Elizabeth A. Fenn

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Elizabeth A. Fenn, 2015

Elizabeth Anne Fenn (born September 22, 1959 in Arlington , California ) is an American historian and university professor .

Life

Fenn graduated from Duke University in Durham , North Carolina with honors in 1981 with a degree in history . She then went to Yale University in New Haven , Connecticut for further studies in her subject . There she received the degree Master of Arts in 1985 . There she also wanted to submit her dissertation on Millenarianism in Native American Culture, but broke off her work before it was completed.

Fenn trained as an auto mechanic at Durham Technical Community College and made a living as an auto mechanic for the next eight years. In 1995 she returned to Yale as a student. She was writing her PhD and was working part-time. The subject of her paper, which she presented in 1999, dealt with the smallpox epidemic among the Indians of North America from 1775 to 1782.

From 1999 to 2002 Fenn taught at George Washington University in Washington, DC and from 2002 to 2012 at Duke University. She has been Professor and Dean of the History Department at the University of Colorado Boulder since 2012 .

Fenn has been married to Peter H. Wood since 1999.

Awards and honors

Publications

  • with Peter H. Wood: Natives and Newcomers: The Way We Lived in North Carolina Before 1770 . University of North Carolina Press, Durham, North Carolina 1983, ISBN 0-8078-4101-3 .
  • Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82 . Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York City, USA 2002, ISBN 978-1-4668-0804-1 .
  • Encounters at the Heart of the World. A History of the Mandan People . Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York City, USA 2014, ISBN 978-0-374-71107-8 .

Web links