Hello!
My name is Riley Boyer, and I am a second-year master’s student in the History Department at Temple University. Very excited to continue my research about and growing interest in the Philadelphia cultural sector and its doomed city history museum.
My path to Temple was fairly straightforward. Immediately after graduating from Wilson High School in West Lawn, Pennsylvania, in 2020, I enrolled for a Bachelor of Arts degree in History from Robert Morris University (RMU), located in Moon Township (about twenty miles northwest of Pittsburgh), Pennsylvania. RMU’s history department was tiny, with only three full-time professors and give-or-take twenty undergraduate students, but it provided a much more personalized and friendly environment than some big state school program. My three-and-a-half years at RMU were a refreshing, enlightening, and revealing experience. Ultimately, my time there convinced me that not only was I truly dedicated to the study of history, but that I was committed to and capable of turning what was once merely my favorite school subject into a postgraduate academic, intellectual, and perhaps professional venture.
My studies have largely been centered around twentieth-century American military history, particularly the United States Army in the Second World War. I never had a strong familial connection to the military—a grandfather who was a reservist for the Navy and an uncle who was a Chief Master Sergeant in the Air Force—but was mostly attracted to the subject matter as a kid due to the “cool factor” that just stuck with me ever since. I completed an undergraduate thesis to conclude my time at RMU, wherein I looked at how scholars of the Second World War discussed the military intelligence situation before and during the Battle of the Bulge. This undergraduate thesis marked the beginning of my main scholarly interest and focus at the postgraduate level. At Temple, I’ve continued upon the topic of military intelligence and the Battle of the Bulge by researching how, or if, the United States Army learned from the failure of its intelligence apparatus on an institutional scale. I hope to continue this project (at some point) by analyzing the effectiveness of the Army’s military intelligence efforts in the Korean and Vietnam Wars, ultimately seeking to discover whether the Army repeated its mistakes from back in the Ardennes Forest.
My professional goals remain a little nebulous at the moment. I would love to continue in the field of history in any capacity, but whether that means going for a doctorate or working in public history remains to be seen. I do believe that I need somewhat of a break from school after completing my master’s, though, so it may very well be that I attempt to find work at a museum, historical society, archives, or somewhere else related to the study and discussion of history.
From this class, I hope to continue my efforts in Dr. Seth Bruggeman’s Managing History course from the Spring 2025 semester. In this course, I dug into the institutional history and evolution of the Athenæum of Philadelphia, a membership library/literary society/architectural special collection—or just plainly a cultural organization—on South 6th Street that occupies a very distinct and unique place within the Philadelphia cultural scene. I got very interested in this institution throughout the semester, and I genuinely believe that the way it was able to survive as long as it has (since 1817 from its inception, and since 1845 in the same building!) constitutes a revealing look into the mechanisms of “doing history” in Philadelphia. I’ve also had little experience with oral history, so applying a new methodology to my study of the Athenæum should be a greatly insightful opportunity!
I can be contacted primarily via email at tut71801@temple.edu or via phone at 484-651-0953.
