Kayla P. Weisenberger
Ph.D. Student (ABD)
Advisor:
Dr. Joshua Piker
email:
[[kmpittman]]
Current Research:
Native American/Indigenous Peoples, Historical Memory, Race
Bio
Kayla M.P. Weisenberger is a sixth-year History PhD Candidate specializing in the history of Native American/Indigenous Peoples. Her research focuses on the processes of historical memory, race, gender, and class. Kayla’s scholarship centers on Minnie Atkins, a Yuchi- Creek woman, at the center of a contentious court case over vast oil wealth in the early 20th century. The case United States of America vs. Minnie Atkins, et al. (Equity – 2131) reveals that the United States’ settler colonial project created a dangerous paradox in which Atkins asserted her Indigeneity as she called upon the American legal system to protect her rights as an American landowner.Kayla holds a B.A. in History from the University of Oklahoma, graduating in 2012 and an M.A. in History and Certificate in Public History from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, graduating in 2015. During her time at UMass, Kayla served as the Public History Administrative Assistant and interned with James Monroe’s Highland. She was also a founding member of UMass Amherst’s Military Memories: Documenting Veteran Experiences oral history project. Before resuming her graduate studies as a Ph.D. student at William & Mary in the fall of 2019, Kayla worked in various public history settings and served as the Director of Research and Interpretation at Wethersfield Historical Society located in Wethersfield, CT and the Director of Education at Historic Westville in Columbus, GA. She is the 2019 recipient of the Dr. William M. Kelso Graduate Fellowship in Early American Studies from William & Mary. Kayla has served as a digital apprentice for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture in support of the podcast Ben Franklin’s World. She currently works as a historian for the Oklahoma Department of Transportation and serves as an Executive Board Member of Wethersfield Historical Society.
