Mensa's World Gathering 2021

Nancy Berlage
Associate Professor of History and Director of the Public History Program
Texas State University


Nancy is an Associate Professor of History and Director of the Public History Program at Texas State University in San Marcos, where she teaches on memory, family history, and controversy in public history. Previously, she had a varied public history career: She was Chief Editor and Senior Historian for the Historical Office of the Secretary of Defense, where she co-authored the official history Pentagon 9/11, conducted oral histories, coordinated historical research for the Secretary’s Task Force on the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy (mentioned positively on the Rachel Maddow Show), and helped develop exhibits displayed at the Pentagon; she has worked for private historical consulting firms and provided historical services to the U.S. Army Center of Military History’s Defense Acquisition History Project and the National Institutes of Health; and she was an Assistant Editor of The Papers of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Nancy’s book Farmers Helping Farmers: The Rise of the Farm and Home Bureaus, 1914–1935 won several awards, and her next book focuses on memory and the uses of the past in middle America. She has published in numerous journals and served on boards and committees for multiple professional and heritage organizations. She received her Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University and her B.A. from The University of Chicago.

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