Cathryn Perini (she/her) is a History Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Virginia. Her dissertation seeks to understand the legal, social, and economic dynamics of slave hiring in the antebellum South with a focus on the enslaved experience. Her work examines how slave hiring was a highly localized practice that relied on social and familial connections to function. Before attending UVA, Cathryn graduated from the University of Kentucky in 2020, where she was a Gaines Fellow in the Humanities. In 2021, she earned her M.A. at the University of Reading. She teaches in the Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies and African American and African Studies departments at UVA.