DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

Biography

Hannah Reynolds is a doctoral candidate specializing in women and gender history of the nineteenth century. Her dissertation project examines the role of women and families in federal land grant policy like the Homestead Act of 1862. In particular, she explores how Congressmen, local land offices, and settlers themselves imagined women beneficiaries of these policies as bulwarks against land speculation and predatory market forces in the West. Her work has been supported by the American Historical Association, the Huntington Library, and the Western History Association. 

Prior to coming to Northwestern, Hannah worked for five years as a social studies teacher and speech and debate coach at a rural public high school in Oregon and remains committed to inclusive teaching and learning. She holds an M.A. in History from Portland State University, where she studied the lives of women who participated in homesteading on the North Oregon Coast and how their contributions reflect the intimate and gendered nature of U.S. settler colonialism. Hannah received her B.A. in History from Vassar College, during which time she traveled to Matagalpa, Nicaragua and conducted oral histories with women from a broad array of local organizations to explore the evolution of the women’s movement during and after the Sandinista period.