Office Hours
By Appointment
Education
MA, University of Sheffield, 2022, American History
BA, University of Sheffield, 2021, History
About Me
My research focuses on Civil War Era community history in Appalachia. I am particularly interested in how the events of the American Civil War are remembered within the region's rich oral tradition.
My MA thesis, "'Going Across the Mountain' - Isolation and Conflicting Loyalties in North Carolina's 'Lost Provinces' During the Civil War Era", explored the devastating effects the Civil War had on the communities of North Carolina's Ashe and Watauga Counties in the era surrounding the conflict. I am currently expanding on my previous research, creating a comparative study which examines the impact of the Civil War on different communities within Appalachia and explores how local loyalties shifted over time within an increasingly war-weary region.
So far, this project has focused on the experiences of mountain communities in Alabama and North Carolina, exploring the ways in which local citizens engaged with a national crisis at a time when they found themselves to be increasingly sidelined and sometimes dispossessed as wider market forces interacted with the nineteenth-century mountain world. Going forward, this project will expand its geographical scope to include localities from across Appalachia, with the intention of finding commonalities amongst the experiences of mountain communities residing on both sides of the front line. In April 2025, I received the Bert Hitchcock Graduate Award to support me with my research for this project.
I achieved Distinction in my MA in American History at the University of Sheffield and was awarded the Bryan Marsden Prize in American History during my period of study.
Research Interests
Community History in Appalachia, Civil War History