Katherine Mooney

James P. Jones Professor of History

Katherine Mooney is interested in the cultural history of citizenship in the United States--how it is imagined and made into political and legal discourse, how it plays out in people's daily lives. She primarily works on the history of slavery and its legacies. Her first book, Race Horse Men, examines the generations of Black men who worked with Thoroughbred horses from the colonial period to the 1920s. Her most recent book, Isaac Murphy, tells the story of Reconstruction and Redemption through the life of one of America's first superstar Black athletes. 

Publications:

Race Horse Men: How Slavery and Freedom Were Made at the Racetrack 

Ruined By This Miserable War: The Dispatches of Charles Prosper Fauconnet

Teaching:

Spring 2025

 IDS 2196 History of American Popular Culture

Fall 2023

AMH3351 US Political History to 1877