UMass Boston

Labor history, public history, urban history, the history of education, and the history of social movements in the twentieth-century United States. He teaches courses on labor and working-class history, public history and public memory, the history of public schooling, and the history of Greater Boston.

PhD (History) Columbia University

MPhil (Economic and Social History) University of Oxford

BA (History) University of Chicago

• The Work of Education: Community-Based Educators in Schools, Freedom Struggles, and the Labor Movement (University of Illinois Press, forthcoming)
• “‘City of Achievement’: The Making of the City of South El Monte.” In East of East: The Making of Greater El Monte, edited by Romeo Guzmán, Carribean Fragoza, Alex Sayf Cummings, and Ryan Reft (Rutgers University Press, 2020).
• “‘Harlem Sophistication’: Community-Based Paraprofessional Educators in Harlem and East Harlem.” In Educating Harlem: A Century of Schooling and Resistance in a Black Community, edited by Ansley T. Erickson and Ernest Morrell (Columbia University Press, 2019).
• Democracy After the Welfare State: An Interview with Ira Katznelson,” (with Maurizio Vaudagna). In Democracy and the Welfare State: The Two Wests in the Age of Austerity, edited by Alice Kessler-Harris and Maurizio Vaudagna. (Columbia University Press, 2017).
• “‘We the Tenants’: Resident Organizing in New York City’s Public Housing, 1964-1978.” Journal of Urban History. Vol. 43, No. 3, May 2017, 400-420.
• “A Black Englishman in the Heart of the Confederacy: The Transnational Life of Paul Stephenson.” In The Other Special Relationship: Race, Rights,and Riots in Britain and America, edited by Robin D.G. Kelley and Stephen Tuck. (Palgrave Macmillan, April 2015).

Before coming to UMass Boston, Nick was the Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Women’s History at the New-York Historical Society, where he curated the exhibition Ladies Garments, Women’s Work, Women’s Activism and co-developed a series of workshops for educators on the history of school segregation and movements for educational equality in New York City.

Nick’s research is focused on the history of public education, community organizing, and public-sector unions in U.S. cities in the 20th century. His first book, The Work of Education: Community-Based Educators in Schools, Freedom Struggles, and the Labor Movement is a study of paraprofessional educators and their struggles for jobs and freedom in urban public schools. Under advance contract with University of Illinois Press in the Working Class in American History series, The Work of Education explores the creation and development of this new category of educational work—performed today by over 1.3 million people nationwide—and the lives and labor of those who did it.

In addition to his research and teaching, he continues to practice public history as a contributor to several ongoing projects. These include the Harlem Education History Project at Teachers College, Columbia University; the East of East project of the South El Monte Arts Posse; the Women and the American Story curriculum guide at New-York Historical Society; and the Teaching Labor’s Story project of the Labor and Working-Class History Association.

Nick’s research and public history work have been supported by the Mellon Foundation, the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation, the Jacob K. Javits Fellowship, Metropolitan College of New York, the Labor and Working-Class History Association, the History of Education Society, and the Walter P. Reuther Library at Wayne State University.