Jennifer Fronc

Jennifer Fronc is a Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, specializing in United States History with a focus on the Progressive Era. Her research examines private surveillance, film censorship, and the intersection of social control and state authority. She currently leads a project on the involuntary commitment of married women to insane asylums in early 20th-century America.

Her scholarly works include Monitoring the Movies (2017) and New York Undercover (2009), which explore censorship and surveillance in American urban contexts. She has received the prestigious University Distinguished Teaching Award (2021–22).

Recent courses taught include Immigration and Migration in U.S. History, U.S. Thought and Culture, and History of Policing in the Modern U.S.

Her research interests span social control mechanisms, gender studies, and the evolution of legal frameworks regulating public behavior. She actively contributes to interdisciplinary dialogues on the role of non-state actors in shaping societal norms.