Regina Lee Blaszczyk

Leadership Chair in the History of Business and Society, Professor of Business History, School of History, University of Leeds, UK

Regina Lee Blaszczyk is Professor of Business History at the University of Leeds. She is project leader for The Enterprise of Culture, a three-year EU-funded collaborative research project on the business history of fashion since 1945. Other funded projects include Rethinking Textiles and the Moon Heritage Project, two efforts to recontexualize the history of Brtish textiles within the broader frameworks of technological change, consumer culture, and the fashion system. At Leeds, she collaborates with the Marks and Spencer Company Archive to offer a research seminer called 'History on the High Street.' She is particularly keen to work with museums, archives, and the media to present history to the general public.

Reggie's publications focus on business and consumer culture, on the creative industries, and on the chemical industries. Her books include Imagining Consumers: Design and Innovation from Wedgwood to Corning (Hagley Prize for the Best Book in Business History from the BHC, 2001); The Color Revolution (Sally Hacker Prize from the Society for the History of Technology, 2013); Producing Fashion: Commerce, Culture and Consumers (2008); American Consumer Society, 1865-2005: From Hearth to HDTV (2009); and Major Problems in American Business History: Essays and Documents (2006). Her work on the chemical industries includes Partners in Innovation: Science Eduction and the Science Workforce (2005); Rohm and Haas: A Century of Innovation, which was written for centennial of the Rohm and Haas Company in 2009, and 100 Years of Innovation: A Legacy of Pedagogy and Research. University of Delaware Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (2014).

Blaszczyk received her PhD from the Department of History at the University of Delaware, where she was a Hagley Fellow. Her early career was spent as a curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington.

Website:

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/arts/people/20041/school_of_history/person/1976/regina_lee_blaszczyk

Interest Group Membership

Women in Business History

Research Interests

Consumer Culture

Design

Fashion

Textiles

Retailing

Innovation

Creative Industries