Rate My Professor Ely Janis

Dr. Ely Janis is Professor of History and Political Science at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA). He earned his B.A. in History from the University of Oregon in 1999, M.A. from Boston College in 2002, and Ph.D. from Boston College in 2008. His research and teaching focus on American immigration and ethnicity, the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, transatlantic history, and American social reform. Janis situates the United States in a transnational context, highlighting how ideas, people, and materials from outside its borders have shaped the nation from the colonial period to the present. His scholarship emphasizes post-Civil War United States history, immigration, and ethnicity. He is the author of two books: A Greater Ireland: The Land League and Transatlantic Nationalism in Gilded Age America (University of Wisconsin Press, 2015), which examines transatlantic nationalism during the Gilded Age, and Quinn: The Life of a Building on River Street, co-authored with Nicholas Whitman (Porches Inn at MassMoCA, 2023), a local history project tracing North Adams' transition from a mill town to a center for tourism and art. Previously, he served as Book Review Editor for the Journal of American Ethnic History.