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Home: Our Faculty: Brooklyn College Faculty:

Jocelyn Wills

Assc Professor   Department: History   Location: 525s Whitehead Hall   Phone: 718-951-5000 x2812   Fax: 718-951-4504   Email:

A Canadian by birth, I zig-zagged my way to New York from Vancouver, B.C., via Texas, Minnesota, & the many dotted roads that connect the contiguous United States with Canada & Mexico. Along the way, I encountered both dazzling diversity & disturbing disparities. This collision of the American promise with everyday reality informs all of my research and teaching interests, which include: American mobility as reality & myth; success, failure, & American culture; the everyday lives of ordinary strivers; social capital & entrepreneurial networks; & the histories of capitalism & work. I am completing two book manuscripts: one, a microhistory of 19th-century economic & social climbers; the other on the the expansion of global surveillance. My current research focuses on American boom-&-bust, & the experiences of workers, consumers, & petite-storefront operators in post-Civil War Brooklyn. Education: Doctor of Philosophy, Texas A&M University, College Station - 1998 (History) B.A., University of British Columbia, Vancouver - 1989 (History) Areas of Expertise: An American economic, social, & urban historian, I teach in History & American Studies, & at the Graduate Center for Worker Education, offering courses on global capitalism, American identity formation, the peopling of New York City, & Brooklyn history. Deeply committed to education rooted in place & civic engagement, I often take my classes to the streets. We tour neighborhoods, visit sites of history making & memory, & undertake research connecting the local to the global. Books and Publications Wills, Jocelyn. "Struggling Upward Without Luke Larkin's Luck: Re-Examining Mobility in Post-Civil War Brooklyn." Markets in Time and Place: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Capitalism and Power (forthcoming). (Books and Publications: Chapter) 2009 Wills, Jocelyn. Boosters, Hustlers, and Speculators: Entrepreneurial Culture and the Rise of Minneapolis and St. Paul, 1849-1883. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2005. (Books and Publications: Book) 2005 Wills, Jocelyn. "Respectable Mediocrity: The Everyday Life of an Ordinary American Striver." Journal of Social History (Winter 2003): 323-349. (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 2003 Wills, Jocelyn. "Divided Loyalties: Private Ambition, Nation-Building, and the Railroad Racket Along the Northwestern Borderlands, 1877-1883." Journal of the West 39:2 (Spring 2000):8-16. (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 2000 Wills, Jocelyn. "Business Enterprise and the Construction of American Community Life in the Northwest: St. Paul, Minnesota, 1849-1862." Essays in Economic and Business History 15 (1997):135-53. (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 1997 Creative Work Wills, Jocelyn, with Samantha Howland, Franck Schuurmans, Franklin Shen, and Katrinka Smith Sloan. "The Long and Winding Road": Histories of Aging and Aging Services in America, 2006-2016. Washington, D.C.: American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging. 2007 Wills, Jocelyn, with Roch Parayre. How Blue Is Your Ocean?: Value Innovation and Credit Union Strategy Development. Madison, WI: Filene Research Institute. 2006 Awards, Honors and Fellowships 2006-2007, Mrs. Ethyle R. Wolfe Institute Research Fellowship. (Grants and Fellowships) 2007 2000-2004, PSC-CUNY Research Awards for American Dream & Reality research. (Grants and Fellowships) 2004 2002-2003, Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation Fellowship for outstanding teaching in the Humanities. (Grants and Fellowships) 2003 2001, Minnesota Historical Society Research Grant. (Grants and Fellowships) 2001 1993-97, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Four-Year Doctoral Fellowship; 1996-97, James J. Hill Reference Library Research Grants. (Grants and Fellowships) 1997 Research Activities Book-Length Manuscript In-Progress: "This Way to the Promised Land": Space Exploration, Engineering Apostles, and the Seduction of Global Surveillance. 2009 Book-Length Manuscript In-Progress: Lilacs for Leila: and Other Confessions of a Part-Time Striver. 2009 Research In-Progress: Upward, Downward, and Lateral Mobility in Everyday Brooklyn, 1865-1930. 2009 Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums "'By June the Affair Was a Hopeless Tangle'; and Other Tales in the Failure of Personal and Business Relationships," 55th Annual Business History Conference, Milan, Italy. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2009 "'This Way to the Promised Land': Space Exploration, Engineering Apostles, and the Seduction of Global Surveillance," Surveillance Societies: What Price Security?, New York, New York. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2009 "Lilacs for Leila; And Other Confessions of a Part-Time Striver," 11th Annual Faculty Day Conference, Brooklyn College, CUNY, New York. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2008 "Recovering Ordinary New York in the Digital Age: Social Historians in the Archives," invited lecture/panel presentation, with Susan Yohn (Hofstra University) and Marci Reaven (City Lore), Pratt Institute, New York, New York. