The Portal to Texas History 2023 Research Fellowship Awardee
Montana Williamson
Project Title
Reconstructing Motherhood: Identity, Labor, and Rebuilding in Nineteenth-Century Texas
Project Description
This project focuses on the enslaved and slaveholding women who refugeed in Civil War era Texas.
I want to explore the ways that this movement, along with emancipation, impacted these women’s
sense of identity and understanding of motherhood. I’m particularly interested in how these women
redefined their role as mothers in the immediate aftermath of the war.
Biography
Montana Williamson is a doctoral candidate and graduate teaching assistant at West Virginia University.
Her research has been supported by the Eberly College at WVU, the WVU History Department, the WVU Women
and Gender Studies Department, and the West Virginia Humanities Council. She has worked as a research
assistant for the Civil War Governors of Kentucky and the West Virginia Humanities Council. She is the
recipient of the Robert and Wynona Wilkins Award for Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant.
