Speaker Biography
“Hidden in Plain Sight - The Life of Ava Helen Pauling” Watch Video
Mina Carson is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at Oregon State University where she teaches courses in United States social and cultural history, in particular the Progressive and New Deal eras. Her scholarly and teaching interests include women in the 20th century, American families, and the gay and lesbian movement. Likewise, her work has led her from the post-Civil War era to the turn of the 21st century. Her dissertation on the Settlement House movement, titled "Settlement Folk: Social Thought and the American Settlement Movement, 1885-1930," was published by the University of Chicago Press in 1990. Pondering the evolution of the settlement workers' professional training led to an investigation of the development of professional home economics, family science, and then the emergence of family therapy in post World War II era.
In 1992 Carson began training as a professional social worker at Portland State University. After earning her MSW in 1995, she began practicing as a therapist at local agencies. Her particular research interests in this field is the history of psychotherapeutic relationships.
More recently Carson is the author of a forthcoming biography of Ava Helen Pauling, to be published by Oregon State University Press in 2013.