The College of

Arts and Sciences

Fields

American Studies, Modern U.S. History, American Capitalism since 1900 with specializations in Work, Motivation, Propaganda, Communications and Management Ideology

 

Bio

My research explores the history of work. I am especially interested in how ideas about work have been shaped by specialists affiliated with management, including industrial psychologists, propaganda designers and motivational consultants. I chart this history in my book, "Work Better, Live Better: Motivation, Labor, and Management Ideology" (University of Massachusetts Press, 2020). The book traces the efforts of employers, managers and their allies to sell American workers on the rewards of work since 1900, within broader political and social contexts.

 

My current research project explores the intertwined histories of work, technology and management in the United States and the United Kingdom since World War II. It examines the efforts of management specialists, business leaders and governments to transform work via the introduction of computers and the use of new techniques of managerial control. I look at these developments in the context of larger historical developments, especially the rise of systems management and the transatlantic resurgence of conservative free-market economic policies. 

 

My courses, offered mainly on the OSU-Tulsa campus, focus on a variety of topics, most of which blend history, literature, film and other media. In some courses, such as Tulsa’s Public Cultures and The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre students explore local histories and their legacies. Beyond OSU, I also served as state scholar for the Oklahoma Humanities Council’s Smithsonian exhibition, Museum on Main Street: The Way We Worked, which toured small towns throughout Oklahoma in 2017

 

Visit Dr. Gray’s Personal Website.

 

Courses taught 

AMST 3550 The Future of Work

AMST 3550 Tulsa’s Public Cultures

AMST 4973 American Studies Senior Seminar

AMST/ENGL 3813 Readings in the American Experience: Work in American Life

AMST/ENGL 3813 Readings in the American Experience: America in Transition

AMST 3823 U.S. as Business Culture

AMST 3823 U.S. as Business Culture: Food & Society

AMST 3950 The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre

AMST 3253 Globalization and American Culture

AMST 3513 Film and American Society

AMST 3950 America’s Dystopian Futures