Terri L Snyder, Ph. D.
PROFESSOR OF AMERICAN STUDIES
Chair, Department of American Studies
Terri L. Snyder is a historian and American Studies scholar whose research focuses on the history of gender, race, and the law in British North America. She is, most recently, a co-editor with Erica L. Ball and Tatiana Seijas of the collective biography, As If She Were Free: A Collective Biography of Women and Emancipation in the Americas (Cambridge University Press, 2020). She has authored two books: The Power to Die: Slavery and Suicide in British North America (University of Chicago Press, 2015); and Brabbling Women: Disorderly Speech and the Law in Early Virginia (Cornell University Press, 2003). Her work has also appeared in the Journal of American History, the Law and History Review, and the William and Mary Quarterly. Professor Snyder is a member of the Council of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and an OAH Distinguished Lecturer. She teaches introductory courses on American Studies and advanced courses on early American history and culture, fashion, and the history of women and gender in the U.S.
Contact
snyder@fullerton.edu
Voice: 657-278-3748
Fax: 657-278-5820
Dept: 657-278-3748
Office: Gordon Hall 416
Address
Cal State University, Fullerton
American Studies
800 N. State College Blvd. GH-313
Fullerton, CA. 92831
Office Hours
Department Chair Office Hours
Tuesdays, 12 pm-1 pm, Wednesdays 10:00 am-12 pm, and by appointment.
Office Hours are held in GH 416
Occasionally Office Hours are via Zoom. Please use the link below and email ahead for an appointment. https://fullerton.zoom.us/j/83120614799?pwd=Mzk4NDY2Mk9vY0wyeW5TazZ4Z2Q4UT09
Meeting ID: 831 2061 4799, Passcode: 907905
Courses Taught
The Cultures of Early America
Gender in American Life and Thought
Introduction to American Studies
M.A. Examination Fields
Gender and Sexuality
Race and Ethnicity
Work and Class
The National and the Global
Institutions and Ideals
PUBLICATIONS
Current Book Projects:
"American Women in London in the Age of Revolution"
“Marriage, Slavery, and the Meaning of Freedom in Early North America""
Books:
Erica L. Ball, Tatiana Seijas, and Terri L. Snyder, eds. As If She Were Free: A Collective Biography of Women and Emancipation in the Americas. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2020.
Terri L. Snyder. The Power to Die: Slavery and Suicide in British North America. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2015. Frances Richardson Keller-Sierra Prize, Western Association of Women Historians, 2016.
Terri L. Snyder. Brabbling Women: Disorderly Speech and the Law in Early Virginia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003.
Articles:
“The Trafficking of Elisha Webb: Black Freedom Claims in British North America,” William and Mary Quarterly, 79 (April 2022): 211-240.
Shawn Halifx and Terri L. Snyder. "Slavery, Resistance, and Memory in the Lowcountry: The Commemoration of the Stono Rebellion.” Edited by James O’Neil Spady, ed. with a Foreward by Manisha Sinha. Fugitive Movements: Commemorating the Denmark Vesey and Black Radical Antislavery in the Atlantic World. University of South Carolina Press, 2022.
Terri L. Snyder and Cornelia Hughes Dayton. “Women in the Law in Early America," in A Companion to American Women’s History. Second edition. Edited by Nancy A. Hewitt and Anne Valk. New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 2020.
“Suicide, Slavery, and Epidemics: A Perspective from Early Modern British America,” in The SHAPE of Epidemics: Socio-Historical, Artistic, Political and Ecological Expressions of Global Disease. Andrea Patterson and Ian Reed, editors. London: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020.
“Jane Webb and Her Family: Life Stories and the Law in Early Virginia,” in Virginia Women: Their Lives and Times, vol. I, eds. Cynthia A. Kierner and Sandra Gioia Treadway (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2015), 64-93.
“Refiguring Women in Early America,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser. (July 2012), 421-450.
“Marriage on the Margins: Free Wives, Enslaved Husbands, and the Law in the Early American South,” Law and History Review, vol. 30 (February, 2012), 141-171. Winner, A. Elizabeth Taylor Article Prize, Southern Association of Women Historians, 2013.
“Suicide, Slavery, and Memory in North America,” Journal of American History, vol. 97, no. 1 (June 2010), 39-62. Winner, Judith Lee Ridge Best Article Prize, Western Association of Women Historians, 2011. Reprinted in Edward T. Linenthal, James Sabanthe, and Jason Stacy, eds. Past Forward: Articles from the Journal of American History (New York: Oxford University, Press, forthcoming).
