The History Department is proud to announce that Professor Rachel Gross has been awarded tenure and promoted to Associate Professor, following approval by the University of Colorado Board of Regents this spring. Dr. Gross currently serves as the Co-Director of Public History and will also be the Director of Graduate Studies starting in the Fall.
Dr. Gross’s areas of expertise include Modern U.S. history, public history, cultural history, and business history. Her first book, Selling Nature: The Outdoor Industry in American History, was published in 2024 by Yale University Press. It explores Americans’ relationship with buying equipment and clothing before embarking on outdoor activities and how the outdoor industry has shaped American concepts around recreation and expertise in the twentieth century. A chapter in this book explores army navy surplus stores that sold outdoor equipment after World War II. That research has shaped Dr. Gross’s current interest in researching additional military histories of surplus goods. She is currently working on her second book, Surplus: A World Remade by U.S. Military Junk, which will “explore military logistics and the trace the histories of economic planning and waste that follow the redistribution of the artifacts of war.”
Since joining CU Denver, Dr. Gross has been working in collaboration with the Auraria Historical Advocacy Council (AHAC) on public history initiatives. She has been assisting this organization of Displaced Aurarians to develop historical interpretation that communicates Auraria Campus’s legacy of displacement. Exciting projects that have come from this work include a 2022 symposium that explored UCD’s histories of displacement as well as a walking tour. Currently, Dr. Gross and other faculty members are working on a digital walking tour, a book, and an exhibit on spiritual identity in Auraria that will be displayed in Emmanuel Gallery in the summer of 2026.
Professor Gross fosters curiosity and insight in the classroom, where she teaches courses on capitalism, material culture, gender, and public history. She trains students to think critically about historical questions in alignment with academic methodologies while also encouraging students to consider how their graduate program might foster a career in History. This fall, she will teach a new course on museum exhibit design that centers the history of Denver’s Auraria campus. This course will enable students to contribute to the development of the Emmanuel Gallery exhibition.
The History Department celebrates this well-deserved recognition and looks forward to Professor Gross’s continued contributions to scholarship, teaching, and public history.
– Submitted by Krista Marks