Betsy Beasley

Betsy Beasley earned a B.A. in history from the University of Georgia and an M.S. in Urban Affairs from Hunter College of the City University of New York.  Her interests lie in urban studies, the history of gender and sexuality, the links between culture and economy, and the history of the U.S. in the world.  Her dissertation traces the rise of Houston, Texas, as a global city in the half-century following World War II, focusing on oilfield services companies including Brown & Root, Schlumberger, and Hughes Tool.  Tracing both the material developments that established Houston as a global center of petrochemical services and the emerging cultural vision that imagined the U.S. as a global service headquarters, her dissertation charts the promotion, contestation, and negotiation of “service globalism” at home and abroad.