Office Hours
Mondays and Wednesdays, 2-4 pm
Education
PhD, University of Tennessee
BA, University of Massachusetts-Boston
About Me
Jennifer Brooks received her PhD in History from the University of Tennessee in 1997, arriving as an Associate Professor in the Auburn History Department in 2006. Currently, she is a Professor of History. Her first book, Defining the Peace: World War Two Veterans, Race, and the Remaking of Southern Political Tradition (University of North Carolina Press, 2004), examined the multi-faceted and outsized impact of black and white World War II veterans in postwar southern politics. Her second book, Resident Strangers: Immigrant Laborers in New South Alabama (Louisiana State University Press, 2022), restores immigrant laborers to the construction of the New South project, particularly considering their experiences in Alabama’s railroads, mines, hand laundries, and the convict lease system. She has a third book, forthcoming in 2027, entitled The American Enka Strike: a Photographic History of Southern Labor in the Early Cold War (University of Illinois Press), which examines not only a 1950 textile strike in Tennessee, but also offers a visual and narrative walk through the historian’s craft. Other work has appeared in the Journal of Southern History, Labor: Studies in Working Class History, Journal of American Ethnic History, and Southern Cultures. She is a past president of the Southern Labor Studies Association.
Research Interests
20th-century South
Publications
Books
Resident Strangers: Immigrant Laborers in New South Alabama (Louisiana State University Press, 2022)
Defining the Peace: Race, World War Two Veterans, and the Remaking of Southern Political Tradition (University of North Carolina Press, 2004).