Biography
Dale started in the doctoral program at UIUC in Fall 2023. Dale's research interests revolve around the intersection of rural and urban spaces, paying particular attention to the agricultural community and its impact in the modern era of the United States. In 2022, during his time at CSU, Dale helped create the Art of Ranching project which focuses on community history. The Art of Ranching (AOR) is a collaborative community history project that works with 4-H youth and historic family and/or Centennial farms and ranches to make visible the agricultural labor and legacy of Colorado communities. At UIUC Dale continues to be a part of the Art of Ranching Team as a project consultant. Furthermore, as a first-generation college student, it is important to Dale that his public history background combines with his academic works to make them accessible to a broader audience.
Research Interests
Agricultural History
Public History
Modern U.S.
Environmental History
Women, Gender, and Sexuality
History of the American West
Research Description
Dale's project aims to explore how health concerns shaped the beef industry in the United States from 1945 to 1995. His research seeks to understand how anxieties about disease and diet impacted both human and cattle bodies, while also transforming beef itself as a product of consumption.
Education
M.A. Public History, Colorado State University
B.A. Political Theory and Constitutional Democracy, Michigan State University
Grants
April 2024 - American Society for Environmental History/National Science Foundation Travel Grant
October 2024 - Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Grant by Yale University for “Improving the Research Experience: A Workshop for Graduate Students in Western American History”
May 2025 - University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign History Department Summer Pre-Dissertation Travel Grant
Recent Publications
Articles:
Mize, Dale. “Draining the Swamp: The Destruction of an Essential Landscape” Ohio History Journal Volume 131, Number 1, (Spring 2024): 32-44. https://oaks.kent.edu/node/18641.
Book Reviews:
Review of Cow Talk: Work, Ecology, and Range Cattle Ranchers in the Postwar Mountain West, by Michelle K. Berry, Annals of Wyoming: The Wyoming History Journal, (Fall 2024), 56-57.
Review of Composting Utopia: Experimental Infrastructures For Organics Recycling in New York City, by Guy Schaffer, H-Net Book Reviews, (October 8, 2024).
Review of Agriculture in the Midwest, 1815–1900, by R. Douglas Hurt, Ohio History Journal (Fall 2024), 81-83.
Review of Through a Changing Landscape: Photographing Place and Community in the Waterloo Region, by Phillipe Elsworthy, H-Net Book Reviews, (April 7, 2025).
Exhibits:
Foodways, Continuity & Change, Michigan State University, Virtual Exhibit, Spring 2021
Reframing New Philadelphia, The East School Museum, Pittsfield, IL, Temporary Exhibit, Summer 2024.
“CU Neighborhood Stories,” digital history project accompanying Making Place for the Arts at Home: Performance and Midcentury Modern Architecture exhibit at the Krannert Art Museum, Champaign, IL, January 30, 2025 - July 12, 2025.
Rainbow Reflections, Spurlock Museum of World Cultures, Champaign, IL, June 2025 - October 2025.
Songs Of Solidarity: The 1985 Farm Aid Concert, Spurlock Museum of World Cultures, Champaign, IL, August 2025 - January 2026.