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Dr. Bush is an Associate Professor of U.S. and Digital History and the History
Graduate Program Director.

Her articles have appeared in Current Research in Digital History, Southern Cultures, and the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, where her article "For the Protection of our Children: The 1922 'Children's Code' and the Expansion of the Commonwealth's Eugenic Surveillance Authority" won the William M.E. Rachal Award for Best Overall Article in 2023. Dr. Bush is also the author of Under the Guise of Protection: Eugenics and Wayward Girls in Twentieth-Century Virginia (forthcoming from the University of Virginia Press). The book explores the connections between progressive reform, eugenics, and juvenile justice in the New South by drawing on juvenile court and incarceration data, government records, and the papers of Virginia’s two reformatories for girls.

Dr. Bush’s teaching and research focus on United States history from the late nineteenth through the early twentieth century, particularly the Gilded Age, Progressive Era, and Interwar periods. She approaches this period by examining the transformations in American society, culture, and daily life. She also studies the history of crime and punishment, exploring the development of legal systems, incarceration, and public debates over law and order. She incorporates digital history methods into both her teaching and scholarship, utilizing data analysis, mapping, and digital tools to investigate historical change. In the classroom, she emphasizes close work with primary sources, critical analysis of historical arguments, and opportunities for students to pursue historical research and improve their communication skills.

Before returning to finish her doctoral degree, she built a career in technology companies, managing digital products and the creative and technical people
responsible for creating them.

• Social, cultural, & legal history of the U.S. since the Civil War
• Crime & punishment in U.S. History, including constructions of criminality, carceral institutions, and sensational trials
• Digital research and methods, particularly data analysis and data ethics

• Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era
• Southern Association of Women Historians
• The Southern Historical Association