Kathryn R. Patterson
Education
MA, History, with a concentration in Public History, Florida State University, 2023
BS, History and Government, Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College, 2020
Biography
Kathryn Patterson is a second-year Ph.D. student studying the 19th Century U.S. South with Dr. Caroline E. Janney. Her current research explores how Black delegates to Virginia’s 1867-1868 Constitutional Convention refigured the space as a platform to testify about past and present grievances and make claims on expectations for the future. In addition to her studies, Kathryn is a research assistant for the Nau Center for Civil War History’s Letters Home project and currently serves as Co-Chair for the Graduate Student Committee of the Organization of American Historians. She is also a project coordinator for the committee’s emerging writing group slated to begin in May 2025.
Before attending graduate school, Kathryn received her B.S. from Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in History and Government. While writing about women’s activism in 1970s Florida, she enjoyed her time as a park ranger and naturalist at Reed Bingham State Park, where she led education, conservation, and recreation programs, and cared for captive wildlife.
While in graduate school at Florida State University, Kathryn worked as an Interpretive Specialist and Historian for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. There, she performed historical research for project development across all 175 of Florida's State Parks. Her most extensive work included a permanent exhibit at Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park documenting the history and culture of the Seminole Tribe of Florida; interpretive scene planning, panel copy, and guiding principles provided for the Visitor's Center at Civil War-era fort and National Historic Landmark, Fort Zachary Taylor; interpretive scene planning and panel copy provided for Fort Mose Historic State Park’s fort reconstruction project.
Kathryn received her M.A. in History with a major in Public History from Florida State in 2023. During her time there, she contributed to various pop-up exhibitions and curatorial projects that focused on the establishment of FSU’s Black Studies program and the history of enslavement and forced labor at the university. Kathryn also worked as a research assistant for the History Department’s digital archive, “A Community History of Race Relations: Tallahassee and Florida State University.”
Publications
“Florida and the ERA: The Second Wave’s Crash. . .,” Florida Conference of Historians, vol. 27 of FCH Annals. (Feb. 2021)