Faculty and Staff Directory
Elizabeth Fraterrigo
About
Elizabeth Fraterrigo (Ph.D., Loyola University Chicago, 2004; B.A., University of Illinois, 1993) is an associate professor of history at Loyola University Chicago where she teaches courses in public history, United States women’s and gender history, twentieth-century popular culture, and material culture. She was previously assistant professor of history at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Fraterrigo’s first book, Playboy and the Making of the Good Life in Modern America (Oxford University Press, 2009), examined transformations in gender, popular culture, and consumption in postwar America. She is currently engaged in her next book project, researching the media reform campaigns of the National Organization for Women and other feminist groups in the 1960s and 1970s. She is also at work on a study of the intersection of museum exhibition practices, historic preservation, urban history, and memory. Fraterrigo’s articles and reviews have appeared in the Journal of Urban History, The Public Historian, Reviews in American History, American Historical Review, Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society,and the Washington Post.
Fraterrigo is currently directing The Chicago Community Trust Oral History Project, documenting the history of philanthropy at one of the nation’s oldest and largest community foundations. She has curated and consulted on numerous museum and exhibition projects, including Teen Chicago (2004-05), co-curated with Joy L. Bivins, and Free to Vote (2004), both at the Chicago History Museum. She has been a guest of many radio programs, including BBC4’s “The Original Playboy,” and has appeared on the History Channel in the documentary, “How Playboy Changed the World.”
Research Interests
Twentieth-century United States history, gender and women’s history, popular culture, museums, material culture
Courses Taught
HIST 212: United States Since 1865
HIST 291: Historical Methods
HIST 369: 20th Century Popular Culture
HIST 410: Material Culture
HIST 442: Women's and Gender History: United States
HIST 461: 20th Century America
HIST 487: Public History: Museums
Publications
Playboy and the Making of the Good Life in Modern America (Oxford University Press, 2009).
“The Answer to Suburbia: Playboy’s Urban Lifestyle,” Journal of Urban History 34 (July 2008): 747-774.
“Taking Stock of Playboy’s Legacy as Hugh Hefner Tries to Buy Back Company,” Washington Post, July 18, 2010, Sunday Outlook Section, 1