Stephanie Jones-Rogers

Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers is an American historian. She is an associate professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South. She is an expert in African-American history, the history of American slavery, and women's and gender history.

Education Jones-Rogers attended Rutgers University, earning a BA in Psychology in 2003, and a Masters in 2007. She was awarded a PhD in History in 2012. Her doctoral thesis was "Nobody couldn't sell'em but her" slaveowning women, mastery, and the gendered politics of the antebellum slave market.

Career Jones-Rogers began her career at the University of Iowa as assistant professor in the departments of History and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She was a Post-doctoral Fellow in Law and Society at Tulane University, 2013–14. She held the Harrington Faculty Fellowship in the History Department at the University of Texas-Austin, 2018–19. She has won fellowships from the Hellman Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Ford Foundation, and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation.

Her first book was published in 2019 by Yale University Press. They Were Her Property challenges previous depictions of white antebellum women as only minimally involved in the institution of slavery, onlookers to male relatives' active practice of enslaving African-Americans. Jones-Rogers draws on court records and oral histories to show the active role white women play in enslavement, both on a day-to-day basis and in the buying and selling of slaves, for their personal economic gain. Jones-Rogers demonstrates that white women exercised extraordinary control over the enslaved people in their households and had a deep economic investment in slavery. The book was described as 'scrupulous', 'focused', and 'crisp'.

Current projects As of 2022, her research tends to focuses on gender and American slavery as well as colonial and 19th century legal and economic history with a focal point on women, systems of bondage, and the slave trade. They are also currently working on the manuscript Women of the Trade as well as Women, American Slavery, and the Law. She also has a study called the She had...a Womb Subjected to Bondage': The Afro-Atlantic Origins of British Colonial Descent Law". Rogers also is in charge of the Department of History's first African and African-American History Writer's Workshop. They work towards providing opportunities to scholars to circulate their research in a conducive environment. Another purpose of this Workshop is to cultivate the African-descended community of scholars within the department and offer a means of connecting them with one another.

Research interests

African-American history Slavery and the Atlantic Slave Trade Slavery and the Law The History of Women Women and Early American Law Jones-Rogers was the first African American and the third woman to receive the Prize in History. It won the Merle Curti Social History Award 2020 for the best book in American social history.

Jones-Rogers was awarded the Organization of American Historians Lerner-Scott Dissertation Prize in U.S. Women's History in 2013.

In February 2023, Jones-Rogers received the $300,000 Dan David Prize–the largest financial reward for excellence in the historical discipline in the world.

Fellowships and grants Harrington Faculty Fellow, Department of History, University of Texas, Austin, 2018-2019 American Association of University Women Post-Doctoral Fellowship (Declined) National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for University Teachers, 2017-2018 Ford Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellowship, 2017-2018 Woodrow Wilson Foundation Career Enhancement Fellowship for Junior Faculty, 2017 Humanities Research Fellowship, University of California, Berkeley, 2017-2018 Hellman Fellows Fund Award, 2016 Regents' Junior Faculty Fellowship, University of California, Berkeley, 2015 Institute of International Studies Manuscript Mini-Conference Grant, University of California, Berkeley, 2015 Arts and Humanities Initiative Standard Grant, University of Iowa, 2013-2014 College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Old Gold Summer Fellowship, University of Iowa, 2013-2014 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Small Summer Research Grant, Rutgers University, 2011 Pre-Doctoral Leadership Development Institute Fellowship, Rutgers University, 2010-2011 Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis Graduate Student Fellowship, Rutgers University, 2010-2011 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Small Summer Research Grant, Rutgers University, 2010 Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship-Honorable Mention, 2010 Competition Graduate Assistantship, Center for Race and Ethnicity, Rutgers University, 2009-2010 Ralph Johnson Bunche Distinguished Graduate Award, Rutgers University, 2007 Louis Bevier Graduate Fellowship (Finalist/Alternate), Rutgers University, 2007 They Were Her Property. White Women as Slave Owners in the American South (Yale University Press, 2019) "Rethinking Sexual Violence and the Marketplace of Slavery: White Women, the Slave Market and Enslaved People's Sexualized Bodies in the Nineteenth-Century South", Sexuality and Slavery: Reclaiming Intimate Histories in the Americas edited by Daina Ramey Berry and Leslie Harris (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2018), 109–123 "Mistresses in the Making: White Girls, Mastery and the Practice of Slaveownership in the Nineteenth-Century South", Women's America, Volume 8: Refocusing the Past. edited by Linda Kerber, Jane Sherron De Hart, Cornelia Hughes Dayton, and Judy Wu (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015) "If Only Trayvon Had Freedom Papers", History News Network, 16 July 2013: