Faculty Bio

Abby Trollinger

Assistant Professor in the Department of History

Education

• B.A., history and religion, Goshen College
• M.A., American history, Northwestern University
• Ph.D., American history, Northwestern University

About

Abby Trollinger is a historian focusing on the United States since 1877. She specializes in social welfare history, with particular interest in the intersection of gender and class in social work and relief-giving. Her first book, Becoming Entitled: Relief, Unemployment, and Reform During the Great Depression, was published by Temple University Press, explores how social workers, settlement workers, and unemployed workers advocated for unemployment insurance in the 1920s and 1930s. Her current research examines the relationship between feminism and relief-giving during and after the Progressive Era. She earned her Ph.D. from Northwestern University and teaches on urban history, immigration history, and social welfare history.