Biography

Dr. Petra DeWitt is an alum of Missouri S&T (then UMR) graduating Summa Cum Laude in 1996 with a BA in history.  She earned the MA in history at Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri, and the Ph.D. in history at the University of Missouri-Columbia.  She is currently the faculty advisor of the department’s Phi Alpha Theta national history honor society.  In addition to American History survey courses, she offers upper level classes on Historiography, European Migrations, and Modern Germany.

Dr. Dewitt specializes in migration and ethnic history and has published several articles and encyclopedia submissions on the subject, including “Faith and Country: How Jews Found Unity in World War I,” Gateway 38, no. 2 (Fall 2018): 30-43; “Heroines on the Home Front: World War I and the Council of National Defense’s Woman’s Committee, Missouri Division,” Missouri Historical Review 112, no. 3 (April 2018): 169-188); “‘Clear and Present Danger’: The Legacy of the 1917 Espionage Act in the United States,” Historical Reflexions/Réflexions Historiques 42, no. 2 (Summer 2016): 115-133; “’Drifting Back Into their Old Ways:’ The Efforts to Banish the German Language from Missouri during the Great War,” Missouri Historical Review 103 (April 2009): 161-82; and “Searching for the Meaning of Loyalty: A Study of the German-American Experience during World War I in Osage County, Missouri,” Yearbook of German-American Studies 39 (2005): 77-92. Her book, Degrees of Allegiance: Harassment and Loyalty in Missouri’s Germany-American Community during World War I, was published in 2012 and won that year’s Missouri Book Award. Her latest publication, The Missouri Home Guard: Protecting the Home Front during the Great War was published by the University of Missouri Press in December 2022.

Disciplines

Historiography, Historical Research Methods, Ethnic History, German-American History (especially in Missouri), World War I

Education

• 2005 Ph. D., History, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, Missouri
• 1998   M. A., History, Truman State University, Kirksville, Missouri
• 1996   B. A., History, University of Missouri-Rolla, Rolla, Missouri. Summa Cum Laude

Service

Chair, Board of Directors, Missouri Humanities Council
Board of Directors, Deutschheim Verein
Board of Directors, Friends of Missouri State Archives
Steering Committee, Missouri Conference on History
UMSAEP (University of Missouri South African Education Committee)
Chair, Campus Curricula Committee
Advisor, Alpha Epsilon Phi chapter of Phi Alpha Theta

Courses Teaching at Missouri S&T

History 1300, Survey of American History to 1877
History 2110, World Regional Geography (with focus on current geopolitics)
History 2221, Making on Modern Germany (1806-present)
History 2791, Historical Research Methods
History 3241, World War I A Global Perspective
History 3280, European Migrations and Nationalism Building
History 4790, Historiography (or the Science of the History of History)