My current research focuses on how during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (1870s–1930s), federal antipolygamy and antiprostitution laws policed the sexual behavior of women who were plural wives and sex workers, undermining their personal privacy and bodily autonomy. Americans imagined, surveilled, and punished (whether formally or informally) plural wives and sex workers in similar ways—as agentless victims, infectious vectors, living evidence, and outright criminals—that set a pattern for future policies of sex policing in the United States. I have written, presented, or taught on religion in U. S. history, women in the American West, white supremacy and twentieth-century Confederate nostalgia, memory and landscape in the Latter Day Saint movement (Mormonisms), and relationship plurality in American romance literature.
Advised by:
Research and Teaching Interests:
- American Religions
- Gender and Sexuality
- Legal History
- Public History
- United States
Current Projects:
“Strange Bedfellows: Plural Wives, Prostitutes, and Policing Sexuality in America, 1874–1946” (title tentative)
Selected Publications:
- “Welded.” In “Genre,” edited by William Morris and Liz Busby. Special issue, Irreantum 20, no. 2 (Fall 2023).
- “Confederate Markers in the Intermountain West,” Intermountain Histories (Fall 2021)
- “Mapping the Polygamy Underground,” Intermountain Histories (Fall 2021)
Courses Taught:
As a Teaching Assistant:
- HIST 17A (early America, up to 1820)
- HIST 17B (United States, 1820–1920)
- HIST 17C (United States, 1920–present)
- HIST 4C (Modern Europe, 1650–present)
Awards:
- Crandell–Ryskamp Prize in Family History, Juanita Brooks Utah History Conference (2024)
- Annaley Naegle Student Award in Women’s History, Redd Center for Western Studies (2023)
- Valeen Tippetts Avery Award for best student paper, Arizona History Convention (2023)