Student profiles
Hannah Snell
Email: h.m.snell@keele.ac.uk
Thesis Title
Institution
Supervisors
Kristen Brill
David Brown
Research Summary
My research examines how enslaved women contributed towards the American Civil War (1860-65). This research will examine enslaved women’s contributions to the Civil War through a spatial analysis. This study will focus on how enslaved women were limited to domestic spaces, but still resisted within them. These domestic spaces include plantation households, safehouses and contraband camps.
My research aims to provide new viewpoints regarding resistance to the Confederacy, as there has predominantly been a focus upon enslaved male resistance. The start of the Civil War, outbreak of violence and the arrival of Union soldiers had increased the opportunities for enslaved women to resist through everyday actions. Also, there will be an investigation into how enslaved women created and shaped emotional communities of resistance within domestic spaces for refugees, fugitive slaves and other enslaved people.
Whilst this study examines gendered history through a spatial analysis, my research will demonstrate how enslaved women’s resistance had a political impact on the Civil War, power relations, and the shaping of America’s future.
Research Interests
Slavery
Gender
Power
Civil War
Resistance
Publications
Coming soon