Dr. Amy Helene Forss
Amy Helene Forss currently serves as Metropolitan Community College’s History program chair and Social Sciences department co-representative in Omaha, Nebraska. She has a PhD in African American History from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her first book, Black Print with a White Carnation: Mildred Brown and the Omaha Star Newspaper, 1938-1989, was published by the University of Nebraska Press in 2014. In 2017, she published Newspapers & Butter Pecan Ice Cream, which is the children’s picture book version of it for 2nd to 4th graders. Currently, she is writing her third book, Borrowing from our Foremothers, a comparison between suffragist and modern feminist visual strategies. It will be published by University of Nebraska Press in 2020.

Education

Ph.D., African-American History, December, 2010
University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska
Dissertation: Black Print with a White Carnation: Mildred Brown and the Omaha Star, 1938-1989
Advisor: Dr. Margaret Jacobs

M.A., History, December 2000
University of Nebraska, Omaha, Nebraska
Thesis: The Ash Grove Lime and Portland Cement Company and Louisville, Nebraska, 1926-1955
Advisor: Dr. Harl Dalstrom

B.S., Secondary Education, December, 2002
Peru State College, Peru, Nebraska

B.G.S., History, May, 1994
University of Nebraska, Omaha, Nebraska

Teaching Experience

Metropolitan Community College, Omaha, Nebraska
History Program Chair, 2011 to Present
History Program Online Lead, 2012 to Present
Social Sciences Co-Representative, 2013-Present
Faculty History Instructor, 2005 to Present
Adjunct Art History Instructor, 2008-Present

Nebraska Wesleyan University, Omaha Campus, Nebraska
Guest Professor, Summer 2012

Boys Town High School
Substitute/Long Term Substitute Teacher, 2001-2004

Honors and Awards

  • Fulbright Scholar Peer Review American History Committee, 2014-2018
  • CCHA Distinguished Humanities Educator Award, 2016
  • U.S. Fulbright Scholar, Kecskemet, Hungary, January to June, 2014
  • Nebraska Center for the Book Award: Best Non-Fiction Biography, 2014
  • Nebraska State Historical Society 2013-2014 Research Grant
  • American Historical Association & National Endowment for the Humanities
  • Bridging Cultures Atlantic and Pacific Grantee Participant, 2012 to 2015
  • James L. Sellers Memorial Award, Best Article, Nebraska History, September, 2011
  • Nebraska Community College Association Nebraska Excellence in Teaching Award, 2010
  • Metropolitan Community College Excellence in Teaching Award, 2010
  • National Institute for Staff and Development (NISOD) Excellence Award, 2010
  • Metropolitan Community College Outcome Assessment Group Award, 2006

Publications

Borrowing from our Foremothers: Modern Day Feminists Utilizing Suffragist Strategies, forthcoming, 2020. University of Nebraska Press.

Technical Innovation in American History: An Encyclopedia of Science and Technology, eds. Peggy Lamphier and Rosanne Welch. Santa Barbara, California, forthcoming, 2018. Three entries: “Rumford Fireplace” “Egg Beater” and “Lobster Trap”

Book Review of The Black Newspaper and the Chosen Nation, by Benjamin P. Fagin, American Historical Review, Volume 122, Issue 3, June, 2017.

Newspapers and Butter Pecan Ice Cream: Mrs. Mildred Brown and the Omaha Star, Color House Graphics, 2017.

Women in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia and Document Collection, eds. Peggy Lamphier and Rosanne Welch. Santa Barbara, California, January 2017. Ten entries: “Anti-Suffrage Movement” “Ma Barker” “Martha Brown” “Martha Canary/Calamity Jane” “Cult of True Womanhood” “Daughters of St. Crispin” “Sarah Good” “Mammy and Jezebel Stereotypes” “Spinning Bees” and “Black Feminism”

Book Review of Relentless, by Neil Leifer. American Journalism: A Journal of Media History, Volume 33, Number 4, Fall 2016, p. 484-486.

Book Review of Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler: The Life and Times of a Piano Virtuoso, by Beth Abelson Macleod. Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Volume 109, Number 3, Fall, 2016, p. 336-338.

“One Can Be an Influence”: Nebraska Farm Wife Doris Royal’s Successful Campaign Against the Widow’s Tax” Nebraska History, Volume 96, Number 2, Summer, 2015. Nebraska State Historical Society Press

Black Print and a White Carnation: Mildred Brown and the Omaha Star, 1938-1989, University of Nebraska Press, 2014

“Mildred Brown and the De Porres Club: Collective Activism in Omaha, Nebraska’s Near North Side, 1947-1960” Nebraska History, Volume 91, Number 3 & 4, Fall/Winter, 2010. Nebraska State Historical Society Press

“The Economic Survival of Louisville, Nebraska, in the Great Depression” Heritage of the Great Plains, Volume XXXVI, 2003. Emporia State University Press

Book Review of The Notorious Dr. Flippin: Abortion and Consequences in the Early Twentieth Century, by Jamie Q. Tallman. Nebraska History, Volume 92 Number 4, Winter, 2011

Book Review of The Rhythm Boys of Omaha Central: High School Basketball at the ’68 Racial Divide, by Steve Marantz. Great Plains Quarterly, Volume 31, Number 4, Fall, 2011

Professional Presentations

“Chair a History Department” panelist Organization of American Historians, Sacramento, California, April 11, 2018

 “Carrying the Torch: Suffragist and Feminist Symbolism” Community College Humanities Association, Baltimore, Maryland, November 11, 2017

“Seneca Falls, Seneca Falls, Seneca Falls” Missouri Valley History Conference, Omaha, Nebraska, March 4, 2017

“Black Print with a White Carnation,” Omaha, Nebraska. C-SPAN 2 and C-SPAN 3, July 4-5, 2015

“Using Maps to Bring the Atlantic and Pacific World into the U.S. History Survey Course” American Historical Association, New York City, January 2-5, 2015

“How to teach African American History in the ESL Classroom” 60th Annual Berlin Seminar for American Fulbright Scholars, Berlin, Germany” March 23-27, 2014

“Remembering the First Ladies” Fulbright American Corners Hungary, Debrecen, Hungary (March 20, 2014) Pecs, Hungary (March 31, 2014) and Veszprem, Hungary (April 7, 2014)

“Capturing Change at the National Women’s Conference, Houston, Texas, 1977” American Historical Association (AHA) Conference Panel Presenter and Organizer, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2013

“Mildred Brown: The Black Matriarch of North Omaha, Nebraska” 97th Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) Conference, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, September, 2012

“It’s all in the Representation: Analyzing the Photographic Images of Black Civil War Soldiers” 97th ASLAH Conference, Richmond, Virginia, 2011.

Teaching American History (TAH) grant speaker, Nebraska Wesleyan University, June, 2010

“Mildred D. Brown and the Star,” Douglas County Historical Society, August, 2009

Plattsmouth Chautauqua Reading and Film Series, March, 2009

“Mildred Dee Brown and the Omaha Star” 52nd Missouri Valley History  Conference, March 6, 2009

“Finance, Location and Structure: Establishing the Municipal University of Omaha, 1908-1938” 50th Missouri Valley History Conference, March 1, 2007

“The Economic Survival of Louisville, Nebraska, in the Great Depression,” 45th Missouri Valley History Conference, March 8, 2002