“’To Seeke For Justice’: Mastery, Gender, and the Law in Early Virginia,” Early Modern Virginia: Reconsidering the Old Dominion,. Douglas Bradburn and John C. Coombs, eds. Charlottesville, University of Virginia Press, 2011: 128-157.
“What Historians Talk About When They Talk About Suicide: The View From Early Modern British North America,” History Compass 5 (March 2007): 658-674.
“Sexual Consent and Sexual Coercion in Seventeenth-Century Virginia,” in Merrill Smith, ed., Sexual Coercion in Early America (New York, 2001), 46-60.
[John G. Kolp, co-author] "Women and the Political Culture of Eighteenth-Century Virginia: Gender, Property, and Voting Rights," The Many Legalities of Early America, eds. Bruce Mann and Christopher Tomlins (Chapel Hill, 2001), 272-292. *Reprinted in Major Problems in American Women’s History: Documents and Essays, 5th ed., eds. Sharon Block, Ruth Alexander, and Mary Beth Norton (New York: Cengage Learning, 2014), 119-125.
"'As if there was not master or woman in the land': Gender, Dependency, and Household Violence Virginia, 1646-1720" in Over the Threshold: Intimate Violence in Early America, eds.Christine Daniels and Michael V. Kennedy (New York, 1999), 219-236.
"Legal History of the Colonial South: Assessment and Suggestions," William and Mary Quarterly , 3d ser., L (1993), 18-27.
Essays, Forums, and Exhibition Reviews:
Review of Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers, They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2019) in Black Perspectives, the Blog of the African American Intellectual History Society, August, 2019.
“Life, By the Numbers,” A Forum Review of Richard S. Dunn’s, A Tale of Two Plantations: Slave Life and Labor in Jamaica and Virginia (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014) in the William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., vol. 73 (October 2015), 665-671.
Terri L. Snyder and Sharon E. Wood. “The African Burying Ground Memorial Park,” Journal of American History, vol. 102 (December 2015), 800-803.
"Jane Webb," African American National Biography, volume 8 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 186-7.
“Ordinary People,” Review Essay, William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd. ser., vol. 60, (2003): 225-229.
"Lady Frances Berkeley," American National Biography, vol. II (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 648-649 and in Dictionary of Virginia Biography (Richmond, VA: Library of Virginia, 1998), 450-451.
Published Conference Proceedings:
[Anne S. Lombard and Lynn Robson, co-authors], "Violence and Masculinities in Early Modern England and British North America," in Masculinities, Childhood, Violence: Attending to Early Modern Women--and Men. Proceedings of the 2006 Symposium, eds. Amy E. Leonard and Karen L. Nelson (Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 2010), 215-217.
Book Reviews:
Journal of the Early Republic; Journal of Southern History; Journal of American History; Law and History Review;Virginia Magazine of History and Biography.
SCHOLARLY WORK
Selected Recent Fellowships and Awards:
Andrew Mellon Fellow, Huntington Library (Short-Term), 2015
National Endowment for the Humanities Faculty Fellowship, 2014-2015. Project Title: "Marriage, Race, and the Meaning of Freedom in Early America"
Mellon Fellow, Virginia Historical Society, 2013, 2014
Elizabeth A. Taylor Best Article Prize, Southern Association of Women Historians, 2013
Program in African American History Fellowship, Library Company of Philadelphia, 2011
Judith Lee Ridge Prize, Best Article, Western Association of Women Historians, 2011
Appointment to Distinguished Lectureship Program, Organization of American Historians, 2011-2013, http://lectures.oah.org/lecturers/lecturer.html
National Endowment for the Humanities, Faculty Research Award, 2007
Recent CSUF awards include Award for Exceptional Levels of Service (2018-2019); Faculty Enhancement and Instructional Development Grant (2017-2018); College of Humanities and Social Sciences Dean's Summer Research Stipend (2018, 2015, 2014); Senior Faculty Research Grant (2018-2019, 2015-2016), HSS Outstanding Research Award (2012); Faculty Incentive Grant (2013); Milton A. Gordon Fund for Scholarly and Creative Activities, (2012); Senior Faculty Research Grants (2013, 2012, 2012, 2009), H&SS Dean's Support for Summer Research, (2011); and the H&SS Dean's First Book Award (2007).
