Julie L. Reed is an American historian and interdisciplinary public scholar who researches and teaches about Cherokee, Five Tribes, and Native American history, Oklahoma, Indian Territory, the Native South, and the American West, the history of American social welfare and educational history. She earned her PhD in American History from UNC Chapel Hill in 2011. She is the author of two books, Serving the Nation: Cherokee Sovereignty and Social Welfare, 1800-1907 (University of Oklahoma Press, 2016) and Land, Language, and Women: A Cherokee and American Educational History (University of North Carolina Press, 2026). Using a vast array of primary sources and interdisciplinary approaches, Land, Language, and Women examines 400 years of Cherokee educational history through the lives of Cherokee girls studying and learning in very different classroom spaces.
Reed’s interdisciplinary work has been featured in Antiquity, American Antiquity, the Native South, and the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved. Reed has appeared in several documentaries including most recently 1776: American Independence on BBC, and Native America: Season 2 on PBS. Reed has been featured on the Cherokee Film produced series OsiyoTV and been interviewed by the Washington Post, the New York Times, Native American Calling, NPR, and the BBC.
Reed’s work has been supported by a Mellon Foundation New Directions Award, an NEH Collaborative Award, the Spencer Foundation, and the American Philosophical Society. With the Mellon Foundation New Directions Award, she spent the last two years at summer field schools and enrolled in coursework through Western Carolina University retraining in southeastern archaeology, geophysics, and enhancing her Cherokee language skills. With the support of the NEH Collaborative Award, she is currently working on a co-authored book, Sovereign Kin: A History of the Cherokee Nation, with Davidson College historian Rose Stremlau.
