| Honored by: | William S. Robinson |
| Brick location: | B:3 map |
Maureen Marsha Ogle (1953- ) was raised in several cities in Iowa. Deflected from her education by the turmoil of the early 1970s, she worked in many jobs, including taxi driver, waitress, nanny, and journeyman carpenter. She returned to college at the University of Iowa in the 1980s and continued on to earn a Ph.D. in history from Iowa State University in 1992. In 1993 she became an assistant professor of history at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, AL. Her first book, All the Modern Conveniences: American Household Plumbing, 1840-1890, was published in 1996. In 1999, liking neither Mobile nor the academic life, and believing that historians should engage the non-academic public directly, she returned to Ames and began work on Key West: History of an Island of Dreams (2003). She became widely known in the beer world after publishing Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer (2006), and is receiving similar recognition in food circles with the publication of In Meat We Trust: An Unexpected History of Carnivore America (2013). She is a woman of extraordinary intelligence who is enthusiastic and memorable as a teacher and lecturer, and a model of dedication in her research and writing.
Submitted 5/9/94; updated 2/27/2014