University of Colorado Denver College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Bio

My teaching areas are modern Britain; gender, women, and sexuality in modern Europe; and medicine and health. My courses explore various historical methodologies and practices, and I am particularly interested in getting students to think about the ways that historical narratives --­ or the stories we tell about the past ­-- are constructed. I teach interactively, meaning students don't learn predominantly from lectures in my classes, but rather from discussions about and engagement with reading materials. I like to utilize the new technologies that are available in our classrooms and emphasize the use of images as important tools to understanding the ways people represent their ideas.

My research focuses on relationships between gender, class, health, and welfare in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century England. My first book Beyond the Reproductive Body (Ohio State University Press, 2004) explores competing models of the female body in the 1830s and 1840s, and the impact these competing models had on public policies and the ways poor women thought about their health and work. My current project involves research into the ways assumptions about gender influenced welfare and employment policies and practices from 1870 to 1930 in England. I am particularly interested in the ways welfare policies and practices incorporated the "male breadwinner ideal," and what happened when men were unable or refused to live up to the expectation that they would provide for their families. Most of my research takes place in the county and national record offices in England, and I try to get to the UK at least once a year.

Select Publications

“The Politics of Preference: Masculinity, Marital Status, and Unemployment Relief in Post-First World War Britain,” Cultural and Social History, 7:3 (2010): 233-252.

“From ‘Relief’ to ‘Justice and Protection’: The Maintenance of Deserted Wives, British Masculinity, and Imperial Citizenship, 1870-1920,” Gender and History, 22:2 (2010): 302-321.

"The Gendered Economy of Family Liability: Intergenerational Relationships and Poor Law Relief in England's Black Country, 1871-1911," Journal of British Studies, 45:1 (2006): 72-89.

Beyond the Reproductive Body: The Politics of Women's Health and Work in Early Victorian England. Ohio State University Press (series on Women and Health), 2004.

"'Embarrassed Circumstances': Gender, Poverty, and Insanity in the West Riding of England in the Mid Victorian Years," in Sex and Seclusion. Class and Custody. Perspectives on Gender and Class in the History of British and Irish Psychiatry, eds. Jonathan Andrews and Anne Digby (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2004).

"Testing the Reproductive Hypothesis; or what made working-class women sick in early Victorian London," Women's History Review, 11:2 (2002): 175-200.

"Engendering Relief: Women, Ablebodiedness, and the Poor Law in Early Victorian England," Journal of Women's History, 11:4 (2000): 107-130.

"Dysfunctional Domesticity: Female Insanity and Family Relationships among the West Riding Poor in the Mid Nineteenth Century," Journal of Family History, 25:3 (2000): 341-361.

Courses Taught

HIST 3031: Theory and Practice of History
HIST 4046/5046: Victorians and Victorians
HIST 4051/5051: Britain and the Empire
HIST 4303/5303: Sex and Gender in Modern Britain
HIST 4307/5307: History of Sexuality
HIST 4345/5345: Gender, Science, and Medicine: 1600 to the Present
HIST 4839: History Seminar

6000-level courses including courses on citizenship and national identity, imperialism, World War I, and gender.