How does a family’s trauma history shape members decades, even centuries, later?
That’s the question my current project, Uprooted: Secrets, Shame and Murder in an American Family Tree asks. It traces several generations of a single New England family in order to explain the murder of one of its members and its impact on later generations. A lover slit Ada Kinney Brown’s throat in 1884, but this event was only the midpoint of a string of repeat behaviors that started at generations before her and lingered for at least two later. It’s a tragic tale of abuse, alcohol, sex, and things unspoken that ended well after the second World War.
The project grew out of a class I taught. You can get a sense of some of the stakes by listening to this episode of the WNPR show, Where We Live.
Uprooted is a book intended for a wide audience, a new direction for me after years of writing traditional academic histories that looked at the intersection of gender and social welfare, as well as the art of teaching:
“‘None of My History Classes Were Like This:‘ An Experiment in Mastery Pedagogy.” The History Teacher, 50, no. 4 (August 2017): 597-627.
“The Same Old Situation: A Personal Essay About Sexual Harassment in the Academy.” Women in Higher Education 26, no. 4 (April 2017): 1-3, 12.
“‘The West Point of the Philanthropic Service:’ Reconsidering Social Work’s Welcome to Women in the Early Twentieth Century.” Social Service Review, 87, no. 1 (March 2013): 131-157. Finalist for 2014 Frank R. Breul Memorial Prize, awarded to best article published in Social Service Review 2013. Accessible via JSTOR.
“‘Habits of Vice:’ The House of the Good Shepherd and Competing Narratives of Female Delinquency in Early Twentieth Century Hartford.” American Catholic Studies, 122, no. 4 (Winter 2011): 23-45. Accessible via Project MUSE.
“There is No New Gospel of True Womanhood: Progressive Era Activism in the Boston League of Catholic Women.” American Catholic Studies, 118, no. 2 (Summer 2007): 21-42. Not available online.
“Class and the Ideology of Womanhood: The Early Years of the Boston Young Women’s Christian Association.” The Historical Journal of Massachusetts, 32, no. 1 (Winter 2003): 1-20. Not available online.