Scholar - Women Also Know History

Participant Info

About Me: I am a historian and writer with recent work in The New Republic and Smithsonian Magazine.

As a postdoctoral research associate at Brown University, I coordinate Brown 2026: Marking 250 Years of American Democracy, manage the Brown 2026 Class of 1976 Oral History project, and teach a first-year seminar called American Revolution in Popular Culture.

I am writing a book on the American Revolution in female millennial pop culture from American Girl to Hamilton for St. Martin’s Press. From 2026 to 2027, I am a Fellow for the Study of 20th Century American Popular Culture at the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming, as well as a Yearlong Hybrid Fellow at the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies.

My first book, Dear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins’s Efforts to Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany, received an honorable mention from the Grateful American Book Prize in 2025. From 2023 to 2024, I was a Cokie Roberts Fellow at the National Archives Foundation and a Rubenstein Center Research Fellow at the White House Historical Association.

I have a PhD in history from American University and a BA in history and philosophy from Mount Holyoke College.

Despite being from and living in Rhode Island, I call Washington, DC, “home.”

Recent Publications: The New Republic (2026), How to Rescue America’s 250th from Trump

Smithsonian Magazine (2026), In 1776, the Declaration of Independence was Breaking News. Here’s How the Founding Document Reached the American Public

The Washington Post (2025), Her family spied for Germany in World War II. She tried to learn the truth

Smithsonian Magazine (2025), The Reinvention of George Washington’s Mother, From Paragon of Virtue to Greedy Shrew to Widow Striving for Independence

Politico Magazine (2025), Trump is Waging a Culture War on the Library of Congress. It’s Been Done Before

Slate (2025), Climb Not One Mountain

Ms. (2025), ‘What Do We Call You?’ The Many Names of Frances Perkins

Slate (2022), Why the Philosophers Libertarians Love Always Come Out Worse for Wear

Los Angeles Review of Books (2022), French Cigarettes and a Lot of Coffee: On Skye C. Cleary’s ‘How to Be Authentic’

Expertise by Chronology: 18th century, 19th century, 20th century, 21st century