Advisor: Kent Germany

Pronouns: he/him/his

Education: MA in History, University of Chicago; BA in History and Political Science, International Relations, Tulane University

Fields: US History since 1789, Political History, Southern History

Historical Interests: Political History, Conservatism, Anti-Communism, American Foreign Policy, Labor History

Bio: I study the development of American politics and policy from the turn of the twentieth century to the present day. I am particularly interested in political realignment, political mythology, and the changing face of the “Solid South.” More broadly, I am interested in the history of American conservatism, from economics to gender to religion.

My master’s thesis, “Driving the Opening Wedge: The 1948 Anti-Lynching Bill and the Fracturing of the Solid South,” re-examined congressional support for civil rights reform and the consequences of Republican inaction through the committee speeches and reports on the ill-fated Wagner-Morse anti-lynching bill. My bachelor’s thesis, “The All-American: An Examination of the Political Career of Louisiana Congressman F. Edward Hébert,” was my first formal foray into archival research, which analyzed Hébert’s 36-year tenure to understand how a Southern conservative politician reacted to the expansion of civil rights in postwar America and how he advanced the idea of anti-communist, pro-war conservatism as the true form of Americanism.

Additionally, in 2021 I delivered a short talk at the University of Chicago’s Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference on race- and red-baiting in the early Cold War South (“‘A Political Pawn on a Political Chessboard’: Southern Opposition to the Civil Rights ‘Conspiracy’ in 1948”) as part of a panel on Conspiracy and “The Other.” During an internship at the Historic New Orleans Collection, I worked as a translator and cataloguer of French and Spanish land records for West Florida. Most importantly, however, I am a die-hard New Orleanian.