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Faculty

Lara Putnam

Associate Professor
PhD, University of Michigan (2000)

University of Pittsburgh
Department of History
3506 Posvar Hall
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
412-648-7456
lep12@pitt.edu

Curriculum Vitae

Field(s) Latin American History
Atlantic History
Race, Ethnicity, and Gender

Teaching

Modern Latin America
Women in Latin American History
Politics of Memory in Latin America
Selected Publications

Honor, Status, and Law in Modern Latin America. Sueann Caulfield, Sarah Chambers, and Lara Putnam, eds. (Duke University Press, 2005)

The Company They Kept: Migrants and the Politics of Gender in Caribbean Costa Rica, 1870–1960 (University of North Carolina Press, 2002)

"Gender and Political Economy: Recent Work in Latin American Labor History," Social History 28, no. 1 (January 2003)

"Ideología Racial, Práctica Social y Estado Liberal en Costa Rica," Revista de Historia (San José, Costa Rica) no. 39 (enero-junio 1999)

Honors/Awards

ACLS Fellowship (2006)

Two-year research grant. Central Research Development Fund, University of Pittsburgh (2004-2006).

Central America Fellowship. David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University (2001)

Project(s)

"The Problem of Youth at the End of Empire: State Racism, Civil Society, and Policies toward British Caribbean Youth at Home and Abroad, 1900-1970". This study aims first to describe the historical development of public policies impacting British Caribbean youth, focusing on the ways changing ideas about "race," "national character," and "cultural psychology" shaped social policy; and then to measure the impact of those policies as actually implemented. By comparing outcomes among the grandchildren of British West Indian migrants in Jamaica, Costa Rica, Panama, Barbados, and Trinidad, I take advantage of a natural experiment that allows me to test the hypothesis that migrants' cultural heritage determines success among immigrant youth. My results demonstrate the plasticity of youth cultures, and suggest that public investment in education-even when undertaken by a xenophobic state-can open real opportunities for immigrant advance.