Hello! My name is Daniel Gorman Jr. (Dan to friends), and I am a historian and history teacher. I specialize in nineteenth- and twentieth-century U.S. history, focusing on American religions, culture, and politics. This professional website provides links to my publications and other projects.

Currently I am a history Ph.D. candidate at the University of Rochester. I received an M.A. in history from Rochester in 2017 and held an Andrew W. Mellon Digital Humanities Fellowship there from 2019–21. Previously I received an M.A. in history from Villanova University in 2016, and a B.A. in history and religion from the University of Rochester in 2014. I am a member of Phi Beta Kappa and a 2013 alumnus of the Beinecke Scholarship.

Current Projects and Interests

• Ph.D. Dissertation: “Phantom Luminaries: Spiritualism and Paranormal Investigators in the Age of Disruption.” Advisor: Joan Shelley Rubin, Rochester Dept. of History. This dissertation focuses on the expulsion of a Spiritualist, Frederick Willis, from Harvard Divinity School in 1857, the ensuing public debate between Spiritualists and skeptics, and the connections between Spiritualism and broader religious currents of the nineteenth century.

• Assorted digital humanities projects.

• Project-based learning for history classrooms.

• The 1893 Columbian Exposition and the beginnings of modern U.S. tourism.

• Philadelphia Jewish history.

• The legacy of U.S. anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan.

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