Dr. Bonnier Ernst was awarded the Jesse Fine Fellowship and the Texas State Library and Archives Commission Research Fellowship in Texas History.
Dr. Ernst will conduct research at TSLAC in support of her project, “Black Women and Convict Leasing in the Jim Crow South.” Her research on Black women in Texas prisons at the turn of the twentieth century will shed light on the approach that Texas took and how that fits into the broader history of the American South.
Texas State Archives collections document the lives and work of Texans and their interaction with government. The records that the research fellows plan to explore will provide them with large troves of information to sift through and analyze. The resulting works will improve our understanding of these aspects of Texas history. Fellows will be awarded funds to support travel to the State Archives in Austin.
The Jesse Fine Fellowship, housed in the Poynter Center for the Study of Ethics and American Institutions, supports the study of work focused on moral concepts and problems in practical ethics, citizenship, and professional life.
Dr. Bonnie Ernst is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Indiana University. She is a historian of gender, race, and punishment in the United States. Ernst holds degrees from the University of Chicago, the University of Oxford, and Northwestern University, where she received her Ph.D. in American History in 2018.
The College of Arts