Greetings!
My name is Kathryn Olivarius, and I am an Associate Professor of American History at Stanford University, interested in slavery, capitalism, and disease. Before moving to California, I received my doctorate in History from the University of Oxford and was a Past and Present postdoc at the University of London. My writing and research have appeared in multiple publications, including the New York Times and the American Historical Review.
My first book, Necropolis: Disease, Power, and Capitalism in the Cotton Kingdom (Harvard University Press, 2022) concerns yellow fever, immunity, and inequality in the nineteenth-century South. It won the 2023 Frederick Jackson Turner Award for the Best First Book in American History from the Organization of American Historians and the American Historical Association’s Prize in American History, given biennially for the best first or second book in American history (formerly the Dunning Prize).
I am a 2024 recipient of the Dan David Prize, the world’s largest prize for practitioners studying the human past.
Immunocapital
The story of Ralph Roanoke and “Immunocapital.”
Video created by the Dan David Foundation.