Dr. Laurie K. Bertram is a scholar specializing in histories of gender, sexuality and material culture in  the global North. Her forthcoming book, The Viking Immigrants: Icelandic North Americans (UTP)  uses everyday forms of expression, including baking, clothing and ghost stories, to understand the evolution of Icelandic immigrant popular culture and identity from 1870 onwards.

Bertram’s newest research focuses on histories of sex work in 19th and early 20th-century North America. In addition to teaching a seminar on sex work history, her public history practice includes a digital exhibit  on the history of sex work legislation in Canada and a digital map in progress of Toronto’s historical brothels. She is currently working on a book on the role of the brothel in colonial expansion along the North American frontier from 1812-1910.