Rate My Professor Abigail Gautreau

Abigail Gautreau serves as Associate Professor of History at Grand Valley State University, with a specialization in Public History. She holds a Ph.D. in Public History from Middle Tennessee State University (2015), an M.St. in History from the University of Oxford (2008), and a B.A. in History from Randolph-Macon Woman's College (2006). Her academic interests include public history, historic preservation, oral history, community history, digital history, the Black Freedom Struggle, twentieth-century U.S. history, and South Africa. Gautreau teaches Public History, Museum Studies, U.S. history surveys, and methods courses, emphasizing community engagement and cultural heritage preservation through a cultural landscapes approach. She has undertaken projects such as National Register nominations, oral histories, interpretive plans, architectural surveys, and historic structures assessments.

Gautreau joined Grand Valley State University in August 2017 as Assistant Professor and was promoted to Associate Professor. Previously, she worked as a digital research fellow at the Center for Historic Preservation at Middle Tennessee State University, contributing to the Southern Places digital archive with metadata from research in Selma, Alabama; as online content developer for the Tennessee Historical Society; and as adjunct instructor at Middle Tennessee State University and Motlow State Community College. Her scholarly contributions include the chapter 'What Happens Next? Institutionalizing Grassroots Success in Selma, Alabama' in Radical Roots: Public History and a Tradition of Social Justice Activism (2021) and 'The Real Trick Is Holding On to That Energy and Not Collapsing: Teaching Undergraduate Public History on the Verge of the Pandemic' in Teaching Public History (University of North Carolina Press, 2023). She presented on teaching and publishing public history at the National Council on Public History Annual Meeting and a joint virtual meeting with the Organization of American Historians. Gautreau mentors students on projects like the Grand Rapids Public Museum's GR Stories Series on public health history, collaborates with local institutions and colleague Matthew Daley on long-term local history initiatives, and serves as an Inclusion Advocate and on the University Writing Skills Committee.