Shallow basins in the soil mark the places where they built structures for their daily life. The Ruptare Mandans-one group among several that made up the Mandan people-occupied Double Ditch for nearly three hundred years. I picture women in hide-covered bull boats on the river below, ferrying firewood from afar. But my mind's eye still populates the town with hazy human figures, domed earth lodges, raised drying scaffolds, and yapping dogs. If I believed in ghosts, they would abound here. This unleashes the imagination in ways that places like Colonial Williamsburg never will. It has no reconstructions and little interpretation beyond a few state-funded signposts. Perched on a grassy plain overlooking the Missouri River from the east, it is the kind of historic site I like best. Professor Fenn is no longer accepting graduate students.Migrations: The Making of the Mandan PeopleĭOUBLE DITCH STATE HISTORIC SITE, AUGUST 4, 2002ĭouble Ditch Village is desolate, windy, and magnificent. She is grateful to the many friends, strangers, colleagues, teachers, and family members who have helped and supported her over the years. Although she has garnered multiple awards for her work, her aspiration is to accrue readers, not recognitions.
Professor Fenn is currently at work on an expansive biography of Sacagawea that uses her life story to illuminate a wider history of the northern plains and Rockies.įenn sees history-including her own work-an imperfect undertaking that invites constant revision, reflection, and innovation. Wood, of Natives and Newcomers: The Way We Lived in North Carolina before 1770(University of North Carolina Press, 1983) a popular history of early North Carolina. In 2014, Fenn published Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People(Hill & Wang), which analyzes Mandan Indian history from 1100 to 1845. Fenn is also the coauthor, with Peter H. at Yale. Her Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82(Hill & Wang, 2001) unearthed the devastating effects of a smallpox epidemic that coursed across North America during the years of the American Revolution. Professor Fenn earned her B.A. at Duke and her Ph.D. History," "The Revolutionary War," “Disease & Public Health in Global History” (on global pandemics) and a seminar called "Discovering Lewis and Clark."
Her course offerings include "American History before 1865," "Epidemic Disease in U.S. Professor Fenn teaches courses pertaining to the history of epidemic disease, early America, Native America, and the early American West. Professor Fenn studies the early American West, focusing on epidemic disease, Native American, and environmental history.
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