Maureen Flanagan to retire in May: A look back at her career
For as long as she can remember, Maureen Flanagan has been interested in history. As an undergraduate, she loaded up on as many history courses as she could take, then graduated and went to work as a copy editor and copywriter. Within a few years, she knew she had to go back to school—her dream for her career path had become very clear.
“I decided that I really wanted to be a professional historian,” Flanagan says, “to be both a teacher and a publishing scholar.”
That life-changing decision was nearly 40 years ago. Today, Flanagan serves as professor of history within the Department of Humanities at the Illinois Institute of Technology, and is preparing to enter a whole new chapter of her life: retirement. Still, Flanagan says the work she’s doing in her field is far from over.
“I have been teaching for almost 40 years, since I was a graduate student,” she says. “I really enjoy teaching, and hope that over the years I have influenced the ideas and careers of students, but now I wish to research and write full-time. One of the great things about being a professional historian is that you can retire from teaching and continue to do your work.”
In the years since Flanagan headed back to school for a Ph.D. in History at Loyola University of Chicago she ventured from the role of graduate student and teaching assistant, to assistant director of the Center for the History of Cartography at the Newberry Library, to an 18-year stint as a professor of history at Michigan State University, and finally to Illinois Tech, where she arrived nearly six years ago to fill the roles of professor of history and chair of the Department of Humanities.
Flanagan’s research in graduate school was initially focused on a combination of U.S. history and urban history. While researching her Ph.D. dissertation, she grew especially interested in investigating women’s experiences in Chicago and, eventually, she says, “understanding how ideas of gender lay behind the development of cities.”
In addition to having published numerous journal articles and essays over the course of her career, Flanagan’s book publications include America Reformed: Progressives and Progressivisms, 1890s-1920s (Oxford University Press, 2007), Seeing With Their Hearts: Chicago Women and the Vision of the Good City, 1871-1933 (Princeton, 2002); and Charter Reform in Chicago (Southern Illinois University, 1987), which was the revision of her Ph.D. dissertation.
Her latest book-length project looks at the ways gender has reconstructed four major cities, and is titled Consolidating the Patriarchal City: Gender Ideals and the Built Environments of Chicago, Dublin, London, and Toronto, 1870s into the 1940s.
“Finishing my book manuscript is now my top priority,” Flanagan says. “I have a complete draft of the book, which is now being read by some colleagues for their comments and suggestions before I send it off to the press.”
As part of her research for the book, Flanagan recently published an essay titled, “Private Needs, Public Space: Public Toilets Provision in the Anglo-Atlantic Patriarchal City: London, Dublin, Toronto and Chicago” in the journal Urban History.
Flanagan says her interest in public toilet provision is one way she has been affected by her immersion in the academic environment of Illinois Tech.
“I became more interested in how technology changes cities, not just today but in the past,” she says. “I think that has influenced my research and writing. For example, I never thought about public toilets as an urban issue until I saw the connection between the technology of toilets and decisions that cities made about whether, where, and for whom to build public toilets. I've also been able to expand my understanding about urban architecture by participating as affiliated faculty in the College of Architecture.”
The opportunity to learn more about architecture as both a discipline and practice is something Flanagan says she has very much enjoyed about her time here.
“I have had many architecture students in my course, The City in World History, and I enjoy seeing the different ways in which architects and historians think about and envision the city,” she says.
Other courses Flanagan taught here include, The City: A Human Endeavor, and U.S. Urban History.
Among her favorite memories of her time at Illinois Tech, Flanagan liked helping organize departmental events including the Women’s History Month and Black History Month celebrations. But it was the personal relationships she developed through her role as chair that she enjoyed most.
“I met colleagues from many different disciplines both inside and outside the department. Having been previously at a very large university, I was startled to realize that here at Illinois Tech both the president and provost knew who I was,” she says.”
And of course, sometimes life throws you a curve ball. For a year and a half of her time as the humanities chair, Flanagan also served as interim chair of the Department of Social Sciences.
“Chairing both departments gave me the opportunity to learn more about the different disciplines of my colleagues, which expanded my perceptions of the valuable research and teaching these two departments contribute to Illinois Tech,” Flanagan says. “During my time as chair in both departments, I was able to mentor four of my junior colleagues through the tenure and promotion process and to lead the humanities department in hiring new colleagues. It was personally very satisfying to be able to play a role in their career development.”
Upon her retirement in May, Flanagan says she looks forward to taking on a new project, and also traveling more.
“As soon as I put the final touches on my current manuscript, I will begin a new collaborative project with a friend and colleague on the experiences of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers who immigrated from Ireland to Chicago (my ancestors) and from Italy to Newark, N.J. (her ancestors),” Flanagan says. “Personally, I hope to be able to spend more time in Rome, where I have lived several times over the past 30 years and where I now spend at least six weeks during the summer. Retiring from teaching means that I don't have to schedule going there around the academic year.”
