Patrick A. Lewis, Ph.D.

EDUCATION

Ph.D., History, 2012, University of Kentucky

• Dissertation: “Master for Loyalty’s Sake: Benjamin F. Buckner, Proslavery Unionism, and Civil War Kentucky.”  Directed by Joanne Pope Melish.

M.A., History, 2008, University of Kentucky

• Thesis: “A ‘Democratic Partisan Militia:’ The Kentucky National Legion, Election Violence, and the Struggle for White Supremacy in the Bluegrass, 1868-1873.”  Directed by Ronald Eller.

B.A., History, 2006, Transylvania University, Cum Laude.

PUBLICATIONS

Books

• For Slavery and Union: Benjamin Buckner and Kentucky Loyalties in the Civil War (University Press of Kentucky, 2015).
• Co-editor with James “Trae” Welborn, III, Playing at War: Identity & Memory in Civil War Video Games (Louisiana State University Press, 2024).

Articles & Reviews

• “Rereading the High Private: Restoring Class and Race to Co. Aytch” The Journal of the Civil War Era 12, no. 2 (June 2022).
• “‘An Ironical Biography’: Edward Porter Thompson, U.S. Grant, and the Start of Lost Cause Kentucky” Ohio Valley History 22, no. 2 (Summer 2022).
• “The ‘Most Notorious’ Mr. Jennings: Coal, Transatlantic Capitalism, and Guerrilla War” Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 117, no. 2 (Spring 2019).
• “The Union as it Was, The Constitution as it Is: The Civil War Governors of Kentucky as Institutional History” The Federalist: The Society for History in the Federal Government Newsletter 2nd Series, no. 59 (Fall 2018)
• Amanda L. Higgins and Patrick A. Lewis, “Investing in the Ecosystem” AASLH History News 73, no. 1 (Winter 2018).
• “The Democratic Partisan Militia and the Black Peril: The Kentucky Militia, Racial Violence, and the Fifteenth Amendment, 1870-73” Civil War History LVI, no. 2 (June 2010).
• “‘All Men of Decency Ought to Quit the Army’: Benjamin F. Buckner, Manhood, and Pro-Slavery Unionism in Kentucky” Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 107, no. 4 (Autumn 2009).
• Book Reviews for the Journal of Southern History, Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, and forthcoming from the Journal of American History, Civil War Monitor, and Ohio Valley History

Digital Publications

• “To ‘Serve this Long Term at Home’: Robert Buffum, Mental Illness, and the Prison Trap” Nursing Clio, October 19, 2017
• “History is a High Stakes Profession” KHS Chronicle, August 15, 2017. Selected for the AHA Historians on the Confederate Monument Debate resource list
• “So, You Want to Create a Digital Project,” Society of Civil War Historians Blog, June 14, 2016
• “New Digital Resource: The Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary Edition,” Kentucky Ancestors, October 4, 2016

INTERVIEWS

• “Is There a Place for the President of the Confederacy?” New York Times
• Kentucky Juneteenth: A Public Dialogue
• Kentucky Humanities Council “Think Humanities” on CS Monuments
• Kentucky Educational Television, “Chronicles”
• Kentucky Humanities Council “Think Humanities”
• KHS Food for Thought
• The Rogue Historian
• Civil War Talk Radio
• Long Story Short “Caroline”
• KIRO Seattle
• WRFL/UK Arts & Sciences “Office Hours”
• WEKU “Eastern Standard”

GRANTS & FELLOWSHIPS

• Director, Native American Collections Repatriation and Contextualization Project, 2022-23, James Graham Brown Foundation and William Wood Foundation ($200,000 total)
• Co-Director, Resurrecting The First American West, National Endowment for the Humanities, American Relief Program, 2022 ($146,364)
• Program Administrator, Community History Fellows Program, Jewish Heritage Fund for Excellence [Louisville, KY], 2022-23 ($130,040)
• Director, Rubbertown Research Project, 2020 [Anonymous Filson Donor] ($30,000)
• Director, Kentucky Humanities Council, CARES Act Emergency Funding, 2020 ($10,000)
• Director, National Historical Publications and Records Commission, Publishing Historical Records in Documentary Editions, 2019 ($78,800)
• AHA Workshop Honorarium, Digital Edition Publishing Cooperative for Historical Accounts, 2019
• Principal Investigator, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation – NHPRC Digital Edition Publishing Cooperatives Planning Grant, 2018 ($90,000)
• Director, National Endowment for the Humanities, Scholarly Editions and Translations, 2017-2020 ($300,000)
• Director, National Historical Publications & Records Commission, Publishing Historical Records in Documentary Editions, 2018 ($63,440)
• Filson Fellowship, Filson Historical Society, 2017
• Director, National Historical Publications & Records Commission, Publishing Historical Records in Documentary Editions, 2016-2017 ($62,400)
• Director, National Historical Publications & Records Commission, Publishing Historical Records in Documentary Editions, 2015-2016 ($62,400)
• Director, National Endowment for the Humanities, Scholarly Editions and Translations, 2014-2017 ($210,000)
• Funded Staff Member, National Endowment for the Humanities, Scholarly Editions and Translations, 2012-2014
• Seminar for Editing Historical Documents, Association for Documentary Editing, 2013
• Charles Roland Fellowship, University of Kentucky, 2011
• Futures of American Studies, Dartmouth College, 2010
• Graduate Student Research Fellowship, Kentucky Historical Society, 2009

