Gregory Wigmore
Gregory Wigmore teaches a broad range of courses in U.S. and North American history. His research and teaching focus on the intersection of social and political history and foreign relations, especially the role of frontiers and borders.
He received his Ph.D. in history from the University of California, Davis and his bachelor’s in journalism and history from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. In 2014, he was the Peckham Postdoctoral Fellow in Revolutionary America at the University of Michigan's Clements Library. More recently, he was a Sproul Research Fellow in Canadian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
Wigmore is the author of “Before the Railroad: From Slavery to Freedom in the Canadian-American Borderland,” published in the Journal of American History. It reveals how enslaved men, women, and children in early Canada and the United States exploited the new international boundary to seize their own freedom—decades before the emergence of the Underground Railroad. The article received the Bernath Prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations and the Ontario Historical Society’s Riddell Award.
He is currently working on a book manuscript based on his dissertation, "The Limits of Empire: Allegiance, Opportunity, and Imperial Rivalry in the Canadian-American Borderland." His op-ed articles have appeared in the Globe and Mail and the National Post.
Wigmore has collaborated with the California History-Social Science Project in developing K-12 curriculum. He previously worked as a historical researcher on contract to the Government of Canada’s Office of Indian Residential Schools Resolution. He serves as faculty advisor to Santa Clara’s History Club.
HIST 11A/12A: War & Society in the Modern Age
HIST 75/175: Natives & Newcomers: Early North America
HIST 70/170: The American Revolution
HIST 171: The New Nation
HIST 96A: U.S. History to 1877: Colonies, Revolution, Civil War
HIST 65/165: Parties & Presidents: U.S. Political History
HIST 83/184: North America: Peoples & Lands
HIST 101S: Historical Writing