Graduate student Grace Maria Eberhardt didn’t think she would become a historian when she began as an undergraduate student at the University of Puget Sound. She initially wanted to study STEM, but after taking an African American studies class, she became more interested in ethnic studies and the societal aspects of science. The impetus for her interest in history was when a friend told her that the natural history museum on campus had been named after eugenicist James R. Slater.
Slater was a professor at the University of Puget Sound where he taught a class on eugenics until 1950. Eberhardt became concerned that this history wasn’t more widely known or discussed at the university, so she applied for a research grant to investigate the ethics of the name. The grant allowed her to experience archival research for the first time and she wrote a paper about her findings. During her research she worked with the director of the museum and biology professor Peter Wimberger, African American studies professor Dexter Gordon, and historian of science Kristin Johnson. Her experiences with them helped her realize that this was a field she could pursue and study.
Her research that summer became the catalyst for larger conversations at the university about renaming the museum. She collaborated with a group of students and faculty members to organize a symposium focusing on the legacy of eugenics at the University of Puget Sound and created a website. A renaming committee was formed, and the museum was renamed the Puget Sound Musuem of Natural History in May 2023.
The experience cemented Eberhardt’s desire to become a historian of science and race. After completing her BS degree in biology and African American studies with an emphasis in bioethics she chose to pursue her master’s and PhD in history at the University of Illinois. She chose Illinois because she felt it could provide the interdisciplinary research and learning experiences she was seeking.
“Even though I’m in the history department, and I do history, I’ve been able to take classes outside of history that I feel fit really well into my own research, including Latina/Latino studies classes, health, humanities, and even integrative biology.”
Eberhardt also recently completed a graduate minor in Latina/Latino studies. She works most closely with professor David Sepkoski in the Department of History and professor Natalie Lira in the Department of Latina/Latino studies.
“I feel like I’ve really been able to benefit from both of their different perspectives,” Eberhardt said. “I am really interested in intersecting and connecting the history of science and ethnic studies. I would love to further that in my career however I can.”
Eberhardt is eager to contribute to the field and collaborate with other scholars. She recently organized a roundtable for this year’s History, Science, and Society Annual meeting in Merida, Mexico, on the future of 20th and 21st century history of science and race in the Americas.
Right now, Eberhardt is working on readings for her preliminary exams and will write her dissertation proposal this year. She will continue to investigate the history of eugenics and will focus on 20th century eugenic racializations of Latina/Latinos in the United States.
“I'm interested in this because I am Latina and Latinos are usually discussed or identified as an ethnicity, which I think is kind of unique in terms of like how the United States views other ethnic and racial groups,” she said. “So this project is personal to me, but in multiple ways, with my own identity and then within my own interests.”
This summer she visited the archives of the former Eugenics Records Office at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and the American Philosophical Society to investigate how Latina/Latinos were classified by U.S. eugenicists and bureaucrats in the early 20th century. While there she discovered that many Latinos, like Cubans and Puerto Ricans, were being classified as “Spanish,” a subcategory of “Caucasian.”
“I scurried through the box of notecards to confirm this classification was not a fluke, and it became clear to me that my work here was far from over. It had just begun: now I needed to know why eugenicists had such a difficult time with the ‘racial’ characteristics of Latin Americans. With still so many questions left unanswered, and boxes left un-opened, I now know that I have many more exciting hours ahead in my archival journey,” she wrote in an essay for the Department about the experience.
This fall she’ll TA for HIST 103: A History of Everything: The Big Bang to Big Data and for LLS 279: Mexican-American History in the spring. She enjoys teaching and hopes to become a professor one day.
“It's been really fun to get to know students and see them grow,” she said. “I've had some repeat students that I've been able to really see grow over an entire academic year, so that's really rewarding to see how well they're doing and just be part of their academic journey as well.”
In her free time, she enjoys singing, playing the ukelele, and piano. She also enjoys taking nature walks around Champaign-Urbana.
“I really like going to Meadowbrook Park and Busey Woods, it’s all really nice. I do really like seeing especially the wildflowers in Meadowbrook,” she said.
Her enjoyment of native plants also led to a collaboration with history professor Rosalyn LaPier and graduate student Andy Stec on a unique project. Last year, they co-wrote the article “Indigenous Gardens Cultivate Healing” for Yes! about movements to incorporate native plants into landscaping at universities in the US.
“That was really cool to be able to work with Roz and Andy on that,” she said. “It was my first time writing a piece like that for a general audience. We got to interview some people as well. It was a fantastic experience. Roz is awesome.”
The relationships she’s made along the way have been an important part of Eberhardt’s experience in the history department.
“Grad school is really difficult, but I couldn't do it without meeting really wonderful people here. Like, really great friends, great partner. I feel really lucky that I get to be in grad school and am able to do work that I'm really passionate about because I know not everyone gets that opportunity. So I feel very lucky that I can do research and teach subjects that I'm genuinely really interested in.”