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2007 "Struggling Upward without Luke Larkin's Luck: Re-examining Mobility in 19th-Century Brooklyn," Imaging Brooklyn Conference, Brooklyn, New York. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2007 "'Holding Their Own' & 'Making a Living': White-Collar Strivers Turned Petite-Storefront Operators in Nineteenth-Century Brooklyn, New York," 31st Annual Economic and Business Historical Society Conference, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2006 "Entering the Historical Profession in the 21st Century," invited series of lectures for graduate students, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2006 "Windows of Opportunity: Storefront Businesses in Nineteenth-Century Brooklyn," invited lecture, Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn, New York. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2006 "Exporting Exhaustion: Eco-Tourism, Work-Weary Travelers, and the Historical Calculus of Transnational Encounters," 8th Annual Faculty Day Conference, Brooklyn College, CUNY, New York. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2005 "Money Makes the World Go Round, the World Go Round, the World Go Round: Globalization, Social History, and the Resuscitation of Economic Linkages," Journal of Social History's "The Future of Social History Conference," Fairfax, Virginia. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2004 "Networking from the Inside-Out: Socializing with 'The Boys' from the Office," 50th Annual Business History Conference, Le Creusot, France. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2004 "'Pushing, Go-Ahead' New Yorkers: Researching White-Collar Strivers in Nineteenth-Century Brooklyn, " 5th Annual Researching New York Conference, Albany, New York. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2003 "John MacDonald Had a Firm: Creative Genius, Business Survival, and the Incubation of Vancouver's High-Technology Community," 28th Annual Economic and Business Historical Society Conference, Memphis, Tennessee. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2003 "Lower-Middle-Class Strivers and the Boundaries of Business and Gender Success in the Gilded Age West," 25th Annual Economic and Business Historical Society Conference, San Diego, California. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2000 "Mapping the Industrial Revolution," National Science Foundation Quantitative Reasoning Project Panel, Core Studies Sampler Conference, Brooklyn College, CUNY. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2000 "The 'Spending Mentality': Wage-Working Consumers in the United States and the Triumph of Industrial Capitalism, 1870-1930," 3rd Annual Faculty Day Conference, Brooklyn College, CUNY, New York. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2000 "The Politics of Nineteenth-Century Entrepreneurship and Western Development," Columbia University Seminar in Political and Intellectual Institutions and Thought, New York, New York. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2000 "Entrepreneurial Success and the Quest for Graft and Glory: James J. Hill v. William D. Washburn," 24th Annual Economic and Business Historical Society Conference, San Antonio, Texas. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 1999 "The Cultural Divide: Railroad Developments in the United States and Canada," 43rd Annual Business History Conference, Glasgow, Scotland. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 1997 Professional Leadership Chair (2009), and Member (2008), Kerr Prize Committee, Business History Conference. (Professional Leadership: Committee Service) 2009 Member (2010), Hagley Book Prize Committee, Business History Conference. (Professional Leadership: Committee Service) 2009 Member, Local Arrangements Committee, Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, January 2009. Activities included leading a tour to the African Burial Ground National Monument; and writing "Of Monuments and Memories: New York City's Burial Sites and Cemeteries," AHA Supplement to the 123rd Annual Meeting. (Professional Leadership: Committee Service) 2009 Trustee (2009-2012), Business History Conference. (Professional Leadership: Organizational Leadership Position) 2009 Pedagogical Achievements Fellow for City-Based Education (2009-2010), Task Force for City-Based and Sustainability Education, Brooklyn College, CUNY. 2009 Place-Based Education Fellow: The Borough of Brooklyn as a Community Partner in Research, Teaching, and Internship Opportunities at Brooklyn College, CUNY. 2009 Teaching American History at Brooklyn College and throughout the Borough: organized and participated in a four-day Teaching American History Summer Institute that included employing the Brooklyn Historical Society, Old Stone House, Lott House, Wyckoff House, and Brooklyn's Colonial-Era Cemeteries as Sites for Researching, Teaching, and Understanding American History. 2009 Teaching American History at Brooklyn College and throughout the Borough: organized and participated in a four-day Teaching American History Summer Institute that included employing Green-Wood Cemetery, the Brooklyn Historical Society, Weeksville, and the Architectural/Historical Landmarks of Downtown Brooklyn as Sites for Researching, Teaching, and Understanding American Social History. 2008 Community Activities Board Member, Gowanus Canal Conservancy 2009