Assistant Professor
Dept. of American Ethnic Studies
Email: steptoe@uw.edu
Office: Padelford A-516
I'm a historian of Black society and culture in the 20th-century
United States. I attended the University of Texas at Austin as an undergraduate, majoring in Radio-TV-Film and History. I later earned an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I joined the faculty of the American Ethnic Studies department in 2008.
My writing has been published in The Oxford American, Montana: the Magazine of Western History and the compilation, The Presence of Others: Voices and Images That Call for Response (5th Edition). I am currently completing an article that examines the popularity of "erotic tricksters" (like Jody, the Cleanup Woman and the Back Door Man) in African-American folk tradition. In addition, my book-length manuscript, "Houston Bound: Race, Migration and Culture in the Western South," explores how rural-to-urban migration shaped the lives of Blacks, Creoles, and Mexican Americans in the age of Jim Crow.
Living in Seattle, a city known for its thriving music scenes, has only intensified my own interest in music and urban life. I work with Seattle's Experience Music Project, where I serve on the program committee of the annual Pop Conference. I look forward to learning more about the cultural landscape of Seattle and western Washington through my students and colleagues.