Dr. Cordery is a Professor of History at Iowa State, the Director of Undergraduate Studies for the History Department, and an affiliate faculty member with the Women’s and Gender Studies Program and the Carrie Chapman Catt Center. She earned her PhD from the University of Texas, where she trained under Prof. Lewis L. Gould as a historian of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. Professor Cordery also serves as president of SHGAPE (the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age & Progressive Era), as a historical advisor to the Theodore Roosevelt Center, as a board member for FLARE (the First Ladies Association for Research and Education), and as the faculty advisor for ISU’s Kappa Iota chapter of Phi Alpha Theta (the national History honor society). She is the author of Becoming Elizabeth Arden: The Woman Behind the Global Beauty Empire (Viking/Penguin, 2024), Juliette Gordon Low: The Remarkable Founder of the Girl Scouts (Viking/Penguin, 2012), and Alice: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, from White House Princess to Washington Power Broker (Viking/Penguin, 2007), as well as two books about Theodore Roosevelt. Cordery has appeared on the History Channel, C-SPAN, Smithsonian TV, CNN, National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition, and the Diane Rehm Show, in addition to several podcasts. At Iowa State, she teaches First Ladies in U.S. History, the Gilded Age, the Historian’s Toolbox, U.S. History Survey II, and a senior seminar on Theodore Roosevelt.