Rate My Professor Kyle Volk

Kyle G. Volk is Professor of History, Chair of the Department of History, and Co-Director of the Democracy Studies Program at the University of Montana. In 2024, he founded the Democracy Studies Program. His award-winning research and teaching focus on the broad history of the United States, with particular emphasis on the nineteenth century, encompassing political, intellectual, legal history, and the history of democracy. Volk examines how moral minorities influenced American democracy through debates over liquor politics, Sabbath laws, and other issues in antebellum America. He serves as Treasurer, Finance Committee member, and Publications Committee member of the American Society for Legal History. Volk chairs departmental committees such as graduate admissions and organizes events like the Lockridge Workshop on early American history. He is accepting MA and PhD students in U.S. history.

Volk's major publication is the book Moral Minorities and the Making of American Democracy, published by Oxford University Press in 2014. Key articles include 'The Perils of "Pure Democracy": Minority Rights, Liquor Politics, and Popular Sovereignty in Antebellum America' in the Journal of the Early Republic (2009), 'The Consequential State: Public Law and the Release of Energy in Nineteenth-Century America' in the American Journal of Legal History (2017), and 'Democratizing Precision Medicine through Community Engagement' in Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics (2019). In 2022, he received the University of Montana Distinguished Teaching Award, the institution's highest teaching honor. Volk teaches courses such as 'Intoxication Nation: Alcohol in American History' and 'History of American Democracy,' and has participated in the Provost's Distinguished Lecture Series, Covid-19 Oral History Project, and humanities grant initiatives.