Scott Roper has been fascinated with places as long as he can remember. He moved around a lot as a child before his family settled down in southern New Hampshire when he was eight years old. A subscription to National Geographic in middle school cultivated his interest in geography, and by his senior year in high school he was actively researching the cultural and historical landscapes of Manchester, New Hampshire. He received his BA from Clark University, followed by an MA from the University of North Dakota and a PhD from the University of Kansas, all in Geography.
Scott has taught college-level courses in Geography, Geology, History, and Environmental Studies for more than 30 years. His research focuses on the human geography and regional landscapes of North America, particularly as they relate to race, ethnicity, and migration. In the past, with funding from National Geographic, he worked to promote K-12 geography education in Vermont. Today he is heavily involved in architectural history and historic preservation research, including the Castleton Granger House project through which VTSU students have been able to present their findings at international conferences.
A former selectman who still involves himself in local politics from time to time, Scott lives in New Hampshire with his wife, best friend, and frequent research partner, Stephanie. When he’s not on campus, you can usually find him analyzing cemeteries and old houses, looking for cellar holes, or following the Boston Red Sox and Boston Bruins.
- Cultural Landscapes
- Historical Geography
- Perceptual Geography
- Sport and Place
- Ethnicity and Race
- North American Regions
- Applied Geographic Information Systems
- Cartography
- Conservation, Planning, and the Environment
- Cultural Geography
- Environmental Law and Policy
- Introduction to World Geography
- Reconstructing Past Landscapes
- Time and Space in North America
- (With Stephanie Abbot Roper) When Baseball Met Big Bill Haywood: The Battle for Manchester, New Hampshire, 1912-1916. Jefferson City, NC: McFarland and Company, Publishers, 2018.
- (With Wayne Brew) “The Mohawk Valley-New England Extended: Landscapes of Economic and Cultural Change and Diversity.” PAST 37 (2014) www.pioneeramerica.org.
- (With Wayne Brew) “Boom and Bust: Landscapes of Economic and Cultural Transition-A Field Trip along Florida’s Treasure Coast.” PAST 35 (2012) www.pioneeramerica.org.
- ‘Wrought in the Spirit of our Ancestors’: Ethnicity, Scale, and the Reinvention of a New England Town.” In Blake Harrison and Richard Judd, eds., A Landscape History of New England. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press (2011) 303-322.
- (With Stephanie Abbot Roper and Cindy L. Ferraresi) “Cemeteries of the Texas Panhandle.” PAST 29 (2006) 24-42.
- “Another Chink in Jim Crow? Race and Baseball on the Northern Plains, 1900-1935.” In Bill Kirwin, ed., Out of the Shadows: African American Baseball from the Cuban Giants to Jackie Robinson: The Best of Nine. Lincoln: Bison Books/University of Nebraska Press (2005) 81-93. Reprinted from Nine: A Journal of Baseball History and Social Policy Perspective 2 (1993) 75-89.
- (with Stephanie Abbot Roper) Citizen Soldiers: New Hampshire’s Lafayette Artillery Company, 1804-2004. Portsmouth, NH: Peter E. Randall, Publisher, 2004.
- “The World is Moving to a Higher Level: The Cost of Progress in Downtown Peterborough, 1913-1921.” Historical New Hampshire 56:1-2 (2001) 34-53.
- (with Stephanie Abbot Roper) “We’re Going to Give All We Have for this Grand Little Town: Baseball Integration and the 1946 Nashua Dodgers.” Historical New Hampshire 53:1-2 (1998) 2-19.
- “Maintaining the ‘Cheery Fires’: Servants’ Space in a Turn-of-the-Century Kansas House.” Material Culture 28:3 (1996) 17-40.
- “A Summer in North Dakota: Uncovering Satchel Paige’s 1935 Season.” Baseball Research Journal 23 (1994) 51-54.
