NEWS
NORMAN, OKLA. – Lauren Duval, an assistant professor of history in the Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences, has been awarded the Gibson Fellowship by the University of Virginia’s Karsh Institute of Democracy. The award will allow her to gain a deeper understanding of the legacies of the American Revolution era.
Duval’s research focuses on the early North American and the Atlantic World, with a specialization in women’s and gender history and the era of the American Revolution. She is currently working on a book titled The Home Front: Revolutionary Households, Military Occupation, and the Making of American Independence, which the Omohundro Institute Press will publish.
“I’m really interested in what it was like for ordinary people who had to make choices and navigate chaos as this war descended upon their communities,” she said. “In doing this research, I focus on the six cities that the British occupied during the War. The army’s presence in these cities threw society into disarray. For varied urban populations—elite white men and women, laboring people, domestic servants, and enslaved families—occupation literally brought the war home in ways that were simultaneously distressing, contradictory, but also, at times, hopeful. These experiences influenced Americans’ views of independence and contributed to an understanding of domestic security as an integral component of American independence.”
The Gibson Fellowship will support Duval as she conducts research for her second book, Founding Mothers, and give her access to archives on the East Coast of the United States. Additionally, it will provide opportunities to develop programming for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
“Working with the Karsh Institute and other local institutions like Monticello, we will build public programming for this major milestone event,” she said. “The last time we had a sustained conversation about the Revolution was during the bicentennial in 1976. The field of women’s history has come so far since then, making the 250th the perfect opportunity to talk about women’s experiences during the war and expose this dynamic scholarship to a much wider audience.”
Learn more about Duval’s research and the Karsh Institute for Democracy.
About the University of Oklahoma
Founded in 1890, the University of Oklahoma is a public research university located in Norman, Oklahoma. As the state’s flagship university, OU serves the educational, cultural, economic and health care needs of the state, region and nation. OU was named the state’s highest-ranking university in U.S. News & World Report’s most recent Best Colleges list. For more information about the university, visit ou.edu.
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