Biography

Laura Carpenter was one of the interviewers for the Hard Won, Not Done oral history of Iowa Women legislators (IWA 1278). During Phase 1 of that oral history project, interviewers were drawn from the board of the 50/50 in 2020 organization, which sought to equalize gender representation in Iowa elected offices and which was dissolved in 2020. In Phase 2 of the project, administration was handed off to the staff of the Iowa Women's Archives, who hired Carpenter to conduct several interviews in 2022.

Carpenter is a PhD candidate in the American Studies department at the University of Iowa. She received her B.A. in history and political science at Gustavus Adolphus College and her M.A. in Public History at the University of Northern Iowa. Her research dabbles in the fields of public history, digital humanities, labor history, Indigenous studies, and memory studies with specific interests in the relationship between history and memory, hoboing culture, Indigenous placemaking, digital archiving, and oral history. As of 2022, she is developing a digital archive called Hobo Archive in partnership with the hoboing community of the upper Midwest.

Found in 6 Collections and/or Records: