Participant Info
- First Name
- Christine
- Last Name
- Eisel
- Country
- United States
- State
- TN Tennessee
- cleisel@memphis.edu
- Affiliation
- The University of Memphis
- Website URL
- https://www.memphis.edu/history/faculty/faculty/christine-eisel.php
- Keywords
- colonial America, colonial Virginia, early American policy history, gender and law, gossip
- Availability
- Media Contact
- Additional Contact Information
- PhD
- PhD
Personal Info
- Photo
- About Me
My current work examines women’s gossip in two of Virginia’s earliest counties, Accomack and York. Using county court records that date back to the 1630s, I have pieced together an investigation into women’s speech and the corresponding punishment, revealing not just women’s role in early Virginian society, but also the interaction between women and formal institutions. In considering women’s gossip and the attention it drew from local and colonial authorities, I have demonstrated that gossip challenged colonial law while supplementing the authority of the county courts.The reaction to gossips reveals how the expectations of masculine authority impacted community formation on a small scale, and in turn, how those communities informed colonial interests, giving us a more complete understanding of what it meant to be an English subject in the Chesapeake.
- Recent Publications
- “They make one very handsome Mirkin amongst them”: Gossip and Church Politics in Early York County, Virginia in When Private Talk Goes Public: Gossip in United States, Jennifer Frost and Kathleen Feeley, eds. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).
- Media Coverage
- Social Media
- @christineeisel
- Country Focus
- United States
- Expertise by Geography
- United States
- Expertise by Chronology
- 17th century, 18th century
- Expertise by Topic
- Colonialism, Gender, Law, Politics
