Independent Historian

Katherine Cydne Piccard is a former radio and print journalist, a Lincoln Bicentennial Commissioner of Oregon, and immediate past president of the Friends of History program at Portland State University. She is a contributor to the Oregon Encyclopedia, and her scholarly articles, and feature and opinion pieces have been published in the Los Angeles Times, online Oregonian, the Oregon Herald, the Rap Sheet and other history newsletters.

Piccard’s general area of research interest includes the American Civil War, the Reformation, and Jim Crow eras, black pioneers of the Pacific Northwest, and Abraham Lincoln.  The California native has been producing historically based videos for the internet, and has developed several websites devoted to the study of African Americans in the Civil War and post-war years.

Recently, the Library of Congress (LOC) notified Piccard that one of her websites, on Oregonian United States Senator Edward Dickinson Baker, had been selected for inclusion in the LOC’s archives for the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War.