PROFESSIONAL SERVICE

• 2024-2025, Leadership Louisville
• 2019 – 2023, Civil War and Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi, Advisory Board
• 2019 – 2021, Association for Documentary Editing, At Large Council Member
• 2019, Southern Historical Association, Local Arrangements Committee
• 2018 – Present, Society of Civil War Historians, At Large Council Member
• 2018 – 2019, Southern Historical Association, Membership Committee
• 2018 – Present, University Press of Kentucky Editorial Board
• 2017 – 2020, Institute for Editing Historical Documents Advisory Board, Association for Documentary Editing
• 2017 – 2018, Association for Documentary Editing Nominating Committee
• 2017, Papers of Abraham Lincoln Review & Planning Team
• Grant Review Panelist: NEH, NHPRC, KHS
• 2015 – Present, Kentucky Humanities Council Speakers Bureau
• 2015 – Present, H-Kentucky Advisory Board
• 2014 – 2018, LexHistory Board of Trustees
• 2014, Association for Documentary Editing Annual Meeting (Louisville, KY) Local Arrangements Committee

EMPLOYMENT EXPERIENCE

President & CEO, Filson Historical Society. Incoming, January 2025

Director of Collections & Research, Filson Historical Society. 2020-2024

Scholar in Residence, Filson Historical Society. 2019-2020

Managing Editor of Scholarly Resources and Publications, Kentucky Historical Society. 2018-2019

Project Director, Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary Edition. 2014-2018

Assistant Editor, Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky Historical Society. 2014-2018

NEH-Funded Research Associate, Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary Edition, Kentucky Historical Society.  June 2012-2014

Graduate Editorial Assistant, Kentucky Historical Society.  2010- 2012

Teaching Assistant, University of Kentucky, History Department.  2008-2010 Academic Years

Park Guide, Chickamauga & Chattanooga National Military Park, Ft. Oglethorpe, GA.  Seasonal 2008, 2009

Living History Interpreter, Chickamauga & Chattanooga National Military Park.  Seasonal 2006, 2007

CONFERENCES & PRESENTATIONS (Selected)

2024

• “Relevance and Authority: Holding Space for the Public Digital Humanities,” International Symposium on the Future of Digital Editing & Publishing, University College Cork

• Participant, Summit on Museums and Democracy, Johns Hopkins University/Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

2023

• “Repops and Bully Buys: The Material Culture of American Civil War Reenacting,” British Association for American Studies, Keele University

2022

• “Kentucky’s Road to Loyalty: Secession, Neutrality, and War in 1861,” Camp Nelson National Monument, Winter Lecture Series 

2021

• “Sharing Black History: An After-Dinner Conversation between the Louisville Urban League and the Filson Historical Society,” Panelist with LUL Director Sadiqua Reynolds

2020

• “Louisville, Chicago, and the Birth of the Modern Museum,” Filson Historical Society, Virtual Program
• “The Nineteenth Century Governors Papers,” Journal of the Civil War Era, Webinar
• Panelist, “Decentering Whiteness: White Folks and The Work” Southeastern Museums Conference, Virtual Program
• Panelist, “Whistlin’ Dixie in Arizona: A Conversation about History, Memory, and Myth,” Arizona Historical Society
• “For Slavery and Union, Benjamin Buckner and Kentucky Loyalties in the Civil War,” Filson Historical Society, Virtual Program

2019

• Guest Faculty, 48th Institute for the Editing of Historical Documents, Princeton, N.J.
• Participant, “Freedom’s Movements: Mapping African American Space in War and Reconstruction” NEH-funded Digital Humanities Advancement Grant meeting, University of Georgia
• Panelist, “NHPRC/Mellon Publishing Cooperatives” at American Historical Association, Chicago, Ill.

2018

• Panelist, The ADE Seminar on Critical Issues, “Creating New Technological and Human Infrastructures: A Forum on the NHPRC-Mellon Digital Edition Publishing Cooperatives” at Association for Documentary Editing, Olympia, Washington.
• “Whether Bourbon or Documentary Editing, Every Project Needs a Mashbill: A Roundtable Discussion on the Development and Implementation of a Web-based Annotation Tool” at Association for Documentary Editing, Olympia, Washington.
• “Classrooms, Clinics, and Civil War Governors: Public History’s Role in Graduate Training” at 2018 American Historical Association, Washington D. C.

