Catherine Kerrison

Catherine Kerrison
Kerrison at the 2018 U.S. National Book FestivalEdit this at Wikidata
Alma mater College of William & Mary Edit this on Wikidata

Catherine Kerrison is an American historian, and professor of history at Villanova University.[1] Her work examines the role and life of American women, using non-traditional sources.

Life

Kerrison graduated from the College of William and Mary,[2] with a PhD in American history. She teaches women's and gender history and focuses on the colonial and revolutionary period of U. S. history. In 2007, she was awarded the Outstanding Book Prize of the History of Education Society for her first book, Claiming the Pen: Women and Intellectual Life in the Early American South.[3]

Kerrison is the Academic Director of Gender and Women's Studies of Villanova.[4] In 2012, she was a Virginia Foundation for the Humanities Fellow.[5]

Writing

Kerrison's book, Claiming the Pen (2006), looks at how Anglo-American women in the American South contributed to literature and print in the 18th century.[6][7] In the book, Kerrison doesn't ignore the types of hierarchies that women in the southern United States faced, including race, class and gender.[6] Kerrison's attention on women writers in the South who had been neglected by historians in favor of New England writers helps fill a gap in literary study.[8] Kerrison had to turn to non-traditional forms of literature and writing to examine the intellectual lives of Southern women.[9] Women in the South generally didn't have as many advantages as their counterparts in New England, Kerrison argues.[10] However, many of them found outlets through religion, especially after the Great Awakening.[10] However, these women still considered themselves inferior to the men in their lives and while they wrote, their writing did not assert their independence, according to Kerrison.[11]

Jefferson's Daughters (2018) was called "an insightful contribution to women's history" by Kirkus Reviews.[12] The book follows the story of Thomas Jefferson's three daughters, two white, and one, Harriet Hemings, African American and enslaved.[13] Kerrison uses primary sources, oral histories and other written biographies to reconstruct the three sisters' lives.[14] Kerrison also examines the life of Sally Hemings, Harriet's mother and also creates an unflattering portrait of Jefferson himself.[15][16]

Kerrison has written about the history of beauty and attraction. Although she has welcomed the increased prominence of women in a variety of industries in the last 30 years, she believes "beauty is being constituted primarily as female" and it is still important for any woman in the public eye.[17] In Jefferson's Daughters, she describes how Jefferson was very invested in preserving and creating beauty for his daughters.[18]

Works

  • Claiming the Pen: Women and Intellectual Life in the Early American South, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2006. ISBN 9780801443442, OCLC 69021570
  • Jefferson’s Daughters: Three Sisters, White and Black, in a Young America, New York: Ballantine Books, 2018. ISBN 9781101886243, OCLC 1027813959[19]

References

  1. ↑ "Our Faculty and Staff | Villanova University". www1.villanova.edu. Retrieved August 30, 2018.
  2. ↑ "Catherine Kerrison | Penguin Random House". www.penguinrandomhouse.com. Retrieved August 30, 2018.
  3. ↑ Rojo, Hugo (August 27, 2018). "Practice Shelf-Care With NPR At The National Book Festival". Little Rock, Arkansas: KUAR. NPR. Archived from the original on 28 August 2018. Retrieved 23 September 2018.
  4. ↑ Cogliano, Francis D. (2011). A Companion to Thomas Jefferson. New York, New York: John Wiley & Sons. p. 2004. ISBN 978-1-4443-4461-5.
  5. ↑ "Jefferson's Daughters and Revolutionary Thought – Virginia Humanities". www.virginiahumanities.org. Retrieved August 30, 2018.
  6. 1 2 McMahon, Lucia (Winter 2008). "Rhetorical Drag: Gender, Impersonation, Captivity, and the Writing of History/Reading Women: Literacy, Authorship, and Culture in the Atlantic World, 1500-1800/Claiming the Pen: Women and Intellectual Life in the Early American South/Perfecting..." Journal of the Early Republic. 28 (4): 674–683 – via EBSCOhost. (Subscription required (help)).
  7. ↑ Treckel, Paula A. (2007). "Claiming the Pen: Women and Intellectual Life in the Early American South". Journal of Southern History. 73 (3): 682–683 – via EBSCOhost. (Subscription required (help)).
  8. ↑ Vietto, Angela (2006). "Daughters of the Tenth Muse: New Histories of Women and Writing in Early America". Early American Literature. 41 (3): 555–567 – via EBSCOhost. (Subscription required (help)).
  9. ↑ Zagarri, Rosemarie (2008). "Claiming the Pen: Women and Intellectual Life in the Early American South". North Carolina Historical Review. 85 (1): 116–117 – via EBSCOhost. (Subscription required (help)).
  10. 1 2 Meacham, Sarah Hand (2006). "Claiming the Pen: Women and Intellectual Life in the Early American South". Virginia Magazine of History & Biography. 114 (4): 506 – via EBSCOhost. (Subscription required (help)).
  11. ↑ Jabour, Anya (2007). "Claiming the Pen: Women and Intellectual Life in the Early American South". American Historical Review. 112 (4): 1166 – via EBSCOhost. (Subscription required (help)).
  12. ↑ "Jefferson's Daughter". Kirkus. Retrieved 23 September 2018.
  13. ↑ Norton, Mary Beth (26 January 2018). "Jefferson's Three Daughters — Two Free, One Enslaved". New York Times. Retrieved August 30, 2018.
  14. ↑ Jones, Charisse (29 January 2018). "'Jefferson's Daughters,' both white and black, get spotlight in new book". USA TODAY. Retrieved August 30, 2018.
  15. ↑ Jackson, Buzzy (9 February 2018). "Bringing Jefferson's daughters together". The Boston Globe. Retrieved August 30, 2018.
  16. ↑ Gwinn, Mary Ann (26 January 2018). "Historian reconstructs lives of Jefferson's daughters". Newsday. Retrieved August 30, 2018.
  17. ↑ "What Makes Someone 'Most Beautiful' Is Changing, Study Says". NBC News. October 11, 2017. Retrieved September 23, 2018.
  18. ↑ Spindel, Barbara (January 31, 2018). "'Jefferson's Daughters' tells the story of three of Thomas Jefferson's daughters – white and black". Christian Science Monitor. ISSN 0882-7729. Retrieved August 30, 2018.
  19. ↑ "Perspective | How did we lose a president's daughter?". Washington Post. Retrieved August 30, 2018.
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