Robert Cassanello, Ph.D.

• Associate Professor
• Robert.Cassanello@ucf.edu
• 407-823-1681
• Office Hours: Email, IM or by appointment.
• Campus Location: TCH348K
• View CV
• View personal website

Robert Cassanello is an associate professor of history at the University of Central Florida. He is a social historian interested in digital public history. His book To Render Invisible: Jim Crow and Public Life in New South Jacksonville won the 2014 Harry Moore Award by the Florida Historical Society. His other books include, Migration and the Transformation of the Southern Workplace since 1945with Colin J. Davis and Florida's Working-Class Past: Current Perspectives on Labor, Race, and Gender from Spanish Florida to the New Immigrationwith Melanie Shell-Weiss.

He is a publicly engaged scholar who has curated exhibits such as The Long History of the Civil Rights Movement in Florida and From Kin to Kant: Turpentine Culture in Central Florida. He has also produced numerous media projects such as the films, The Committeeand Filthy Dreamers with Dr. Lisa Mills. The films have screened at numerous state, national and international film festivals and won several awards. Additionally he produces the podcasts RICHES of Central Florida and A History of Central Florida Podcastboth won the Dunn Internet Broadcasting Award with the Florida Historical Society. Dr. Cassanello was a featured voice on the weekly public radio program Florida Frontiers produced by the Florida Historical Society.

Dr. Cassanello's many public history projects have involved collaboration with over 25 museums, archives and historical societies across the state of Florida including the University of Florida’s Natural History Museum, Florida Department of State: Division of Historical Resources, Orange County Regional History Center, the Jones High School Museum and the Florida Historical Society.

Education

• Ph.D. from Florida State University (2000)

Research Interests

Social History, Southern History, Race, Gender, Historiography, Museum Studies, Exhibition and Curation

Recent Research Activities

Robert Cassanello has published articles in the Journal of Urban History, Florida Historical Quarterly and 49th Parallel. He is author of To Render Invisible: Jim Crow and Public Life in New South Jacksonville. He has co-edited two books Florida's Working-Class Past: Current Perspectives on Labor, Race, and Gender from Spanish Florida to the New Immigration (with Melanie Shell-Weiss) and Migration and the Transformation of the Southern Workplace since 1945 (with Colin J. Davis). He is completing a book length manuscript examining the suffrage and the right to vote in Florida. He also produces media public history projects such as the film documentaries The Committee and Filthy Dreamers. He also produced the public history podcast series A History of Central Florida, the Florida Historical Quarterly Podcast and The Art of the Review. He is also working on a multimedia digital history exhibit with the Jones High School Historical Society Inc that features the one hundred plus year history of Orlando's historic black high school. He is also a network editor of H-Podcast.

Selected Publications

Books

• To Render Invisible: Jim Crow and Public Life in New South Jacksonville, Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2013
• Migration and the Transformation of the Southern Workplace since 1945 with Colin J. Davis, eds Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2010
• Florida's Working-Class Past: Current Perspectives on Labor, Race, and Gender from Spanish Florida to the New Immigration with Melanie Shell-Weiss, eds. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2009

Articles/Essays

• "The Right to Vote and the Long Nineteenth Century in Florida," The Florida Historical Quarterly 95 (Fall:2016), 194-220.
• “Avoiding “Jim Crow:” Negotiating Separate and Equal on Florida’s Railroads and Streetcars and The Progressive Era Origins of the Modern Civil Rights Movement, 1882-1905” Journal of Urban History, 34 (March 2008) 435-457.
• “The Epic of Greater Florida: Florida’s Global Past,” With Daniel S. Murphree, The Florida Historical Quarterly, 84 (Summer 2005), 1-9
• “Racial Etiquette, Violence and African American Working Class Infrapolitics in Jacksonville during World War I,” The Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 82, No. 2 (Fall, 2003), 155-169
• “The Fluidity of Racial Hierarchy: Changing Ethnic Images of Germans and Czechs in the American Mind, 1877-1918," (March 2001) 49th Parallel

Book Sections/Chapters

• with Melanie Shell Weiss "Epilogue: Florida and the Contemporary Labor Movement," in Florida's Working-Class Past: Current Perspectives on Labor, Race, and Gender from Spanish Florida to the New Immigration. (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2009), 257-274
• with Melanie Shell Weiss "Introduction: The Promise of Florida's Labor History" in Florida's Working-Class Past: Current Perspectives on Labor, Race, and Gender from Spanish Florida to the New Immigration. (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2009), 1-16
• with Colin J. Davis, "Introduction" in Migration and the Transformation of the Southern Workplace since 1945 (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2010), 1-12.
• We Are White Men and Haven't Got Black Hearts Racialized Gender and the Labor Movement in Florida, 1900-1920. in Florida's Working-Class Past: Current Perspectives on Labor, Race, and Gender from Spanish Florida to the New Immigration. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2009

Awards

Hampton Dunn Internet Award, "The Florida Constitutions Podcast" (2019)

Florida Humanities Council, Mini Grants for Community Organizations, (2018)

UCF Teaching Incentive Program (TIP) 2018

UCF Research Incentive Award (RIA) 2017

Special Recognition Award, (In)justice For All Film Festival, Hymns of Three Cities, (2016)  

Hampton Dunn Internet Award, "A History of Central Florida Podcast" (2016)

Hampton Dunn Internet Award,"A History of Central Florida Podcast"(2015)

Suncoast Emmy© Award, Best Historical Documentary, "The Committee" (2014)

Harry and Harriette Moore Award, To Render Invisible: Jim Crow and Public Life in New South Jacksonville (2014)

Hampton Dunn Internet Award, "A History of Central Florida Podcast" (2014)

International Jury Award for Best Documentary, Durban Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, South Africa, "The Committee" (2014)

Love Your Shorts Film Festival, Best Documentary, "The Committee" (2014)

Florida Humanities Council, Mini Grants for Community Organizations, (2013)

Hampton Dunn Internet Award, RICHES Podcast Documentaries, (2013)

Hampton Dunn Broadcasting Award, Film “The Committee,” (2013)

UCF Teaching Incentive Program (TIP) 2013

Broadcast Education Association, Best of Competition Mixed Video, “The Committee,” (2012)

UCF Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award, (2012)

Florida Humanities Council, Mini Grants for Community Organizations, (2011)

National Endowment for the Humanities, Extending the Reach Fellowship: Research Grant (2001-2002)

Courses

• Spring 2021
• Fall 2020
• Summer 2020
• Spring 2020
• Fall 2019