Dr. John Bieter came to Boise State University as a member of the faculty in 2004 after earning his Ph.D. in History from Boston College. His major doctoral concentration was Nineteenth Century United States History, Immigration, The American West, and American Catholicism. He also has an M.A. in History from Boise State University where his thesis was "Basque-Americans, American-Basques: Three Generations in Boise, Idaho", and a B.A. in Social Sciences from the University of St. Thomas where his studies concentrated on economics. Before teaching at the university level, Dr. Bieter taught history at Bishop Kelly High School, and was the International Tour Director and Studies Abroad Coordinator at Boise State. He has spent three years living, working, and studying in the Basque region of Northern Spain, and is proficient in Basque and Spanish. Dr. Bieter's research interests continue to center around immigration, secondary education social studies methods, and Basque studies, including teaching an occasional workshop on arborglyphs — tree carvings left behind by Basque sheepherders in Idaho’s high country. In addition to teaching courses and helping run the Basque Studies Program, his community involvement includes the Basque Museum and Cultural Center, the Idaho Humanities Council, Bishop Kelly High School, and the Monastery of St. Gertrude in Cottonwood.
Articles
Lay People Can Teach: Rural Life, Edwin O'Hara, and the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, 1920-1960, American Catholic Studies (2009)
Conflicted Objectives: The NCLBA vs. a Flat World (with Clifton Wickstrom and Diane Boothe), Researcher (2008)
The authors examine the competing pressures on the education community posed by the No Child...
When a Grove Becomes a Book, Idaho Center for the Book Newsletter (2006)
Basques that emigrated to Idaho at the turn of the century left very little information...
Omaechevarria v. State of Idaho: The Worth of Basques in Idaho, Idaho Issues Online (2005)
Had early pioneers and settlers in Idaho witnessed events in Boise this past summer, they...
Books
Un Legado que Perdura: La Historia de los Vascos en Idaho (with Mark L. Bieter), Faculty Authored Books (2005)
Contributions to Books
Lorenzo’s Letters: A Basque Immigrant’s Experience in the American West, To Harvest, To Hunt: Stories of Resource Use in the American West (2007)
In the words of John Bieter's Basque grandfather the "rough" Idaho mountains where he herded...
John B. Archabal 1873-1945: A Portrait of an Immigrant Success, Portraits of Basques in the New World (1999)
"You've got to be good at something in this world," Dan Archabal remembers his father...
Presentations
Dilution vs. Dancing: Scots-Irish and Basques in the American West (with Nina Ray), The Nineteenth Biennial Ulster-American Heritage Symposium, The Mellon Centre for Migration Studies, Ulster-American Folk Park (2012)
Senator Jim Webb’s book, Born Fighting, and the associated Smithsonian series, filmed in Scotland, Northern...
Color it Irish: Generational Responses to Defining Identity in the Contemporary Post-Modern World (with Ken Coll), American Conference for Irish Studies, Western Region (2010)
The Church of the Good Shepherd: A Shrouded Ornament, Mugaz Gaindi Basque Studies Conference/Boise State University (2010)