Petra DeWitt is an assistant professor in the Department of History and Political Science at Missouri S&T. She specializes in migration and ethnic history and has published several articles and encyclopedia submissions on the subject, including “’Drifting Back Into their Old Ways:’ The Efforts to Banish the German Language from Missouri during the Great War,” Missouri Historical Review 103 (April 2009): 161-82, and “Searching for the Meaning of Loyalty: A Study of the German-American Experience during World War I in Osage County, Missouri,” Yearbook of German-American Studies 39 (2005): 77-92. Her book, Degrees of Allegiance: Harassment and Loyalty in Missouri’s Germany-American Community during World War I, was published in 2012 and won that year’s Missouri Book Award.
Dr. DeWitt is an alum of Missouri S&T (then University of Missouri-Rolla) graduating Summa Cum Laude in 1996 with a BA in history. She earned the MA in history at Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri, and the Ph.D. in history at the University of Missouri-Columbia.