Katherine Fapp

Research Topic

The American women's suffrage movement in the Pacific World, 1893 – 1928

Supervisor: Dr Stephen Tuffnell

Through my research, I aim to centre the woman suffrage movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries within the Western U.S. and Pacific World, moving away from the traditional Eastern vantage point and towards a better understanding of its intersections with race and gender. By focusing on the West and examining the transnational connections between suffragists throughout this sphere, I hope to add new perspectives from historically underheard actors in the movement as well as better our understanding of the many dimensions that the campaign for woman suffrage took. My goal is to further contextualise the movement’s importance to the changing meanings of citizenship and national belonging as well as break down its traditional boundaries, both of which continue to echo in the political landscape today.

Prior to starting my DPhil, I received my BA in History at the University of Arizona, and MSt in U.S. History at Pembroke College, Oxford. My master's dissertation was entitled ‘Saving Women, Ageing Veterans, and Memories on Screen: Remembering the American Civil War through Film, 1907 – 1920’. This piece of research considered Civil War memory-making through early film and likewise examined the shifting meanings of citizenship in the early twentieth century, including through these films’ relationship to woman suffrage. For my work on this course, I was awarded the Carwardine Prize by the Rothermere American Institute, which is given to the MSt student ‘judged by the course convenors to have been be the outstanding overall student of the cohort’ of that academic year.

As my earlier research focused on memory and the history of commemoration, I am also interested in the histories of memory, film, how history is learnt through popular culture, and historiography. As part of this interest, I am the host and producer of Flashback: American Historians on Movies, where I aim to examine history through the lens of America's most popular historian – Hollywood. Each episode I am joined by another historian to discuss a movie related to their research, analyzing them as works of history, what they get right or wrong about the past, and most importantly what they can tell us about our own relationship with it. Flashback is available wherever you get your podcasts. 

Academic Background: 

BA History, University of Arizona (2018)

• Winner of the Ursula Lamb Senior Prize for outstanding capstone research paper 

MSt US History, Pembroke College, Oxford (2019) 

• Winner of the Rothermere American Institute Carwardine Prize for most outstanding student of the MSt cohort