Uploaded April 2022 | Updated September 2026, 8 hours ago
Professor Tara Zahra
2019 George L. Mosse Lectures
The Gallery of Vanished Husbands, Picture Brides, and Lost Children: How Migration Made the Modern Family
Lecture 1: Runaways
17 September 2019
Chair: Professor Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen
15:30 CST
Pyle Center, Vandeberg Auditorium, Madison
Sponsored by:
George L. Mosse Program in History
UW-Madison Department of History
UW-Madison Center for German and European Studies
Lecture series abstract:
We have become accustomed to thinking of migration stories as family stories. At least since the beginning of the era of mass migration, people have moved long distances to make families, escape families, or improve the lives of their families. Families – and the gender roles underpinning them – have also been at the heart of policymakers' and politicians’ efforts to regulate and restrict migration. From the mass transatlantic migration of the turn of the twentieth century, to the refugee movements of the two World Wars, to the separation of families on the US southern border in 2018, migration policies have defined ideals of family and gender. On both sides of the Atlantic, meanwhile, mass migration was often perceived to be a direct cause of the dissolution of traditional families and gender roles. Were alarmists right to be worried? Looking at three examples – runaways, single women, and separated families – this lecture series will explore the role of mass migration in making & breaking families and transforming gender roles in the twentieth century.
Tara Zahra is Homer J. Livingston Professor of History at the University of Chicago. She is most recently the author of The Great Departure: Mass Migration and the Making of the ‘Free World’ (Norton, 2016) and, with Leora Auslander, Objects of War: The Material Culture of Conflict and Displacement (Cornell, 2018). Her previous books include The Lost Children: Reconstructing Europe’s Families after World War II (Harvard University Press, 2011) and Kidnapped Souls: National Indifference and the Battle for Children in the Bohemian Lands (Cornell, 2008). She is a 2014 Macarthur Fellow and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her current projects include a co-authored history of World War I in the Habsburg Empire (with Pieter Judson), and a history of deglobalization in interwar Europe.
Learn more about the Mosse Program: mosseprogram.wisc.edu
Professor Tara Zahra
2019 George L. Mosse Lectures
The Gallery of Vanished Husbands, Picture Brides, and Lost Children: How Migration Made the Modern Family
Lecture 1: Runaways
17 September 2019
Chair: Professor Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen
15:30 CST
Pyle Center, Vandeberg Auditorium, Madison
Sponsored by:
George L. Mosse Program in History
UW-Madison Department of History
UW-Madison Center for German and European Studies
Lecture series abstract:
We have become accustomed to thinking of migration stories as family stories. At least since the beginning of the era of mass migration, people have moved long distances to make families, escape families, or improve the lives of their families. Families – and the gender roles underpinning them – have also been at the heart of policymakers' and politicians’ efforts to regulate and restrict migration. From the mass transatlantic migration of the turn of the twentieth century, to the refugee movements of the two World Wars, to the separation of families on the US southern border in 2018, migration policies have defined ideals of family and gender. On both sides of the Atlantic, meanwhile, mass migration was often perceived to be a direct cause of the dissolution of traditional families and gender roles. Were alarmists right to be worried? Looking at three examples – runaways, single women, and separated families – this lecture series will explore the role of mass migration in making & breaking families and transforming gender roles in the twentieth century.
Tara Zahra is Homer J. Livingston Professor of History at the University of Chicago. She is most recently the author of The Great Departure: Mass Migration and the Making of the ‘Free World’ (Norton, 2016) and, with Leora Auslander, Objects of War: The Material Culture of Conflict and Displacement (Cornell, 2018). Her previous books include The Lost Children: Reconstructing Europe’s Families after World War II (Harvard University Press, 2011) and Kidnapped Souls: National Indifference and the Battle for Children in the Bohemian Lands (Cornell, 2008). She is a 2014 Macarthur Fellow and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her current projects include a co-authored history of World War I in the Habsburg Empire (with Pieter Judson), and a history of deglobalization in interwar Europe.
Learn more about the Mosse Program: mosseprogram.wisc.edu
