Dr Rebecca Fraser is a lecturer in American history and culture in the School of American Studies, at the University of East Anglia. Her research is primarily concerned with the interaction and articulation of race, gender, and sexuality in nineteenth century America. Her most recent research project focuses on Sarah Hicks Williams, a middle class woman born and raised in New Hartford, New York, who, in 1853, married Benjamin Williams, a physician and slaveholder from Greene County, North Carolina. Sarah relocated to Benjamin’s plantation following their honeymoon to take on the role of plantation mistress to the 37 or so enslaved peoples there. The book, Gender, Race and Family in Nineteenth Century America: From Northern Woman to Plantation Mistress (Palgrave MacMillan: forthcoming November 2012) concerns Sarah’s experiences of transition: from North to South; “true woman” to “southern lady”; single young woman to wife and mother. For more on the exhibition detailed in the blog post see www.containingmultitudes.co.uk

Rebecca’s Ph.D. thesis was completed in September 2003 at the University of Warwick, where she also spent her undergraduate years. It explored the emotional lives of the enslaved in antebellum North Carolina, seeking to uncover the realities of their courting relationships and courtship experiences. A book based on her PhD thesis, Courtship and Love among the Enslaved in North Carolina, was published in 2007 with the University Press of Mississippi. She also published a co-edited collection, Reconstruction: People and Perspectives, concerning the era of Reconstruction, with ABC Clio in 2008 as part of their Perspectives in American History Series. She is a peer reviewer for the Journal of American Studies, American Nineteenth Century History, and Slavery and Abolition, and recipient of the Arthur Miller Prize for best journal length article for her piece Courtship Contests and The Meaning of Conflict in the Folklore of Slaves, in the Journal of Southern History (71:4, Nov 2005).

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