Frankfort Heritage Lecture Series: Home Ain't Always Where the Heart Is

Join Dr. Charlene J. Fletcher as she highlights the experiences of Black women at the Frankfort Penitentiary during the turn of the 20th century. She will examine how these women resisted and redefined the concept of confinement through their interactions with the public, social, and political entities of their time. Additionally, she will explore how they challenged Victorian ideals related to race and femininity in the late 19th century.
Dr. Charlene J. Fletcher is the Frances Shera Fessler Assistant Professor of History at Butler University. She holds a Ph.D. in History from Indiana University.
Before entering the academy, Dr. Fletcher led a domestic violence/sexual assault program and a significant prison reentry initiative in New York City, assisting women and men in their transition from incarceration to society, and served as a lecturer of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York. Her forthcoming book Confined Femininity: Race, Gender, and Incarceration in Kentucky, 1865-1920, explores the experiences of confined African American women in Kentucky from Reconstruction to the Progressive Era, explicitly illuminating the lives of confined Black women by examining places other than carceral locales as arenas of confinement, including mental health institutions and domestic spaces.
Dr. Fletcher's newest research project is rooted in her grandmother's memories, takes a transnational approach to race and confinement in the American South, and builds on her interest in Italian history. The project, Down in the Delta: Race Relations between African and Italian Americans in Mississippi, 1880-1940 explores Italian migration and experiences in the Mississippi Delta between the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries. It interrogates the Italian padrone system as a form of confinement and examines relationships between Italians and African Americans because of their shared proximity and experience in the rural Jim Crow South.
In addition to her research, Dr. Fletcher serves on the editorial boards of The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society and the North Meridian Review. She is an elected member of the National Council of Public History (NCPH) Board of Directors.
*This event was previously scheduled for December 13.
Please register at www.pspl.org/event/fhls-fletcher3. For more information, contact Diane Dehoney at (502) 352-2665 x100 or diane@pspl.org.