Jenna Hardin

Bio

Jenna graduated with a B.A. in History summa cum laude from Flagler College in 2019, where she was the recipient of the Dean's Award for the School of Humanities and Sciences. She attained her M.A. in Modern and Early Modern European History from Marquette University in 2021, where she was the recipient of the Prucha-Theoharis Award for Outstanding Work by a Graduate Student. She earned an M.A. in History at William & Mary in 2022, with a thesis entitled "The Luck of Jesse Fish: The ‘Hispanicized’ Englishman of Colonial St. Augustine."

Jenna's concentration is on emotion, sensibility, and identity in Anglo-America and Britain during the eighteenth century. Her recent work focused on the history of Valentine’s Day in Early America. She has also conducted research on Benjamin Rush's work on the passions, lovesickness, and mental illness. Her dissertation research centers on love & romantic relationships in Early America, for which she was recently awarded a Society of the Cincinnati Research Fellowship.

In addition to her research, Jenna has worked as an apprentice to the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation's Department of Historical Research, where she created the inaugural onboarding for interpreters on eighteenth-century emotion. She has also been involved with the St. Augustine Historical Society, and in 2022 she worked as an intern with their Research Library Collections on projects in oral history, transcription, and the creation of exhibits at the Oldest House Museum. She is also a member of the North American Chapter for Historians of Emotion (NACHE).