Anne E. Mosher

Dr. Anne E. Mosher is associate professor of geography and the environment at Syracuse University. A senior research fellow in the Maxwell School’s Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs, she is also a member of the inaugural class of New York Public Scholars for the New York Council for the Humanities (2015-17), a past board member to the Alden Street Foundation—a local 504(c)(3) non-profit organization that provides seed money for community-based projects in low-income neighborhoods—and volunteers at St. Lucy’s Food Pantry on Syracuse’s Near Westside.   

Mosher’s teaching and research interests focus on the history of urban planning and infrastructure (including the Erie Canal), engaged placemaking, crisis and disaster management, public memory as expressed via social media, and interdisciplinary theories of space and place. Having published in her discipline’s leading journals, Mosher’s 2004 book—"Capital’s Utopia" (Johns Hopkins University Press), is based on work that won the Association of American Geographers’ Nystrom Award for Best Ph.D. Dissertation research and chronicles the creation of Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, the first model industrial town planned by Frederick Law Olmsted’s landscape architectural firm. Currently, she is writing a book that sits at the intersection of mixed methods social science research and the digital humanities. It explores user-generated content about New York State found on three Web 2.0 internet platforms:  Trip Advisor, Ancestry, and Facebook. With a working title of "Low Bridge, Everybody Down: Social Media Geographies and the Reinvention of New York State and the Erie Canal," Mosher’s book suggests relevant “talking points” for fostering local civic engagement, possible sites for grassroots-driven economic and social development, and calls for geographers and historians to pay greater attention to the work of “citizen” and “DIY” lay scholars who are publishing their work for online audiences. 

Dr. Mosher is past editor of the journal Historical Geography, the founder of Histgeog: The Historical Geography Internet Discussion Group (now H-Histgeog on H-Net), and past book review editor for the Americas for Journal of Historical Geography. A holder of Ph.D. and Master of Science degrees in geography from the Pennsylvania State University, Mosher attended Lancaster University (U.K.) where she studied social (public) administration, comparative foreign policy, and urban political geography. She graduated magna cum laude from Macalester College with double majors in geography and international studies.   

Urban planning and geographies of infrastructure, crisis and disaster management, public scholarship and community engagement, digital humanities

Urban and regional infrastructure planning in the U.S. and EU: policies, politics, professional practices and their landscape and community implications; multi-scalar geographies of intergovernmental relations in the U.S. and EU, 1789 to the present; places down the urban hierarchy; critical geography of place commodification and heritage tourism; feminist cognitive mapping, critical cartography and the contestation of place memories; multi-scalar dynamics of industrial restructuring; geographical history and historical research methods in geography. 

2015-2017.     New York Public Scholar, New York Council for the Humanities.  Selected from a statewide competition to serve as one of the 31-member inaugural cohort of New York Public Scholars.

2014.     Geography Education “30 Best Web Resources of 2014” Designation for “What is Geography?  A Prezi,” National Geographic’s Network of Alliances of Geography Education.

2011.     Westmoreland Heritage and Westmoreland Library Network, selection of Capital’s Utopia: Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, 1855-1916 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004) as the reading for the One Book, One Community adult summer reading program.

2007.     The 2007 Arthur St. Clair Lecturer of Westmoreland County History, University of Pittsburgh—Greensburg (funded by the University of Pittsburgh, the Westmoreland County Historical Society, and the Robertshaw Family Foundation).

2006.     “Maps as Stories,” New York Council for the Humanities, $3,000.  (With Anne E. Munly.)

1999-2004.     Syracuse University Vision Fund Grant, Urban Mapping Research Initiative:  Representations of the City of Rome, NY, $27,000 (with Mark Linder, Don Mitchell, and Anne Munly).

1991.     J. Warren Nystrom Dissertation Award, Association of American Geographers (for "Capital Transformation and the Restructuring of Place:  The Creation of a Model Industrial Town.").

1987-1988.     Most Distinguished Course for College Credit in Independent Learning, National University Continuing Education Association (author's award for Human Geography--An Introduction) 

2010.   Mosher, Anne E., and Laurie A. Wilkie. “Historical Archaeo-Geographies of Scaled Statehood: American Federalism and Material Practices of National Prohibition in California, 1917–1933,” Archaeologies:  Journal of the World Archaeological Congress 6 (1):82-114.

2009.     Mosher, Anne E.“Earle’s Theory and Conception of the Geographical History of the United States,” in Heppen, John and Samuel M. Otterstrom, eds. Geography, History and the American Political Economy, Lanham, MD:  Lexington Books, pp. 7-18.

2009.   Mosher, Anne E.“Earle’s Dialectical Policy Regimes and the Erie Canal,” in Heppen and Otterstrom, op. cit., pp. 99-124.

2008.  Mosher, Anne E.  “Downtown Westmoreland’s Heritage:  From the Age of McKinley to the Disney Age,” Westmoreland History, Winter, pp. 17-27.

2005.  “Forum” (invited editorial on the issues of accuracy and relevance in Historical Geography), Past Place:  The Newsletter of the Historical Geography Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers  13 (Spring/Summer):  6-8.

2004.  Mosher, Anne E.  Capital’s Utopia: Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, 1855-1916.  Baltimore:  Johns Hopkins University Press.  

1998.  Mosher, Anne E. and Monique M. Wheeler. "Riverboat Gaming as Urban Revitalization 'Lagniappe': The Case of Baton Rouge, Louisiana," in Meyer-Arendt, Klaus J. and Rudi Hartmann eds. Casino Gambling in America:  Origins, Patterns  and Impacts.  Elmsford, New York:  Cognizant Communication Corporation.

1995.  Mosher, Anne E., Barry Keim and Susan Franques.  "Downtown Dynamics," Geographical Review 85:506-526.
(this paper examines the evolution of land-use patterns along New Orleans’ Canal Street between the 1880s and 1990s.)

1995.  Mosher, Anne E.  "'Something Better than the Best':  Industrial Restructuring, George McMurtry and the Creation of the Model Industrial Town of Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, 1883-1901," Annals of the Association of American Geographers 85:84-107. 

1992.  Mosher, Anne E. and Deryck W. Holdsworth.  "The meaning of alley housing in industrial communities:  Examples from late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century Pennsylvania."  Journal of Historical Geography 18: 174-189. 

Recent Book Reviews / Editorials / Reports / Non-Peer Reviewed Publications / Creative Work

2014.   Mosher, Anne E. “If Lincoln’s a metro area, then let’s study it that way,” Lincoln (Nebraska) Journal-Star, December 14 (Sunday edition).   http://journalstar.com/news/opinion/editorial/columnists/local-view-if-lincoln-s-a-metro-area-then-let/article_e34a392c-c20a-54a6-afc9-765f722574e4.html

2014.   Mosher, Anne E. “What is Geography? A Prezi”. Created through my role as project manager and as a faculty contribution to http://geocuse.syr.edu:  An Underground Undergraduate Geography Website (Course Project for Geography 491:  Senior Seminar in Geography). https://prezi.com/is310c-7pljx/what-is-geography/

2008.   Mosher, Anne E. “Downtown Westmoreland’s Heritage:  From the Age of McKinley to the Disney Age,” Westmoreland History, Winter, pp. 17-27.

Associate Professor, Syracuse University, 1998-
Assistant Professor, Syracuse University, 1995-1998
Assistant Professor, Louisiana State University, 1990-1995