Cooper Awarded Mellon Research Fellowship at the Virginia Historical Society and Lewis P. Jones Fellowship at the South Carolinian Library

At the Virginia Historical Society, Mandy Cooper plan to continue research on her dissertation, "Cultures of Emotion: Families, Friends, and the Making of the United States," which focuses on the role of families in the larger project of nation building in the United States between 1800 and 1860. I'll be examining the business and personal correspondence, diaries, and account books of several members of a prominent family network centered in the South and spreading across both the U.S. and the Atlantic - the Coles family of Virginia.

At the South Carolinian Library, she will be conducting research that will allow her to extend her dissertation to examine the role of families within business and political culture in South Carolina during the early nineteenth century - as well as their work in building and maintaining a specific image of the United States at home and abroad. While there, she will examine the business and personal correspondence, diaries, and account books of several men and women in the Singleton family.