Dan Gorman

Education: M.A., University of Rochester, History, 2017; M.A., Villanova University, History, 2016; B.A., University of Rochester, History & Religion, 2014.

Bio: Daniel Gorman Jr. is a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the University of Rochester. 

Dan studies nineteenth- and twentieth-century religious and cultural history in the United States. His dissertation explores the expulsion of Spiritualist medium Frederick Willis from Harvard in 1857 and the ensuing debate between Spiritualists and anti-Spiritualists that occurred in the greater Boston area,. This project illuminates differing ideas of the function of religion and science in U.S. society, as well as the relationship between Spiritualism and the broader liberal religious movement in New England. In the digital realm, Dan is interested in online archives and oral history repositories, digital mapping, and documentary editing.

Mellon Activities:

  • Website editor for Digitizing Rochester’s Religions, a project directed by Dr. Margarita Guillory (Boston University).
  • Project Assistant at the William Blake Archive, 2019–20.
  • Organized the May 2020 Mellon virtual symposium with Erin Francisco-Opalich, Madeline Ullrich, and Alexander Zawacki.
  • Volunteered with high school civics programs that the YMCA of Montgomery, Alabama, has hosted virtually because of COVID19 — the 2020 YMCA Conference on National Affairs, the 2020 Alabama Youth Legislature, and the 2021 Alabama Youth Judicial Program.
  • Digital technology consultant on the UR International Theatre Program’s virtual production of The Government Inspector. The play streamed on Vimeo from December 11–13, 2020.