Rachel Gross is a postdoctoral teaching, research, and mentoring fellow at the Davidson Honors College of the University of Montana, where she teaches U.S. environmental, consumer culture, and public history. In 2020 she will be assistant professor of history at the University of Colorado Denver. Her dissertation, From Buckskin to Gore-Tex: Consumption as a Path to Mastery in Twentieth Century American Wilderness Recreation, won the 2018 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History from the Business History Conference. The Smithsonian Institution, the Lemelson Center, the Hagley Museum and Library, and the Mellon Foundation have supported her work on the history of outdoor clothing and gear. Her public history work includes a museum exhibit on “Outdoor Gear Stories From the Treasure State” and lectures at historical societies and museums throughout the American West.
RCC Research Project: Buckskin to Gore-Tex: A Consumer History of Outdoor Recreation
Selected Publications:
- “Layering for a Cold War: The M-1943 Combat System, Military Testing, and Clothing as Technology.” Technology and Culture 60, no. 2 (April 2019): 378–408.
- “From Buckskin to Gore-Tex: Consumption as a Path to Mastery in Twentieth-Century American Wilderness Recreation.” Enterprise and Society 19, no. 4 (December 2018): 826–835.