Work In Progress

I am currently completing book entitled “Political Modes: Fashion and Power in Eighteenth-Century America,” and am working on a co-edited collection of essays (with Professor Pamela Nadell, American University) that considers the intellectual production and historiographical trajectory of women’s/gender history within various geographically-defined fields of historical inquiry.

Selected Publications

• “Defining ‘American Women’s History’,” in Major Problems in American Women’s History, Mary Beth Norton and Ruth Alexander, eds., 3rd ed. (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2006).
• “Fashion and the Culture Wars of Revolutionary Philadelphia,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., vol. 62, no. 4, October 2005, 625-62.
• “Room in Back: Before and Beyond the Nation in Women’s/Gender History,” Journal of Women’s History, vol. 15, no 2, Spring 2003, 167-71.

Professional Presentations

• “Citizenship’s Corset: Fashion and the Body Politic,” to be given at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, Philadelphia, July 19, 2008.
• “Bodies and Minds in Early America,” roundtable on Gender in Early America, Annual Meeting of the Organization of American Historians, Minneapolis, MN, March 31, 2007.
• “The Republican Mother Turns 30: Reflections on an Article and a Concept,” roundtable organizer and moderator, American Studies Association Annual Meeting, Oakland, CA, October 12, 2006.
• “What Happens to the Atlantic World after the American Revolution?” roundtable, Society for Historians of the Early Republic Annual Meeting, Montreal, July 23, 2006.
• "Opportunity Costs: Marriage, Commerce, and Dependence in Colonial Pennsylvania,” Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting, Washington D.C., April 20, 2006.
• “Envisioning an American Mode in the 1790s,” American Studies Association Annual Meeting, Atlanta, GA, November 13, 2004.
• “Selling Homespun in Revolutionary America,” Courtauld History of Dress Association’s conference “Fashion and the British Empire,” London, UK, July 25, 2003.

Research Interests

Early America, The History of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, Cultural History

Honors, Awards, and Fellowships

• National Endowment for the Humanities - Independent Research Institution Fellowship, Winterthur Museum and Library
• Library Company of Philadelphia - American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Fellowship
• New York Historical Society - Rosenwald Fellowship
• American Antiquarian Society - Legacy Fellowship
• David Library of the American Revolution - In-Residence Fellowship
• Co-Winner of the 2003 Messenger-Chalmers Prize for the Best Dissertation on Human Progress and the Evolution of Civilization