, Graduate Committee on Sexual Assault, University of Virginia,  2009-2010.

Referee

Essays in History

Professional Societies

Organization of American Historians

American Historical Association

American Studies Association

American Society for Environmental History

Society for the History of Technology

Forest History Society

North American Conference on British Studies

Courses Taught

HIST4993: Independent Study with Sheffield Hale, Economics and Ecology in the Western Tradition, University of Virginia.

GDS/HIST 3111: Technology and Globalization since 1400, University of Virginia, sole instructor.

GDS/HIST 3112: Ecology and Globalization since 1400, University of Virginia, sole instructor.

STS 1010: Technology and Democracy, University of Virginia, teaching assistant.

INDIV 103: The United States since 1877, University of Arizona, teaching assistant.

TRAD 104: World History to 1550, University of Arizona, teaching assistant.

HIST 446: History of Arizona and the Southwest, University of Arizona, teaching assistant.

ENVI 101: Introduction to Man, Woman, and Their Environments, State University of New York at Binghamton, teaching assistant.

 

11/15/12