Dr. Will Stoutamire

Education

• PhD, History (Public History), Arizona State University, 2013
• BA, History, Florida State University, 2008

Specialization Areas

• Public History
• Museum Theory and Methods
• Historic Preservation
• Cultural Resource Management
• Heritage Tourism
• American West

Biography

Dr. Stoutamire is an associate professor of history at UNK and directs the undergraduate public history minor and MA in public history programs. He is originally from Tallahassee, Florida, where he was exposed at a young and impressionable age to museums and historic sites through family road trips. He hasn’t turned back since. He went on to earn a BA in History from Florida State University before moving across the country to complete a PhD in History, with a public history concentration, at Arizona State University. During this time, he interned for a variety of museums, including the Museum of Florida History and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

While in Arizona, Dr. Stoutamire became an avid backpacker and worked on several contract projects for the National Park Service, which shifted his interest to a focus on heritage issues and public lands in the American West. He has carried this interest to his work at UNK, where he collaborates with local and statewide organizations, such as the Nebraska Game & Parks Commission, to develop engaging public interpretation of Nebraska’s dynamic history.

Dr. Stoutamire has published articles in academic journals such as The Public Historian and The Journal of Arizona History. He is currently working on a book manuscript, tentatively titled Imagining Antiquity: A New History of the American Antiquities Act. This book will expand upon his earlier research to explore the origins and early uses of the Antiquities Act within the context of settler colonialism, Progressive-era nationalism, and emerging regional identities throughout the American West. He is also collaborating with Dr. LuAnn Wandsnider (UNL) and Dr. Ryan Klataske on a grant-funded oral history initiative aimed at gathering the Local Ecological Knowledge (LEK) of rural producers in order to understand the strategies producers have developed in response to economic and environmental challenges. You can view this project at https://www.nebraskaproducers.com/.

Before joining the UNK History Department, Dr. Stoutamire served for five years as director of the G.W. Frank Museum of History and Culture. The Frank Museum is an on-campus historic house museum that he developed into a laboratory for students learning about museum administration, collections management, exhibit design, and historic site interpretation. He was recognized for this work with the University of Nebraska KUDOS Award and the New Professional Award from the National Council on Public History.

Frequently Taught Courses

Undergraduate:

• The Historian’s Craft
• Introduction to Public History
• Museums and Archives
• Community History and Preservation

Graduate:

• Public History Seminar
• Public History Methodology
• Museums and Material Culture
• Historic Preservation
• History & Memory
• History & Memory: US West
• National Parks

Publications

• “Past, Present, and Heritage,” in Engaging with the Past and the Present: The Relationship between Past and Present across Disciplines, ed. Paul Dover (New York: Routledge, 2023), 102-116.
• “‘Every Yard Boasted a Metate’: Pothunting, Archaeology, and the Creation of the Museum of Northern Arizona.” The Journal of Arizona History 63, No. 2 (Summer 2022): 153-186. Winner of the C.L. Sonnichsen Award for best article in the journal in 2022.
• Co-Author with Annie Pflaum, “Fort Kearny State Historical Park: A Brief Historical Overview.” An ArcGIS StoryMap for the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, 2021.
• Meghan Gelardi Holmes, Steven Lubar, Jessie MacLeod, William Stoutamire, and Carrie Villar, “Telling Inclusive Stories When Your Collections are Stuck in the Past,” Technical Leaflet #291, American Association for State and Local History: 1-8 in History News, Vol. 75, No. 3 (Summer 2020): 1-8.
• “Imagined Heritage: A Local History of Walnut Canyon National Monument.” The Public Historian 38, No. 4 (November 2016): 17-37.
• “From North to South, Out West: Civil War Memory in Arizona.” The Journal of Arizona History 51, no. 3 (Autumn 2010): 197-222.
• "Creating the Monuments: Exploiting, Owning, and Protecting the Past in Flagstaff, Arizona." Intermountain Cultural Resource Management, Historic Resource Study. Santa Fe: National Park Service, Intermountain Region, 2013.
• “Water in the Desert: A History of Arizona’s Tavasci Marsh, 1865-2005.” Intermountain Cultural Resource Management, Professional Paper No. 77. Santa Fe: National Park Service, Intermountain Region, 2011.

Grants and Awards

Outstanding Faculty Teaching Award, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Nebraska at Kearney, 2026.

“Northern Great Plains Rural Producer Oral History and LEK Project,” University of Nebraska Collaboration Initiative Grant, 2024-2025 ($50,602)

C.L. Sonnichsen Award, Arizona Historical Society, 2023

History Collaborative

Dr. Stoutamire believes that the best history work is created collaboratively. He enjoys working closely with our community partners in public history, including the Buffalo County Historical Society and the G.W. Frank Museum of History and Culture. He also regularly works with museums and historical societies throughout Nebraska and with the Nebraska Game & Parks Commission, which provides exciting opportunities for student projects and internships. He proudly serves as a member of the National Register Review Board for the Nebraska State Historical Society. When not working to promote public history in Nebraska, you’ll find him serving in his role as Secretary and co-chair of the Governance Committee for the National Council on Public History, as treasurer for the Mountain-Plains Museums Association, or as a member of the editorial board for the American Association of State and Local History’s series with Rowman & Littlefield Press.

Recent Student Research Projects

Grace Schaefer, “Voices of Camp Atlanta: Oral Histories of a Nebraska World War Two POW Camp,” 2024-2026

Delaney Tracy, “The New, the Metropolitan, Order of Things: The Frank Businesses in Kearney, Nebraska,” 2024-2025

Logan Osmera, “Jenner's Zoological, Educational, and Amusement Park: Curiosity and Colonialism in Rural Nebraska,” 2023-2024

Recent Thesis and Public History Projects

Thesis Projects

Maxwell Rotbart, “Colorado’s Rocky Quest for Statehood,” Completed Fall 2025

Katie Henry, “Many Meanings: A History of Memory at the Meeker Home Museum,” Completed Spring 2025

Sara Shaffer-Henry, “A Journey Towards Human Rights: The Indigenous Repatriation Movement, 1967-1995,” Completed Spring 2025

Christy Gordon Baty, “"Rare and Curious Covers": Embroidered Book Bindings in Early Modern England,” Completed Summer 2023 **Awarded UNK’s Most Outstanding Thesis Award

Michael Nelson, “Is This Your Boy?: The Spirit of the American Doughboy in World War I Memorialization,” Completed Summer 2022 **Awarded UNK’s Most Outstanding Thesis Award

Public History Projects

Amy Boxrud, Norwegian American Historical Association Podcast, Summer 2026

Abigail Sitzmann, Dutch American Heritage Museum Collections Project, Spring 2026

Jacob Osborn, Pushmataha County Historical Society Exhibits, Spring 2026

Suzanne Cole, Indiana Dunes National Park Oral History Project, Fall 2025

John Klintworth, Buffalo County Historical Society Exhibit & Programs, Fall 2025

Aaron Condon, We Are NIH Oral History Project, Fall 2025

Abigail Cottingham, Johnson County Museum Redlining Educational Program, Spring 2024

Contact

Contact Dr. Stoutamire by sending him an email (stoutamirewf@unk.edu). Students interested in the UNK public history program should set up a time to meet with Dr. Stoutamire using his Calendly

HIstory Faculty Research Directory