Regina Lee Blaszczyk

REGINA LEE BLASZCZYK is an award-winning author and consultant who writes on business, culture, and the economy. She has published extensively on corporations, marketing, innovation, design, and fashion. Her interests extend into history and art history, visual and material culture studies, anthropology, and the sociology of culture. Her work is designed to reach both the general public and scholarly audiences, with particular emphasis on adult audiences and life-long learners.

Blaszczyk's broad experience informs her writing. She launched her career as a cultural history curator at the Smithsonian Institution, spent time as an American studies professor at Boston University, and worked in senior management at the Chemical Heritage Foundation. Since 2005, she has been a full-time researcher and writer. She has affiliations with the Hagley Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society, and the University of Pennsylvania's Department of the History & Sociology of Science.

EARLY LIFE

Blaszczyk's unusual background allows her to bring human interest to her work. She is the daughter of urban working-class parents, who engendered her with a strong work ethic. Her mother was a community activist, whose pioneering advocacy for day care earned her local celebrity and honors. She grew up in New England, in the shadow of the woolen textile mills of Lawrence, Mass., that once dominated world production. She began writing at age eleven, when she produced her own Star Trek stories. In high school, she continued to write prodigiously, editing the literary magazine.

In 1973, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts acknowledged Blaszczyk's creativity by awarding her the prestigious Christian A. Herter Memorial Scholarship. The Herter Scholarship is granted annually to high-school students of exceptional ability who have overcome adversity to pursue academic excellence. Blaszczyk described her love of writing and learning in her Herter application. The interviewer appreciated her candor: "You're the first nominee who hasn't come into my office and said, 'I want to be a doctor.' I'm going to make sure you get this award!"

Thanks to the Herter Scholarship, Blaszczyk became the first person in her family to graduate from college. Although a guidance counselor urged her to use the Herter award at Radcliffe or Vassar, Blaszczyk chose a less-traveled path. At Marlboro College in southern Vermont--an unusual liberal arts college that stresses interdisciplinary studies--she thrived in a rigorous academic environment. There, she studied history, art history, and fine art, laying the groundwork for the interdisciplinary approach that distinguishes her work today.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

After college, Blaszczyk put the Marlboro method to good use as a curator the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. Focusing on social and cultural history, she worked on exhibits, public programs, and built an important collection of twentieth-century design. Her exhibits explored everyday life, opening visitors' eyes to the importance of ordinary things like pots and pans. Her research blended history, art history, and material culture.

At the Smithsonian, Blaszczyk also advanced her interest in applying history to contemporary design. As a curator, she collaborated with the Smithsonian Office of Product Development and Licensing to create new lines for the Smithsonian shops and mail-order catalog. This marketing experience, sharpened by her knowledge of historic styles and design practice, informs her theories about the importance of "imagining the consumer."

Blaszczyk has also applied her interdisciplinary approach to teaching and management. At Boston University, she taught history and American studies, holding an endowed professorship in material culture studies. She helped run an interdisciplinary American culture program, forging close alliances with regional museums and historic sites and encouraging students' interest in popular culture.

In a senior management position at the Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia, she helped lay the foundation for an innovative museum on the history of chemistry before going solo.

Blaszczyk received her Ph.D. in U.S. History from the Hagley Program at the University of Delaware, which has trained other award-winning historians of business and technology.

Blaszczyk has been a trustee of the Business History Conference, the largest international organization of business historians. The BHC welcomes people who are interested in enterprise and society.

Blaszczyk has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), Harvard University’s Charles Warren Center for American History, the Smithsonian Lemelson Center for the History of Invention and Innovation, the Chemical Heritage Foundation, and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. In 2009, she was a visiting research fellow at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

She has served as a consultant for numerous public history projects, including award-winning PBS American Experience documentary, Tupperware! Earl and Brownie’s Plastics Empire, which received the prestigious Peabody Award.

Blaszczyk's biography is listed in Who’s Who in America.