Mark Benbow

Mark Benbow (no photo)

Associate Professor

Academic Credentials

B.A., Hanover College
M.A., Wright State University
Ph.D., Ohio University

Biography

Dr. Mark Benbow joined Marymount University’s faculty in 2007, first serving as an adjunct, then as an assistant professor, and earning tenure and promotion to associate professor in 2018. From 1987 to 2002, Dr. Benbow worked in the Directorate of Intelligence in the Central Intelligence Agency. From 2003 to 2006, he was the historian at the Woodrow Wilson House Museum in Washington, DC. Since 2011 he has served as Museum Director for the Arlington Historical Society and manages the Arlington Historical Museum (The Hume School). 

Dr. Benbow earned his BA in history from Hanover College in Indiana in 1981 and his MA in history from Wright State University in 1983. From 1983-1987 he studied for his doctorate in American History at Ohio University under Alonzo Hamby. From 1987 until 1999 he worked towards completing his degree while working fulltime, finally finishing in 1999 much to the great relief of his wife, Annette, and of his advisor, Dr. Hamby. 

A Dayton, Ohio native, Dr. Benbow is a lifelong devoted fan of the Cincinnati Reds, has been happily married for over thirty years, and is the adopted dad to a small herd of rescued dachshunds. Since 1976 he’s been a collector of metallic malted beverage containers.

Teaching Area

  • The United States post-Civil War
  • American Immigration
  • The American Frontier
  • Post-Civil War African-American History
  • The US and the World Wars
  • Public History

Research Interests

  • Woodrow Wilson
  • The Prohibition movement and the brewing industry
  • History of the Washington, DC area

Publications

Books

  • Woodrow Wilson’s Wars: The Making of America’s First Commander-in-Chief (Naval Institute Press, 2022)
  • The Nation’s Capital Brewmaster: Christian Heurich and His Brewery, 1842-1956 (McFarland, 2017).
  • Leading Them to the Promised Land: Woodrow Wilson, Covenant Theology and the Mexican Revolution: 1913-1915 (Kent State University Press, 2010).

Articles, Book Chapters, and Essays  (Peer Reviewed)

  • “Counter-Propaganda and Spy Fever: Germans in Washington, DC, During World War I” Journal of American Ethnic History (Fall 2020) Co-authored with Dr. Stefan Manz, Aston University, Birmingham, UK.
  • “Billy Yank, not Johnny Reb: Focusing Civil War Exhibits on the Union in Virginia” Interpreting the Civil War at Museums and Historic Sites (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017)
  • “German Immigrants and the US Brewing Industry: 1840-1894” (German Historical Institute, online, 2017)
  • “Cheesecake vs. the Home: The Contradictions of Brewery Advertising in the Early Twentieth Century” The Social History of Alcohol and Drugs: An Interdisciplinary Journal (29, 2015)
  • “Black Tom” The Encyclopedia of U.S. Intelligence (Taylor & Francis, 2015)
  • “Woodrow Wilson” International Encyclopedia of the First World War (www.1914-1918-online.net/ 2014)
  • “Wilson’s Childhood and Family Life.” A Companion to Woodrow Wilson (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013)
  • “Diplomatic Milestones, 1898-1919: History and Analysis of the Nation’s Emergence as a World Power and Society’s Reaction.” The Guide to U.S. Foreign Policy: A Diplomatic History (DWJ Books, 2012) 
  • “Christian Heurich: A Biography.” (German Historical Institute, online. 2012) 
  • “Wilson’s Cartoonist: Charles Raymond Macauley and the 1912 Election.” Journalism History (Winter 2012)
  • “The Old Dominion Goes Dry: Prohibition in Virginia.” Brewery History (Winter 2010)
  • “Birth of a Quotation: Woodrow Wilson and ‘Like Writing History with Lightning’.” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (October 2010)
  • “The 1912 Election.” Encyclopedia of U.S. Political History (CQ Press, 2010)
  • “The Sixteenth Amendment.” Encyclopedia of U.S. Political History (CQ Press, 2010)
  • “‘All the Brains I Can Borrow:’ Woodrow Wilson and Intelligence Gathering in Mexico, 1913-1915.” Studies in Intelligence (December 2007)
  • “Woodrow Wilson.” Encyclopedia Virginia (Virginia Foundation for the Humanities) www.encyclopediavirginia.org/ (2007)

 

Book Reviews

  • “Never Forget Your Name: The Children of Auschwitz” The Journal of American Culture. (2022) 
  • “Legend Tripping: A Contemporary Legend Casebook” Journal of American Culture (June 2020)
  • “Split Screen Nation: Moving Images of the American West and South” Journal of American Culture (June 2019)
  • “Public Policy, Public Opinion, and Smoking” Journal of Popular Culture (September 2018)
  • “Remembering World War I in America” The Public Historian (November, 2018)
  • “Beer of Broadway Fame: The Piel Family and Their Brooklyn Brewery” Journal of American Ethnic History (Winter 2018)
  • “A Peaceful Conquest: Woodrow Wilson, Religion, and the New World Order” American Historical Review (Winter 2017)
  • “Colonel House: A Biography of Woodrow Wilson’s Silent Partner” Studies in Intelligence (September 2015)
  • “The Plan De San Diego: Tejano Rebellion, Mexican Intrigue” American Historical Review (April 2015) 
  • “Nothing Less Than War: A New History of America’s Entry into World War I.” Diplomatic History (January 2015)
  • “Progressives at War: William G. McAdoo and Newton D. Baker, 1863-1941” Journal of American History (March 2014)
  • “A Companion to World War I” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (January 2014)
  • “In Plain Sight: Felix A. Sommerfeld: Spymaster in Mexico, 1908 to 1914” Studies in Intelligence (September 2013)
  • “”The Educational Legacy of Woodrow Wilson” Presidential Studies Quarterly (December 2012)
  • “George D. Herron and the Eschatological Foundations of Woodrow Wilson’s Foreign Policy, 1917-1919” H-DIPLO article review. (February 2012)
  • “The Will to Believe” The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society (Winter 2009)
  • “The Mexican Revolution in El Paso” Studies in Intelligence (December 2009)
  • “Bryan in Brief” H-Net Book Review of Gerald Leinwand, William Jennings Bryan: An Uncertain Trumpet (H-SHGAPE, June 2008)

 

Other Articles

  • “Spies and Slackers: The Bureau of Investigation’s Search for Enemy Aliens and Draft Dodgers in Alexandria County, 1917-1919” The Arlington Historical Magazine (October 2016)
  • “Suntory Brewing: Save The Birds” American Breweriana Journal (Issues #200 & 201, 2016)
  • “Holding the Line” Arlington Magazine (November-December 2013)
  • “Camp Life for Union Soldiers in Arlington” The Arlington Historical Magazine (October 2013)
  • “Allison’s Little Tea House” The Arlington Historical Magazine (October 2012) Co-written with Ciro TADDEO
  • “The Prohibition Two-Step: Two Steps In, Two Steps Out.” American Breweriana Journal 166 (July-August 2010)

 

Awards

  • School of Arts & Science Faculty Scholarship Award for 2017-2018
  • Tenure and promotion to Associate Professor, 2018
  • History Department’s Outstanding Alumnus for 2014. Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio. 2014
  • Annual Studies in Intelligence Award for best article on U.S. intelligence history. Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 2007
  • Intelligence Community Award for Counter Denial and Deception, 1999, 2000
  • Exceptional Performance Award, Central Intelligence Agency, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1996
  • Meritorious Unit Citation, Central Intelligence Agency, 1991

Contact

Phone: 703-284-1629

Email: Mark.Benbow@marymount.edu