Invited Lectures and Symposia:
Ancestries of Enslavement Lecture Series, Center for the Lowcountry and Atlantic World, College of Charleston, November 2019, Charleston, South Carolina.
Keynote Address, “Women and the Law in Early America,” TENACITY: The Women in Jamestown and Early Virginia, Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, September 2019, Williamsburg, Virginia
Comment, “Digital Research in Early America,” William and Mary Quarterly-University of California, Irvine Workshop, October 2018, Irvine, California
Convener, “Women in Early America,” William and Mary Quarterly-University of Southern California Early Modern Studies Institute Annual Workshop, May 2011, Huntington Library, San Marino, California
Selected Recent Conference Activities:
Moderator, Roundtable, “Women Claiming Freedom: Slavery, Race, and Resistance Across the Americas,” Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting, April 2019, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Presenter, “Slavery, Resistance, and Memory in South Carolina and Georgia,” at The Vesey Conspiracy at 200: Black Antislavery in the Atlantic World, February 2019, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC
Moderator, Roundtable, “Women Claiming Freedom: Slavery, Race, and Resistance Across the Americas,” Part I. American Historical Association Annual Meeting, January 2019, Chicago, Illinois
Moderator, Roundtable, “Early American Women: Refiguring Presence and Absence,” Western Association of Women Historians Annual Meeting, May 2018, Davis, California
Chair and Commentator, “Mental Illness and Racialized Medicine in the Slave South,” Society of Historians of the Early Republic Annual Meeting, July 2017, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
"The Trafficking of Elisha Webb, 1737-1742," Human Trafficking in Early America, McNeill Center for Early American Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, April, 2014.
Co-Organizer , "A World of Citizens: Women, History, and the Vision of Linda K. Kerber," a symposium honoring the work of historian Linda K. Kerber, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, October 2012
Program Committee , Omohondro Institute of Early American History and Culture Eighteenth Annual Conference, held in honor of Robert (Roy) C. Ritchie, W. M. Keck Foundation Director of Research emeritus, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California, June, 2012
Convener , “Women in Early America,” William and Mary Quarterly-University of Southern California Early Modern Studies Institute Annual Workshop, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California, May 2011
Co-organizer and co-author , with Anne S. Lombard and Lynn Robson], "Violence and Masculinities in Early Modern England and British North America," A Workshop; also published in Masculinities, Childhood, Violence: Attending to Early Modern Women--and Men. Proceedings of the 2006 Symposium, edited by Amy E. Leonard and Karen L. Nelson. Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, (2011).
“Local Legal Culture, Women and the Margins of Freedom in Early Virginia,” Ab Initio: Law in Early America, McNeil Center for Early American Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, June, 2010
"Marriage and Gender on the Margins of Freedom in the Early Chesapeake," Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, The Early Chesapeake: Reflecting Back, Projecting Forward, Solomon's Island, Maryland, November, 2009
“’Wretched, Desperate and Determined to Be Free’: Suicide and Slavery in Early Modern British North America” at the European American Studies Association Meeting, Venice, Italy, December 2008
“Researching and Writing the Lives of Unfree Women” Roundtable, 14th Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, June 2008
Terri L Snyder, Ph. D.
Professor of American Studies
DEGREES
Ph.D., University of Iowa
RESEARCH AREAS
Slavery and Freedom in US History and Memory; Race and Gender in Early America; Early American Cultural History
COURSES REGULARLY TAUGHT
The Cultures of Early America
Gender in American Life and Thought
Introduction to American Studies
PUBLICATIONS
Current Book Project:
“Marriage, Slavery, and the Meaning of Freedom in Early North America""
BOOKS
Erica L. Ball, Tatiana Seijas, and Terri L. Snyder, eds. As If She Were Free: A Collective Biography of Women and Emancipation in the Americas. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2020.
Terri L. Snyder. The Power to Die: Slavery and Suicide in British North America. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2015. Frances Richardson Keller-Sierra Prize, Western Association of Women Historians, 2016.
Terri L. Snyder. Brabbling Women: Disorderly Speech and the Law in Early Virginia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003.
ARTICLES
Terri L. Snyder and Cornelia Hughes Dayton. “Women in the Law in Early America," in A Companion to American Women’s History. Second edition. Edited by Nancy A. Hewitt and Anne Valk. New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 2020.
