Kathryn J. Oberdeck Papers, 1989-2020 | University of Illinois Archives
Arrangement
Series 1: Professional Papers, 1989-2013
This series series contains material related to Professor Oberdeck's appointment and professional activities at the University of Illinois, including research proposals, promotion documents, and professional correspondence. This series is arranged chronologically, following Oberdeck's CV.
Series 2: History Department Papers, 1996-2019
This series contains material contains material concerning Professor Oberdeck's activities within the University of Illinois History Department. It includes department programming proposals, correpondence, and event documentation; graduate studies and teacher's assistant training documents; and department planning papers. This series is organized by three central thematic areas: the Center for Historical Interpretation, Department of Graduate Studies, and History Department Administration. Items thereunder are arranged chronologically.
Series 3: Campus Faculty Association Papers, 2010-2019
This series contains rosters, agendas, meeting minutes, and other documentation relating to the Campus Faculty Association union, for which Professor Oberdeck served as president from 2011-2012. This series is arranged chronologically.
Series 4: Campus Senate, 2009-2018
This series contains resolutions, agendas, and other documentation concerning Campus Senate committees on which Professor Oberdeck served, including the Academic Senate Committee, the Senate Executive Committee, and the Senate Committee on Equal Opportunity and Inclusion (chair, c.a. 2016-2018). This series is arranged chronologically.
Series 5: 5th & Hill Neighborhood Rights Campaign Papers, 2011-2019
The 5th & Hill Neighborhood Rights Campaign is a grassroots organization affiliated with the Champaign County health Care Consumers (CCHCC). The 5th & Hill organization raised awareness and advocated for the residents of 5th Street and Hill Street in Champaign, where the company Ameren previously maintained a manufactured gas plant which produced carcinogenic waste byproducts that have contributed to health issues within the community. The 5th & Hill Neighborhood Rights Campaign has worked to ensure that this toxic site is cleaned, and to protect the rights and health of the community (source: healthcareconsumers.org). Kathryn Oberdeck became affiliated with this movement as early as 2015, and designed history courses in collaboration with the 5th & Hill organization (see HIST 200D and HIST 381 folders in Series 7) to involve students with local history and activism. This series contains items pertinent to the 5th & Hill Neighborhood rights Campaign, including their agendas, reports, oral histories, and correspondence; see the indicated folders in Series 7 for Oberdeck's class materials that are affiliated with the organization. This series is arranged chronologically.
Series 6: Public History and Education, 2012-2020
This series contains materials concerning Professor Oberdeck's work in public history and education in the Champaign-Urbana community. This includes the Odyssey Project, a program offered through the University of Illinois's Humanities Research Institute which provides free humanities courses for college credit to adults in low-income households. Oberdeck taught history courses for this program. Additionally, this series contains pamphlets Oberdeck created to accompany her alternate campus tours that highlights less commonly known facts about the University of Illinois, and documentation of other public history activities in the community. This series is arranged chronologically.
Series 7: Teaching Materials and Course Syllabi, 1993-2020
This series contains Professor Oberdeck's course syllabi and lecture notes from courses that she taught at the University of Illinois. Course numbers have changed during her time teaching at the University, meaning some classes of the same title have different course numbers (see HIST 152 and HIST 172, both called "US History Since 1877"). This series is organized by course number; thereunder, individual courses are arranged with course syllabi first, then alphabetical order following.
Series 8: Published Works, 1991-2009
This series contains copies of Professor Oberdeck's published works. This series is arranged chronologically, and divided between printed articles and excerpts that are kept in acid-free folders, and bound publications.
Subjects (links to similar materials) Administrative InformationKathryn Oberdeck (1958-2022) was a professor of American history at the University of Illinois, from 1993 until her death in 2022. Her research and instruction focused on American cultural and intellectual history, labor history, and urban history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, public history in the Champaign-Urbana community, as well as the transnational histories of Chicago, Illinois, and Durban, South Africa. While she was a faculty member at the University of Illinois (1993-2022), she served as the Teachers’ Assistant Coordinator, the Director of Graduate Studies, and the Associate Chair of the History Department. In 2009, Professor Oberdeck initiated a Civic Engagement Committee in history in 2009. In 2021, the University appointed her Leslie A. Watt Professorial Scholar. Professor Oberdeck taught and created a variety of courses at the University, published numerous articles and book reviews, and published a book, The Evangelist and the Impresario: Religion, Entertainment, and Cultural Politics in America, 1884-1924 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999) which was nominated for multiple awards. In addition to her work in the history department, Professor Oberdeck was active in multiple campus organizations. She was a member of the Campus Faculty Association and served as its president from 2011-2012. Additionally, she served on multiple faculty senate committees, including the senate Committee on Equal Opportunity and Inclusion (chair, c.a. 2016-2018).
Kathryn Oberdeck was born on January 18, 1958, and was raised in California. She earned her undergraduate degree in sociology from the University of California – Berkeley in 1981 and graduated with honors. She completed her master’s (1987) and Ph.D. (1991) in American Studies at Yale University. From 1991-1993 and 1994-1995, she was awarded a fellowship from the Michigan Society of Fellows and taught at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, as an Assistant Professor of History and American Culture. She accepted her faculty position at the University of Illinois in 1993, though continued her fellowship at the University of Michigan during the 1994-1995 year. She taught survey courses in U.S. History as well as courses on intellectual and cultural history, urban history, and social theory. Moreover, she has been credited as the driving force behind public history programs at the University. In her courses, she involved her students with the local community, studying local issues, collecting oral histories from community members, and networking with local museums and archives to document this local history. She conducted this work with the 5th & Hill Neighborhood Rights Campaign and members of the local LBGTQ community. Additionally, she taught history courses for the Odyssey Project, a program providing free college-level courses in the humanities to adults in low-income households.
Professor Oberdeck was the recipient of multiple awards. She received fellowships from Yale University (1983-1987), the American Association of University Women (1987-1988), the Whiting Fellowship in the Humanities (1988-1089), the Michigan Society of Fellows (1991-1993, 1994-1995), and the National Endowment for the Humanities at the Newberry Library (1997). Further, she received awards for research and teaching, such as the Hibernian Research Award from the Cushwa Center at the University of Notre Dame (1992), and the Queen Excellence in Teaching Award in History at the University of Illinois (2001). She additionally served as a visiting scholar at the University of KwaZulu Natal in South Africa (2009).
Professor Oberdeck was married to William Munro and had two daughters, Fiona and Cara.
[Source: Terri Barnes, Antoinette Burton, and Clare Crowston. “In Memoriam: Katherine [sic] J. Oberdeck,” in “History@Illinois,” newsletter of the University of Illinois History Department, 2023. https://history.illinois.edu/sites/default/files/2023-11/History%40Illinois%202023.pdf]
Note Author: Chloe Attrell
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