Elizabeth Eubanks, PhD

I am lecturer in the history department at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. This semester I am teaching the first half of Western Civilizations survey. 

I defended my dissertation, Benevolent Patriarchs: Gender and Charity in Colonial America in May 2019. Under the My research focuses on the performance of gender norms in the eighteenth-century Atlantic World. Claiming status as a gentleman or lady required particular performances of gender norms and fulfilling certain expectations. Receiving the proper education, attending the right religious meetings, achieving marital status, gaining economic wealth, and exhibiting certain character qualities helped men and women display their membership in respectable society. I focus on benevolent societies in colonial Charleston as an example of gendered performance. Because of its prominence as a major hub of trade and proximity to rice and indigo plantations, a number of wealthy families called Charleston home. In addition to its wealthy residents, Charleston housed an incredible number of poor residents. By the late 1760s, one fourth of white residents in Charleston required some type of charity. An examination of Charleston highlights the need for benevolence and the ways the men and women extended benevolence. Through the specific example of gendered benevolence in Charleston, larger themes about the performance of gender norms throughout the Atlantic World can be investigated.