Stephanie Seal Walters, a PhD candidate in the Department of History and Art History, has won the 2016 UELAC Loyalist Scholarship Award. Below is an excerpt from the announcement. The full announcement is available at the website of the United Empire Loyalists' Association of Canada, and it describes Ms. Walters research in greater detail.
With great pleasure The United Empire Loyalists’ Association of Canada awarded Stephanie Seal Walters the 2016 UELAC Loyalist Scholarship Award. Ms. Walters is a PhD Candidate at George Mason University, Department of History and Art History, Fairfax, Virginia.
Ms. Walters’ dissertation examines the forgotten Loyalist populations in Virginia during the American Revolution and seeks to have them recognized as a part of Virginia’s Revolutionary narrative. Her work will argue that Loyalism was far more common in the Old Dominion than either scholars of the American Revolution or contemporaries have acknowledged. Without acknowledging the men and women who identified as Tories in the Old Dominion, historians have failed to properly assess how loyalism consistently thwarted Virginia’s attempt to create a façade as a utopia of patriotism throughout the era. By adding accounts of loyalism in the state, much can be learned about Virginia’s revolutionary struggle and how it ultimately affects the narrative of the American Revolution. Stephanie is conducting her research under the supervision of Dr. Cynthia A. Kierner, Director of the PhD program (History and Art History GMU), and past president of the Southern Association for Women Historians.
September 21, 2016