Jeannette Estruth, a Ph.D. candidate at New York University working under Professor Linda Gordon, is the 2016-17 recipient of the Miller Center/ Hagley Library Fellowship in Business and Politics.
The Miller Center/Hagley fellowship supports completion of exceptional dissertations for which Hagley’s Library research materials constitute a significant source and that connect with the Miller Center's mission for the advancement of presidential history and public policy. Estruth’s dissertation investigates post war technology in California’s South Bay Area. Her project, “A Political History of the Silicon Valley: Structural Change, Urban Transformation, and Local Social Movements" draws on both business and politics in its scholarship. By uniting the technological history of the Silicon Valley with its urban and political history, Estruth’s project prompts new understandings of the emergence of 20th century global economies.
Like other Miller Center National Fellows, the Business and Politics Fellow is paired with a senior scholar in the fellow's field who will serve as a mentor and provide critical guidance during the year. Estruth’s chosen mentor, Mark Brilliant, Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley, writes on 20th century political economies and civil rights, offering Estruth a rich source of review and critique. The capstone to the fellowship year, the Spring National Fellowship Conference brings both fellows and mentors together for two full days of commentary and dialogue at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center.
Jeanette Estruth will be in residence at Hagley beginning September 1 for the fall and spring academic year, staying in the Blacksmith Shop and using a carrel on Hagley’s mezzanine floor. She will present a paper May 18 in Hagley’s research seminar series. Estruth is the second Miller Center fellow to receive this coveted Hagley Fellowship; the first was Jonathon Free, a Ph.D. candidate from Duke University, writing on coal as a “pivotal fuel” during the energy crisis.
Roger Horowitz is the Director of Hagley's Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society.