Education

M.A., University of Virginia, 2019
B.A., Gettysburg College, 2015

Biography

Brianna Frakes is a Ph.D. candidate in Civil War and Reconstruction history studying under the direction of Elizabeth Varon. Her dissertation focuses on military occupation and racial violence in Norfolk, Virginia, from the outbreak of the Civil War through the early Reconstruction era. She is currently a Grant Writer with the American Battlefield Trust.

Publications

Book Review, The Last Fire-Eater: Roger A. Pryor and the Search for a Southern Identity by William Link (H-CIVWAR, H-NET, Feb. 2023)

Book Review, Voices of the Army of the Potomac: Personal Reminiscences of Union Veterans by Vincent L. Burns (Journal of Military History, Jan. 2023)

Book Review, The Women's Fight: The Civil War's Battles for Home, Freedom, and Nation by Thavolia Glymph (LSU'S Civil War Book Review, 2020). https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/cwbr/vol22/iss3/7/ 

Book Review, A Yankee Regiment in Confederate Louisiana: The 31st Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry in the Gulf South by Larry Lowenthal (H-CIVWAR, H-NET, 2020). https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=54965

Master's Thesis (University of Virginia): "'No Safety for Union Men': The Norfolk Race Riot of 1866 and Military Occupation" (2019).
https://doi.org/10.18130/v3-9a5y-8d07

Co-Author with Dr. John M. Coski, "What Am I To Do For A Living?" The American Civil War Museum Magazine (Summer 2017).

Co-Author with Dr. Allen C. Guelzo, "The Hancock-Walker Correspondence on Gettysburg," The Gettysburg Magazine vol. 56 (January 2017): 53-73.

Book Review, "With Malice Toward Some: Treason and Loyalty in the Civil War Era," Gettysburg College Journal of the Civil War Era (2015).

Research

Dissertation in Progress: "No Safety for Union Men: Norfolk during Virignia's Civil War and Reconstruction 1860-1866"

Awards and Honors

Predoctoral Fellowship, The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation (2022-2023)

Grant Recipient, The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation (2022)

Finalist, Graduate Teaching Award, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Virginia (2022)

Research Assistant for companion book to Determined: 400 Years of African American History in Virginia, Virginia Museum of History and Culture, Richmond, VA (2020-2021)

Virginia Center for Civil War Studies Research Grant, Virginia Tech (2020-2021)

Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Summer Research Fellowship, University of Virginia (2020)

Andrew W. Mellon Research Fellowship, Virginia Museum of History and Culture, Richmond, VA (2020-2021)

Best Student Paper Award, The Virginia Forum (2019), for "'No Safety for Union Men': The Norfolk Race Riot of 1866 and Military Occupation"

Graduate Research Associate, Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary Edition, Kentucky Historical Society (2018)

Courses Taught

Instructor of Record
HIST 199: The Civil War and Reconstruction (Adjunct Instructor, University of Richmond, Fall 2022)
HIUS 3072: The Civil War and Reconstruction (Instructor of Record, University of Virginia, Summer 2022)

Teaching Assistant
HIUS 3161: Viewing America, 1940-1980 (with Prof. Brian Balogh, Spring 2021)
HIST 3452: The Second World War (with Prof. Philip Zelikow, Fall 2020)
HIUS 3171: US Since 1945: People, Politics, Power (with Prof. Sarah Milov, Spring 2020)
HIUS 3151: Modernizing, Moralizing, and Mass Politics: US, 1900-1945 (with Prof. Sarah Milov, Fall 2019)
HIUS 3051: The Age of Jefferson and Jackson, 1789-1845 (with Prof. Alan Taylor, Spring 2019)
HIUS 3071: The Coming of the Civil War (with Prof. Elizabeth Varon, Fall 2018)