Elizabeth DeWolfe, Ph.D.

Elizabeth DeWolfe is Professor of History and co-founder of the Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies Program. Her teaching areas include American women's history, nineteenth-century popular culture, and historical research methods. DeWolfe offers a variety of courses including Growing Up Female: History of American Girls; Sex and the City; and War Letters . Dr. DeWolfe's research explores ordinary women who find themselves in extraordinary situations. Her forthcoming book, Alias Agnes: The Notorious Tale of a Gilded Age Spy (Univ. Press of Kentucky, April 2025) reveals a previously unknown undercover detective working for a US congressman. Her ealier study of the anti-Shaker activist Mary Marshall Dyer, Shaking the Faith, received the 2003 Outstanding Book Award from the Communal Studies Association. Her 2007 book on the textile factory operative Berengera Caswell, The Murder of Mary Bean and Other Stories, received book awards from the New England Historical Association and the Northeast Popular Culture Association, among others.  Dr. DeWolfe joined the UNE faculty in 1996.