Sheri Ann Huerta

Sheri Ann Huerta holds a PhD in History from George Mason University specializing in the antebellum South, slavery, legal history and social culture. Her dissertation, "'A Great Uneasiness In Our County': Slavery and Its Influence on Family and Community Stability in Northern Virginia, 1782-1860," compares the dynamics of control, resistance, and adaptation to enslavement experienced in Fauquier, Loudoun, and Prince William counties.

The Stearns Center for Teaching and Learning recognized Dr. Huerta with the Adjunct Faculty Teaching Excellence Award in 2022.

Dr. Huerta was also recognized as a Teacher of Distinction in 2019.

Dr. Huerta teaches courses that explore the history of enslavement; the constructs of race, gender and identity in American culture; and critical thinking about the role of the past in today's world.

Dr. Huerta is a frequent public speaker on the history of enslavement and enslaved people in northern Virginia. She currently serves as Treasurer on the Executive Council of the Southern Association for Women Historians.

Current Research

Dr. Huerta studies the lived experiences of freed and enslaved persons in northern Virginia. Her current projects include researching the life and legacy of Agnes, a woman who, despite her enslavement to the Mason family, resisted against the control of her labor and body. Dr. Huerta is also exploring the degrees of freedoms and negotiated quasi-freedoms created and experienced by free and enslaved persons in Virginia despite the presence of legal obstacles to residency and limited financial opportunities. This research is funded in part by an Omohundro Institute - National Endowment for the Humanities ARP Research Fellowship awarded in 2022.

Selected Publications

Review of Jan Ellen Lewis, Family, Slavery, and Love in the Early American Republic: The Essays of Jan Ellen Lewis. H-Early-America, H-Net Reviews. January, 2023.

Review of Kimberly M. Welch, Black Litigants in the Antebellum American South. The Historian December 2018, p. 809-810.

Review of H. G. Jones, with David Southern, Miss Mary's Money: Fortune and Misfortune in a Carolina Plantation Family, 1760-1924. North Carolina Historical Review, July 2015, p. 338-339.

Review of Heather Andrea Williams, Help Me to Find My People: The African American Search for Family Lost in Slavery. H-SAWH, H-Net Reviews. January, 2015. 

Review of Katy Simpson Smith, We Have Raised All of You: Motherhood in the South, 1750-1835. North Carolina Historical Review, July 2014, p. 360-361.

Grants and Fellowships

Omohundro Institute - National Endowment for the Humanities ARP Research Fellowship, 2022

Inclusive Excellence Curriculum Revision Team Grant, George Mason University, 2022

Mason 4VA OER Grant Recipient for course redesign using Open Education Resources, 2018.

Provost Award, George Mason University, 2014-2015.

Provost Travel Award, George Mason University, 2014.

Andrew W. Mellon Fellow, Virginia Historical Society, Richmond, VA, 2014.

Josephine Pacheco Award for Best Graduate Research Paper, George Mason University, 2010.

Randy Beth Clarke Fellowship, for studies in antebellum southern and women's history, George Mason University, 2010.

Courses Taught

HIST 615: Slavery in American History and Memory (CEHD)

HIST 499: Senior History Research Seminar - Slavery in the 19th Century US (CHSS)

HIST 300: Intro to Research Methods: Slavery and Resistance in Virginia (CHSS)

HIST 300: Intro to Research Methods: Slavery and Memory

HNRS 240: Reading the Past - Gender in American Culture (Honors College)

HNRS 240: Reading the Past - Slavery and Freedom in Virginia (Honors College)

HNRS 131: Race, Gender, and Culture in Disney's World (Honors College)

HNRS 130: Identity in Disney's World (Honors College)

HIST 125: Introduction to World History (CHSS)

INYO 501: Graduate Transition for International Students I

Education

PhD, History, George Mason University, Spring, 2017.

Master of Arts, U. S. History, George Mason University, 2011.

Master of Science, Education with Teaching License, Old Dominion University, 1996.

Bachelor of Arts, German, University of Northern Iowa, 1989.