Heinemann__Kenneth_J

Kenneth J. Heineman

Born: 6/20/1962
Written by: Nick Pupik, Fall 2001
Vocation
Education
Geographic Connection to Pennsylvania: Johnstown, Cambria County
Abstract

Historian Kenneth J. Heineman was born in 1962. Though a native Michigander, Heineman received his graduate education in Pittsburgh. During that time he concentrated on the history of western Pennsylvania, from the city of Pittsburgh to the Vietnam campus protest period at Penn State. Recognized by the Pennsylvania Historical Association, Heineman is now a professor at Angelo State University in Texas.

Biography

Kenneth J. Heineman was born in Lansing, Michigan, on June 22, 1962. His parents are Gilbert D. Heineman, a master mechanic, and Jean Heineman, a cashier. In 1992, he married Theresa Ann Heineman, an accountant.

Heineman attended Michigan State University and received a BAin 1984. He went to graduate school at the University of Pittsburgh where he received a MAin 1986 and a PhDin 1990. While Heineman was at the University of Pittsburgh, he worked as a historian for the U.S. Department of the Interior, in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and later for the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania. In 1989 Heineman was a visiting instructor in history at the New Kensington campus of the Pennsylvania State University. From 1988 to 1989, he was a visiting professor of history at both the University of Toledo and the Iowa State University. Then Heineman was an assistant professor of history at Ohio University, in Lancaster, Ohio. He is currently teaching at Angelo State University in Texas.

Heineman has dedicated his life to the past and how history is constantly influencing the present. His specialties are 20th-century ethno-cultural movements, such as the 1960s peace movement. Heineman feels a close personal connection with the past as he explained to Gale's Contemporary Authors: "Growing up as a working-class member of Generation X, I learned first-hand that the distance between the past and the present is not all that great. My father fought in World War II, my brother in Vietnam, and I had a great-uncle who left Germany in order to avoid service in the Imperial Army of 1914. As a historian, I believe that background is nearly everything.... Through my work, I try to give life to my people."

Heineman received the Phi Alpha Theta national Essay Prize in 1985. In 2000, he was awarded the Pennsylvania Historical Association's Philip S. Klein Award for best book written on Pennsylvania History. He is a member of the American Association of University Professors and the Ohio Academy of History.

Selected Works
  • Far from the Maddening Crowd: Schenley Park and the Search for Tranquil Leisure in the Bustling Steel City, 1889-1989. Self published. 1988.
  • Campus Wars: The Peace Movement at American State Universities in the Vietnam Era. New York: New York UP, 1993.
  • God is a Conservative: Religion, Politics, and Morality in Contemporary America. New York: New York UP, 1998.
  • A Catholic New Deal: Religion and Reform in Depression Pittsburgh. University Park, PA: Penn State UP, 1999.
  • Put Your Bodies Upon the Wheels: Student Revolt in the 1960s. Chicago: I.R. Dee, 2001.
Sources
  • "Kenneth J. Heineman." The Gale Literary Database: Contemporary Authors Online. 6 December 2000. 4 March 2000. <http://www.galenet.com>.