“Suicide, Slavery, and Epidemics: A Perspective from Early Modern British America,” in The SHAPE of Epidemics: Socio-Historical, Artistic, Political and Ecological Expressions of Global Disease. Andrea Patterson and Ian Reed, editors. London: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020.
"Women, Race, and the Law in Early British America," American History: Oxford Research Encyclopedias (Oxford University Press, 2015), 1-17.http://americanhistory.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-12.
“Jane Webb and Her Family: Life Stories and the Law in Early Virginia,” in Virginia Women: Their Lives and Times, vol. I, eds. Cynthia A. Kierner and Sandra Gioia Treadway (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2015), 64-93.
“Refiguring Women in Early America,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser. (July 2012), 421-450.
“Marriage on the Margins: Free Wives, Enslaved Husbands, and the Law in the Early American South,” Law and History Review, vol. 30 (February, 2012), 141-171. Winner, A. Elizabeth Taylor Article Prize, Southern Association of Women Historians, 2013.
“Suicide, Slavery, and Memory in North America,” Journal of American History, vol. 97, no. 1 (June 2010), 39-62. Winner, Judith Lee Ridge Best Article Prize, Western Association of Women Historians, 2011. Reprinted in Edward T. Linenthal, James Sabanthe, and Jason Stacy, eds. Past Forward: Articles from the Journal of American History (New York: Oxford University, Press, forthcoming).
“’To Seeke For Justice’: Mastery, Gender, and the Law in Early Virginia,” Early Modern Virginia: Reconsidering the Old Dominion,. Douglas Bradburn and John C. Coombs, eds. Charlottesville, University of Virginia Press, 2011: 128-157.
“What Historians Talk About When They Talk About Suicide: The View From Early Modern British North America,” History Compass 5 (March 2007): 658-674.
“Sexual Consent and Sexual Coercion in Seventeenth-Century Virginia,” in Merrill Smith, ed., Sexual Coercion in Early America (New York, 2001), 46-60.
[John G. Kolp, co-author] "Women and the Political Culture of Eighteenth-Century Virginia: Gender, Property, and Voting Rights," The Many Legalities of Early America, eds. Bruce Mann and Christopher Tomlins (Chapel Hill, 2001), 272-292. *Reprinted in Major Problems in American Women’s History: Documents and Essays, 5th ed., eds. Sharon Block, Ruth Alexander, and Mary Beth Norton (New York: Cengage Learning, 2014), 119-125.
"'As if there was not master or woman in the land': Gender, Dependency, and Household Violence Virginia, 1646-1720" in Over the Threshold: Intimate Violence in Early America, eds.Christine Daniels and Michael V. Kennedy (New York, 1999), 219-236.
"Legal History of the Colonial South: Assessment and Suggestions," William and Mary Quarterly , 3d ser., L (1993), 18-27.
ESSAYS, FORUMS, AND EXHIBITION REVIEWS
Review of Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers, They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2019) in Black Perspectives, the Blog of the African American Intellectual History Society, August, 2019.
“Life, By the Numbers,” A Forum Review of Richard S. Dunn’s, A Tale of Two Plantations: Slave Life and Labor in Jamaica and Virginia (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014) in the William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., vol. 73 (October 2015), 665-671.
Terri L. Snyder and Sharon E. Wood. “The African Burying Ground Memorial Park,” Journal of American History, vol. 102 (December 2015), 800-803.
"Jane Webb," African American National Biography, volume 8 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 186-7.
“Ordinary People,” Review Essay, William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd. ser., vol. 60, (2003): 225-229.
"Lady Frances Berkeley," American National Biography, vol. II (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 648-649 and in Dictionary of Virginia Biography (Richmond, VA: Library of Virginia, 1998), 450-451.
PUBLISHED CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS
[Anne S. Lombard and Lynn Robson, co-authors], "Violence and Masculinities in Early Modern England and British North America," in Masculinities, Childhood, Violence: Attending to Early Modern Women--and Men. Proceedings of the 2006 Symposium, eds. Amy E. Leonard and Karen L. Nelson (Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 2010), 215-217.
BOOK REVIEWS
Journal of the Early Republic; Journal of Southern History; Journal of American History; Law and History Review;Virginia Magazine of History and Biography.
