Have you ever been on an African safari? Mrs. Lohmann-Michel has! Montrose’s new 9th and 11th grade history teacher saw hippos, rhinos, elephants, and wild dogs, her favorite of the animals spotted. Originally from Philadelphia, Mrs. Lohmann-Michel has lived in Boston for two years now, and she misses her friends and family. Something cool in Philadelphia that she misses seeing as well are the many historical archives there! Unsurprisingly, Mrs. Lohmann-Michel likes to read and is a major lover of anything historical! While she likes to travel, she also studied abroad in Liverpool, England for a year for her master’s degree. Her most recent trip has been to Acadia National Park in Maine. She was a part of her school swim team as well! Even during this abnormal year, she has learned that the students are “pretty adaptable and enthusiastic about a variety of topics – not always history,” and even during this strange year, everything feels normal, which tells her that Montrose is “such a strong community.” She also really likes to be outside and go for runs. In South Africa, she noticed that stars were very bright and it was interesting to see different constellations in a different hemisphere. Her favorite part about Montrose so far are the students and her love for teaching history. One of Mrs. Lohmann-Michel’s 9th grade Western Civilization students, Helen Olohan, claims that her teacher is “extremely knowledgeable about all the topics she teaches” and is “really engaging”. She has also been really helpful when talking about National History Day, and helping to connect the girls interests with topics. Ms. Michel is also writing her PhD dissertation, this is her sixth year working on it. She is writing it on the construction of american identity during the early republic, specifically looking at benevolence, how benevolence and philanthropy are used to articulate american identity after war. She looked at and studied how marginalized groups, such as Jewish and Blacks, used rhetoric of benevolence and the republic to articulate their own space in the new nation. While it has been a long process that she has enjoyed, she is excited to finish it and talk about history with people. “It’s like solving a puzzle,” she claimed. Ms. Michel has also traveled over the world doing research in the Netherlands, different parts of England, Philadelphia, Massachusetts, New York, as well as different archives where she spent up to three months doing research. 

Ms. Michel has always been interested in social history, everyday people and politicians. She started off studying european history, while her professor at Carleton College encouraged her to look at the connections between American and European history, so her undergraduate thesis was about juvenile delinquency where she could have fun looking into private letters and lives of people from the past. Now that she is teaching American history and western civilization, they have fit nicely into what she has spent years studying and gaining knowledge about. 

On the debate team in high school and college, Ms. Michel is excited to launch into the different world of speech at Montrose and she has so far enjoyed the girls on the team and other aspects such as helping girls phrase their positions as clearly as possible. Even though it has been different this year online, it has been exciting to see it evolve, and Ms. Michel maybe would like to start a debate team! 

Get to know Mrs. Lohmann-Michel! 

Grace Marino ‘22, Contributing Writer

22gmarino@montroseschool.org