2017

• “PTSD and Civil War Veterans” at Kentucky Historical Society Food for Thought.
• Panelist, “Reimagining Archives” at Kentucky Museum and Heritage Alliance conference, Frankfort, Kentucky.
• “The ‘Most Notorious’ Mr. Jennings: Coal, Transatlantic Capitalism, and Guerrilla War” at 2017 CWGK Symposium, Frankfort, Kentucky.

2016

• “The Caroline Chronicles: A Story (And Classroom Experience) of Race, Urban Slavery and Infanticide in the Border South” at Kentucky History Education Conference, Frankfort, Kentucky.
• “Teaching Confederate Memoir” at Symposium on Teaching Confederate History, Seminary Ridge Museum, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
• “Ben and Helen Buckner: A Kentucky House Divided” at Bluegrass Heritage Museum, Winchester, Kentucky.

2015

• Panelist, “The More You Share, The More We Grow: The Win-Win of Student Engagement, Mentorship, and Collaboration in Documentary Editing” at Joint Meeting of the Association for Documentary Editing and the Society for Textual Scholarship. Lincoln, Nebraska.

2014

• Kentucky Genealogical Society: “Civil War Social Networking: 21st Century Reconstructions of 19th Century Kentucky” and “Civil War CSI: Murder, Politics, and the Louisville Horse Pile”
• Kentucky Governor’s Scholars Program, (on-site, KHS): “Assassinations and the Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary Edition”
• Panelist, Roundtable Discussion of “Civil War: The Untold Story” PBS Documentary Film, University of Kentucky.

2013

• “‘That Mania Secession:’ Benjamin F. Buckner, the Ohio Valley, and Proslavery Unionism” at 79th Annual Meeting of the Southern Historical Association. St. Louis, Missouri.
• “Kentucky Confronts the ‘Forced and Unnatural’ Amendment: Benjamin F. Buckner and the War on Reconstruction in a Loyal Slave State” at Third Biennial UnCivil Wars Conference. University of Georgia.
• Moderator, “Panel Discussion: Emancipation Proclamation and its Importance and Legacy for Kentucky” at Camp Nelson Heritage Park.  Nicholasville, Ky.
•  NEH Landmarks of American History and Culture Teacher Training Workshop, (on-site, KHS): “Introduction to the Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary Edition”
• “Serving New Scholarship on Emancipation and Freedom: The Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary Edition” at The War for Freedom: The Underground Railroad During the Civil War.  Little Rock, Ar.
• “Co. Aytch 2.0: The Online Life of Confederate Memoirist Sam Watkins” at American Historical Association 127^th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, La.

2012

• “Frank Wolfordʹs Jewel‐Studded Sword: Appraising the Value of Slavery and Union in Civil War Kentucky” at Society of Civil War Historians Biennial Meeting. Lexington, Ky.

2011

• “Sanker, Sam Watkins, and Civil War History: Searching for the ‘Big Show’ in a Civil War Classic” at Kentucky-Tennessee American Studies Association Annual Conference. Murfreesboro, Tn.
• “‘I Feel Impelled to Pause a Moment: A Proslavery Unionist Faces the Resignation Crisis” at Pathways to Freedom: Kentucky and the Civil War. University of Louisville.

2010

• “High Private: How Sam Watkins’ Sideshow Obscured the Big Show of American History” at The Face of Battle: The Secession Crisis Symposium. Chickamauga & Chattanooga NMP.  Oglethorpe, Ga.
• “The ‘Simple Fifth’ Kentucky: The Orphan Brigade and the Boundaries of Postwar ‘Kentucky’” at Appalachian Studies Association Conference. University of North Georgia.
• University of Kentucky Banning Seminar Lecture: “‘What is to Become of Kentucky it is Impossible to Tell’: Benjamin F. Buckner and the Social Crisis of Civil War Kentucky.”
• Panelist: “History Outside of the Academy Roundtable: Perspectives from Professionals in Public History” at Bluegrass Symposium. University of Kentucky.

2009

• Panelist: “Bearing the Standard: Public Historians Role in the Commemorations of the Sesquicentennial of the American the Civil War” at National Council on Public History Annual Meeting. Providence, R.I.

2008

• “‘So Goes Democratic Law in a Democratic State:’ The Kentucky National Legion and Kentucky’s Southern Identity, 1868-1873” at Ohio Valley History Conference. Austin Peay State University.
• “‘The Black Peril:’ The Kentucky Militia and the Struggle for White Supremacy 1870-1873” at Bluegrass Symposium. University of Kentucky.