SCHOLARLY WORK
Selected Recent Fellowships and Awards
Andrew Mellon Fellow, Huntington Library (Short-Term), 2015
National Endowment for the Humanities Faculty Fellowship, 2014-2015. Project Title: "Marriage, Race, and the Meaning of Freedom in Early America"
Mellon Fellow, Virginia Historical Society, 2013, 2014
Elizabeth A. Taylor Best Article Prize, Southern Association of Women Historians, 2013
Program in African American History Fellowship, Library Company of Philadelphia, 2011
Judith Lee Ridge Prize, Best Article, Western Association of Women Historians, 2011
Appointment to Distinguished Lectureship Program, Organization of American Historians, 2011-2013, http://lectures.oah.org/lecturers/lecturer.html
National Endowment for the Humanities, Faculty Research Award, 2007
Recent CSUF awards include Award for Exceptional Levels of Service (2018-2019); Faculty Enhancement and Instructional Development Grant (2017-2018); College of Humanities and Social Sciences Dean's Summer Research Stipend (2018, 2015, 2014); Senior Faculty Research Grant (2018-2019, 2015-2016), HSS Outstanding Research Award (2012); Faculty Incentive Grant (2013); Milton A. Gordon Fund for Scholarly and Creative Activities, (2012); Senior Faculty Research Grants (2013, 2012, 2012, 2009), H&SS Dean's Support for Summer Research, (2011); and the H&SS Dean's First Book Award (2007).
Invited Lectures and Symposia
Ancestries of Enslavement Lecture Series, Center for the Lowcountry and Atlantic World, College of Charleston, November 2019, Charleston, South Carolina.
Keynote Address, “Women and the Law in Early America,” TENACITY: The Women in Jamestown and Early Virginia, Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, September 2019, Williamsburg, Virginia
Comment, “Digital Research in Early America,” William and Mary Quarterly-University of California, Irvine Workshop, October 2018, Irvine, California
Convener, “Women in Early America,” William and Mary Quarterly-University of Southern California Early Modern Studies Institute Annual Workshop, May 2011, Huntington Library, San Marino, California
Selected Recent Conference Activities
Moderator, Roundtable, “Women Claiming Freedom: Slavery, Race, and Resistance Across the Americas,” Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting, April 2019, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Presenter, “Slavery, Resistance, and Memory in South Carolina and Georgia,” at The Vesey Conspiracy at 200: Black Antislavery in the Atlantic World, February 2019, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC
Moderator, Roundtable, “Women Claiming Freedom: Slavery, Race, and Resistance Across the Americas,” Part I. American Historical Association Annual Meeting, January 2019, Chicago, Illinois
Moderator, Roundtable, “Early American Women: Refiguring Presence and Absence,” Western Association of Women Historians Annual Meeting, May 2018, Davis, California
Chair and Commentator, “Mental Illness and Racialized Medicine in the Slave South,” Society of Historians of the Early Republic Annual Meeting, July 2017, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
"The Trafficking of Elisha Webb, 1737-1742," Human Trafficking in Early America, McNeill Center for Early American Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, April, 2014.
Co-Organizer , "A World of Citizens: Women, History, and the Vision of Linda K. Kerber," a symposium honoring the work of historian Linda K. Kerber, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, October 2012
Program Committee , Omohondro Institute of Early American History and Culture Eighteenth Annual Conference, held in honor of Robert (Roy) C. Ritchie, W. M. Keck Foundation Director of Research emeritus, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California, June, 2012
Convener , “Women in Early America,” William and Mary Quarterly-University of Southern California Early Modern Studies Institute Annual Workshop, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California, May 2011
Co-organizer and co-author , with Anne S. Lombard and Lynn Robson], "Violence and Masculinities in Early Modern England and British North America," A Workshop; also published in Masculinities, Childhood, Violence: Attending to Early Modern Women--and Men. Proceedings of the 2006 Symposium, edited by Amy E. Leonard and Karen L. Nelson. Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, (2011).
“Local Legal Culture, Women and the Margins of Freedom in Early Virginia,” Ab Initio: Law in Early America, McNeil Center for Early American Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, June, 2010
"Marriage and Gender on the Margins of Freedom in the Early Chesapeake," Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, The Early Chesapeake: Reflecting Back, Projecting Forward, Solomon's Island, Maryland, November, 2009
“’Wretched, Desperate and Determined to Be Free’: Suicide and Slavery in Early Modern British North America” at the European American Studies Association Meeting, Venice, Italy, December 2008
“Researching and Writing the Lives of Unfree Women” Roundtable, 14th Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, June 2008
