Kelsey Ensign

Kelsey Ensign is a fifth year PhD candidate in modern United States history, who received her M.A. from Vanderbilt University (2019) and B.A. from the University of Richmond (2015). Her research focuses on the political and social history of alcoholism in the second half of the twentieth century. Her dissertation traces the rise and fall of the modern alcoholism movement and the public policies created to combat alcoholism as a disease. She examines how categories of race, class, and gender produced a consistent tension between viewing alcoholism and other forms of addiction as public health or law enforcement problems. Kelsey works with Dr. Rhonda Williams, Dr. Jeff Cowie, and Dr. Sarah Igo.