Joan McGuire Mohr is an immigration historian who specializes in Slavic Immigration to the United States. Mohr currently consults as a Research Fellow for the Institute for Learning, a Think Tank at the University of Pittsburgh, in addition to a variety of museums throughout the United States and Central Europe. She lives in San Diego, CA where she raised two sons.

Early life

Mohr was born into an Irish/Portuguese family. Her mother's Portuguese ancestors settled in Hawaii at the turn of the 20th Century. Her father's Irish ancestors, who fled to the United States during the potato famine, settled in Denver, Colorado. She was raised in northern New Mexico until the age of six when her family returned to the Denver area. She became interested in Slavic immigrants while living among them in Colorado.

Education

Mohr earned her B.A. at the University of Colorado at Boulder

University of Colorado at Boulder

The University of Colorado Boulder is a public research university located in Boulder, Colorado...

, an M.A. at the University of San Diego

University of San Diego

The University of San Diego is a Roman Catholic university in San Diego, California. USD offers more than sixty bachelor's, master’s, and doctoral programs...

, and her Ph.D. at the University of Pittsburgh

University of Pittsburgh

The University of Pittsburgh, commonly referred to as Pitt, is a state-related research university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as Pittsburgh Academy in 1787 on what was then the American frontier, Pitt is one of the oldest continuously chartered institutions of...

 (PA). She became a professor at PITT while intermittently studying at Charles University in Prague

Charles University in Prague

Charles University in Prague is the oldest and largest university in the Czech Republic. Founded in 1348, it was the first university in Central Europe and is also considered the earliest German university...

, Czech Republic and Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia. She also served as contributing historian to the Czech and Slovak National Museum and Library, Cedar Rapids, Iowa organizing, designing, and lecturing on an exhibit of rare WWI era photographs and material culture.

Work

Mohr's area of expertise is United States Immigration History with an emphasis on Czech and Slovak homeland and host settlement conditions post 1850 to World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. While working on the story of Czech and Slovak immigration, Mohr discovered material in archives across Central Europe and throughout the United States that detailed a hidden incident which occurred in Siberia

Siberia

Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...

 from 1917 to 1922. Mohr collected oral histories, public documents, personal letters, and photographs from a variety of individuals and collections which she pieced together to revive the odyssey of the Czech and Slovak Legion through Siberia during the Russian Revolution. Mohr's latest book, The Czech and Slovak Legion in Siberia from 1917 to 1922 (available fall/winter, 2011) grew out of her interest in Czech and Slovak immigrant communities across the United States who supplied money and support for a specialized Russian army (the Legion) composed of Czech and Slovak prisoners of war. Later, the evacuation of these Czech and Slovak POWs through Vladivostok precipitated the murder of the Russian Royal family and forced the Legion to act as protectors to both the Russian Treasury and the Trans-Siberian Railway

Trans-Siberian Railway

The Trans-Siberian Railway is a network of railways connecting Moscow with the Russian Far East and the Sea of Japan. It is the longest railway in the world...

. The Czech and Slovak Legion's detour through Siberia became the greatest human interest story of World War I, chronicled weekly in both The New York Times and The New York Herald, yet virtually nothing of it is known today.

Mohr currently lectures on this rarely publicized incident across the United States and throughout Central Europe.
She also continues to work with interested groups traveling to little known villages throughout Hungary and Transylvania
in association with the Iparmuveszeti Muzeum (Applied Arts Museum) of Hungary in Budapest.

External links

• McFarland Publishers promotion page for The Czech and Slovak Legion in Siberia from 1917 to 1922 http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.php?id=978-0-7864-6571-2