Remembering Eleanor Rush: Race, Gender, and the Limits of the Archive

<span style="font-weight: 400;">This thesis examines the life, death, and memory of Eleanor Rush, a seventeen-year-old Black girl who was killed by prison guards in 1954 while incarcerated in the North Carolina Women&rsquo;s Prison. Using archival research, newspaper coverage, and Black feminist theory, it explores how race and gender shaped both the violence inflicted upon Rush and the narratives constructed about her after her death. Through close readings of 37 articles from the </span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Raleigh News and Observer</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;"> and other regional papers, I argue that media portrayals relied on enduring stereotypes to depict Rush as deviant and responsible for her own death, thereby obscuring institutional culpability and reinforcing misogynoir.</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Situating her case within the broader context of North Carolina&rsquo;s carceral and mental health systems, the thesis demonstrates that Rush&rsquo;s death was part of a larger pattern of racialized and gendered violence. It also examines the limits of the archive, showing how systemic inequities shape what is preserved and remembered. Ultimately, this project argues that recovering Rush&rsquo;s story is both an act of historical reconstruction and a challenge to the structures that rendered her life and death largely invisible.</span>