Draft:Edward T. O'Donnell

Edward T. O’Donnell is an American historian specializing in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. In particular, he has expertise within the labor, immigration, and reform movements in the United States. He is an Associate Professor of History in history department at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. O’Donnell has written op-eds and features for publications such as the New York Times, Newsweek, The Daily News, Washington Post, and Huffington Post.

He also frequently appears in history documentaries and programs on C-SPAN, PBS, CuriosityStream, and the History Channel, including Theodore Roosevelt (2022), FDR (2023), Toys That Built America (2021, 2022), Engineering That Built the World (2022), Modern Marvels (Dark Marvels (2023), and The Booze, Bets and Sex That Built America (2022).

Education

O’Donnell graduated from the College of the Holy Cross in 1986 with a bachelor's degree in history. He then taught two years of high school before beginning graduate school at Columbia University in 1988, where he earned a Ph.D in history.

Career and Research

In the fall of 1995, O’Donnell joined the history department at Hunter College CUNY. He received tenure in 1999. He joined the history department at Holy Cross in 2001 and received tenure in 2003.

Since 2001 O’Donnell has worked with schools across the United States offering professional development programs for social studies teachers. During the Teaching American History (TAH) program (2001-2011) funded by the U.S. Department of Education, he was a lead historian on several grants. In 2009, he delivered a keynote address to the annual TAH conference in New York City. O’Donnell’s signature program is How to Use Images to Teach History which features his S.I.G.H.T.™ method of visual analysis.

Publications

O’Donnell’s scholarly articles have appeared in the Public Historian, Journal of Urban History, and the Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.

O’Donnell's first book was 1001 Things Everyone Should Know About Irish American History (Random House, 2002), that covers everything from Irish Americans in the military and politics, to their contributions to sports, business, literature, the arts, and much more.  

In 2003, O’Donnell published Ship Ablaze: The Tragedy of the Steamboat General Slocum (Random House, 2003). It tells the tragedy of the steamboat General Slocum, the deadliest day in the history of New York City before September 11, 2001. More than 1,000 people perished on June 15, 1904, after the steamboat burst into flames on the East River.  

O’Donnell is also co-author with Jennifer D. Keene and Saul Cornell, of the U.S. History college-level textbook, Visions of America: A History of the United States (3^rd edition, Pearson, 2016). The textbook emphasizes how competing visions of American society have shaped the nation’s past and how examine historical images as key U.S. history sources.

His most recent book is Henry George and the Crisis of Inequality: Progress and Poverty in the Gilded Age (Columbia University Press. 2015). The work examines the rise of the social reformer Henry George, his influence on the era and the wider context of Gilded Age America. It also looks at the social turmoil and debates related to industrial system that produced unprecedented progress and wealth, but equally high levels of poverty, suffering, and alienation.

O’Donnell is currently working on a book about the Pullman Strike, which began in May 1894 as a small walkout by workers at the Pullman Palace Car Company near Chicago, but soon expanded into a nationwide strike.

Public History

O’Donnell is active in the field of public history, curating several major museum exhibits on American history.

In the early 1990s, while still in graduate school, he co-founded Big Onion Walking Tours, the largest walking tour in New York City. He led more 1,000 tours of New York City’s historic neighborhoods, before leaving the company in 1996 to pursue his career as a history professor.

From 2016-2021, O’Donnell hosted, In The Past Lane, a podcast that explored topics in U.S. history. Most episodes feature in-depth interviews with historians about their latest books.

Public Speaking

O’Donnell is a featured speaker for One Day University, discussing Turning Points in American History, Immigration and the Making of Multicultural America, and What Was the Gilded Age (and Are We in Another One?).  He's also delivered history presentations on more than 20 topics to historical societies, museums, public libraries, and varied lifelong learning organizations.

He has also created two video courses for Wondrium, formerly known as the Great Courses, entitled “Turning Points in American History” and “America in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.”