I am a Ph.D. candidate in political science and a Graduate Fellow in the Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy for 2020-2021. I specialize in American political development, political economy, race, and labor politics. In my teaching and research, I focus on historical struggles for equality pursued by racial advocacy organizations and labor advocates.
My dissertation asks how coalitions that formed to fight for both racial and economic justice in the early twentieth century shifted their focus away from programs for economic redistribution. Instead, they pursued a version of anti-discrimination politics that failed to challenge legislation in the 1940s-1960s that chipped away at labor rights and social welfare programs.
Prior to starting my doctoral program at Penn, I worked in health policy and nonprofit governance in Washington D.C. for five years. I earned my B.A. in Politics & Government from the University of Puget Sound.
My dissertation asks how coalitions that formed to fight for both racial and economic justice in the early twentieth century shifted their focus away from programs for economic redistribution. Instead, they pursued a version of anti-discrimination politics that failed to challenge legislation in the 1940s-1960s that chipped away at labor rights and social welfare programs.
Prior to starting my doctoral program at Penn, I worked in health policy and nonprofit governance in Washington D.C. for five years. I earned my B.A. in Politics & Government from the University of Puget Sound.
| Katherine Rader - CV |