Nathalie Barton

Collaborative Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow

Nathalie Barton is a historian of the United States in the twentieth century, focused on racial inequality, housing, and cities. Her research investigates how changing conceptions of race and regulations of property have shaped experiences of home and the urban built environment. Her current book project, The Terms of the Lease: Race, Inequality, and the Renovation of the Landlord-Tenant Relationship explores the struggle over the rights, responsibilities, and powers that bound together landlords and tenants, as well as the ramifications of that struggle for racial inequality in American cities across the twentieth century.

Fellowships

• 2025: Platzman Memorial Research Fellowship, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago
• 2021-2022: Urban Doctoral Fellow, Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation, University of Chicago

Teaching

Vanderbilt University

• The History Workshop: Cities and History
• U.S. Post-1945: Cold War to Present

University of Chicago

• America in World Civilization: Twentieth Century