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About Me

I am a historian of Modern U.S. History with special emphasis on women’s and gender history. I currently teach at Case Western Reserve University after earning my PhD from New York University at 2014. I was also a visiting scholar in the Institute for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Columbia University. My research examines the broad intersections between gender, politics, modernity, and culture. In particular, I examine the role of material and consumer culture in political and social movements, and how they became central to shaping gender, race, and class identities during the long twentieth century. More specifically, I explore the connections between feminism and fashion and how women used clothing and appearance to advance ideas regarding women’s freedom and equality, revealing the centrality of fashion and consumer culture to feminist struggles and ideology.

In addition to teaching and research, I am also a public historian and a curator. I have given public lectures related to several costume exhibitions, as well as served as a curator and consultant for two museum exhibitions. During 2015-2016 I was also the Wade postdoctoral fellow at the Cleveland History Center at WRHS, researching the cultural history of Gilded-Age Cleveland with an emphasis on the Wade Family, while also taking an active part in the museum’s public history initiatives. I also served as a Research Assistant for the Margaret Sanger Papers Project.

My work was published in academic journals and popular venues such as Public Seminar and Dismantle Magazine.

Recent Publications

Dressed for Freedom: The Fashionable Politics of American Feminism (University of Illinois Press,  2021)

“Fashion and Freedom from Suffrage to AOC”, History News Network, November 14, 2021 http://hnn.us/article/181760

“Bringing Down the Bra,” Zócalo Public Square, October 14, 2021, https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2021/10/14/history-bra-popularity/ideas/essay/

Schools Enforce Dress Codes All the Time. So Why Not Masks?” Washington Post, August 30, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/08/30/schools-enforce-dress-codes-all-time-so-why-not-masks/

“Democratizing Looks: The Politics of Gender, Class, and Beauty in Early Twentieth Century America,” in Routledge Companion to Beauty Politics, edited by Maxine B. Craig (Routledge, 2021)

“The Fashionable History of Social Distancing”, The Conversation, March 2020, https://theconversation.com/the-fashionable-history-of-social-distancing-134464

“The Battle over Masks Has Always Been Political,” Washington Post, November 18, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/11/18/battle-over-masks-has-always-been-political/

“Fabricating Black Modernity: Fashion and African American Womanhood during the First Great Migration,” International Journal of Fashion Studies 6, 2 (October 2019), 239-260

“How White Became the Color of Suffrage?”, The Conversation, February 2019, https://theconversation.com/how-white-became-the-color-of-suffrage-111576

“Dressing Up for a Campaign: Hillary Clinton, Suffragists, and the Politics of Fashion”, in Christine Kray, Hinda Mandell, and Tamar Carroll (eds.), Nasty Women and Bad Hombres: Historical Reflections on the 2016 Presidential Election, (University of Rochester Press, 2018)

“Black Dresses, Golden Globes: How Fashion Works in Red Carpet Protests,” Dismantle Magazine, January 2018

​“How the ‘Pussyhat’ Became a Feminist Fashion Icon,” Public Seminar, January 2018

“Re-Dressing No More Miss America”, Public Seminar, September 2018

“How Sears Helped Make Women, Immigrants and People of Color Feel More Like Americans”, The Conversation, October 2018

“Criticism of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Clothes Echoes Attacks Against Early Female Labor Activists”, The Conversation, December 2018, http://theconversation.com/criticism-of-alexandria-ocasio-cortezs-clothes-echoes-attacks-against-early-female-labor-activists-107874

“Baby, You Can Drive My Car: Advertising Women’s Freedom in 1920s America,” American Journalism: Journal of Media History, 33, 4 (2016), 372-400

“[Re]fashioning the New Woman: Women’s Dress, the Oriental Style, and the Construction of American Feminist Imagery,” Journal of Women’s History, 27, 2 (Summer 2015), 14-36

​“New Women in Early 20th-Century America”,  in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History  (2017)

 

Media Coverage

Business Insider, Washington Post, On The Media, Teen Vogue, Wall Street Journal, WEWS-ABC, USA Today, W Magazine, Zoe Report

Social Media

@DrEinavRFox

Country Focus

U.S.A

Expertise by Geography

North America, United States

Expertise by Chronology

19th century, Modern, 20th century, 21st century

Expertise by Topic

Art & Architectural History, Capitalism, Gender, Material Culture, Museums, Politics, Public History, Sexuality, Technology, Women, World War I