Areas of Interest
- The American South, from Settlement to New South Era
- Appalachia Studies
- Cemetery Studies
- Craftspeople
- Death Culture
- Difficult History
- Material Culture
- Museum Studies
Thesis Research
Wallace’s master’s thesis tracks the changes in East Tennessee’s burial practices and the development of the deathcare industry in both urban and rural communities from 1870 to the 1920s. Through this survey, Wallace argues that, rather than being entirely isolated from or resistant to emerging commercial deathcare services, artisan-undertaking and early funeral homes coexisted and intersected across both urban and rural contexts. In doing so, Wallace challenges the notion that Southern Appalachia held a uniform hesitation toward commercialization, revealing instead a gradual and partial adaptation of professional deathcare that extended even into remote communities.
With this reinterpretation of Southern Appalachian funerary practices, Wallace examines how museums and historic sites have collected and interpreted these histories, asserting that public memory has often reinforced the stereotypes associated with them, silencing the region’s diverse and adaptive burial practices.