Dr. Lucy E. Murphy

145 Adena Hall
1159 University Dr
Newark, OH 43055

Lucy Eldersveld Murphy has been active in promoting American Indian Studies at Ohio State since 2000. Her research focuses on intercultural, interracial and gender relations on Midwestern American frontiers. Her book, A Gathering of Rivers: Indians, Métis and Mining in the Western Great Lakes, 1737-1832 (University of Nebraska Press, 2000) examined a century of social and economic transformations in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin. With Rebecca Kugel, she edited Native Women's History in Eastern North American before 1900: A Guide to Research and Writing (University of Nebraska Press, 2007). She is co-editor with Wendy Hamand Venet of the essay collection Midwestern Women: Work, Community and Leadership at the Crossroads (Indiana University Press, 1997).  She helped to create Ohio State's Newark Earthworks Center and is a member of its Faculty Oversight Committee.

Ongoing Newark Earthwork's Center's Research

• Indigenous Ohio: OSU and Native Arts and Humanities Past and Present Grant

The recorded interviews are stored in The Ohio State Newark library's Ohio Native Heritage Archive and are available for use by the public by appointment.

From 2004 to 2009, "Discovering the Stories of Native Ohio" connected our teaching with community outreach and research. Linked to seven courses, this endeavor trained students in both interview methods and American Indian history and culture. Students, staff, volunteers and faculty interviewed 115 people at Ohio State, in their homes or workplaces, at three powwows sponsored by the Native American Indian Center of Central Ohio, and at the American Indian Education Center of Cleveland. We also collaborated with other Native American organizations. This provided an opportunity for students to meet and talk with Native people and to build an archive about the personal experiences and stories of contemporary American Indians.

Research

• Frenchtown Chronicles of Prairie Du Chien
  • Mary Elise Antoine and Lucy Eldersveld Murphy. Wisconsin Historical Society Press. 2016.
• A Gathering of Rivers: Indians, Metis and Mining in the Western Great Lakes, 1737-1832
  • University of Nebraska Press. June 2004.
• Great Lakes Creoles: A French-Indian Community on the Northern Borderlands, Prairie du Chien, 1750-1860
• Native Women’s History in Eastern North America before 1900: A Guide to Research and Writing
  •  Dr. Rebecca Kugel and Dr. Lucy E. Murphy. Cambridge University Press. 2014.
• "Selma Sully Walker and Native Women's Leadership in Ohio, 1975-2011,"
  • edited by Lucy Eldersveld Murphy, Women and Social Movements, Modern Empires Since 1820, Alexander Street.
• "A 2,000 Year Old Intellectual Center"
  • The Fertile Earth and the Ordered Cosmos: Reflections on the Newark Earthworks and World Heritage. edited by Elizabeth Weiser, Timothy Jordan, and Richard Shiels. The Ohio State University Press, June 2023.

Awards

Professor Murphy helped to create Ohio State's American Indian Studies Program and serves on the AIS oversight committee; in addition she helped to create The Ohio State Newark Earthworks Center and is a member of its Faculty Oversight Committee. She has received numerous awards, including The Ohio State University Distinguished Diversity Enhancement Award, The Ohio State University College of Humanities Diversity Enhancement Award, Ohio State Newark Robert A. Barnes Award for Exemplary Teaching, and The Committee on Institutional Cooperation American Indian Studies Faculty Fellowship, Newberry Library, Chicago, and the Ohio Academy of History Distinguished Teaching Award, among others.