Scholar - Women Also Know History

Participant Info

Keywords: gender/race and antebellum American politics, masculinity and politics, coming of the Civil War, debates over slavery, collapse of the democratic process, political polarization, election of 1856, election of 1860, southern secession, Bleeding Kansas, John Brown's Raid, Lecompton Constitution

About Me: I am a historian of nineteenth-century America, with a special focus on how Democratic politicians–the political conservatives of their day–used gender and race to discourage compromise and inflame political tensions in the run-up to the American Civil War.

I hold a Ph.D. in History from the University of Virginia. My book, The Democratic Collapse: How Gender Politics Broke a Party and a Nation, is under contract with the University of North Carolina Press. In addition to publishing historical writing, I work outside of academia as a researcher at a women’s rights advocacy organization.

Recent Publications: Peer-reviewed publications

Lauren N. Haumesser, The Democratic Collapse: How Gender Politics Broke a Party and a Nation (under review at University of North Carolina Press)

Holly Shulman, Amy Larrabee Cotz, and Lauren N. Haumesser, eds. Dolley Madison Digital Edition, vol. 12 (Charlottesville: Rotunda Press, 2020)

Op-Eds and Blogs

Lauren N. Haumesser, “Op-Ed: Mitch McConnell has repeated Stephen A. Douglas’s biggest mistake,” Washington Post, January 12, 2021 (link)

Lauren N. Haumesser, “Op-Ed: The Women’s March is riddled with divisions. But that doesn’t mean feminism is in crisis,” Washington Post, January 18, 2019 (link)

Lauren N. Haumesser, “Gendered Rhetoric and the Coming of the Civil War,” U.S. Intellectual History Blog, Society for U.S. Intellectual History, August 24, 2017 (link)

Media Coverage: I have published op-Eds in the Washington Post on the Women's March and the January 6, 2021 insurrection.