She is an associate professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley,[1] and the author of They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South.
[4] Jones-Rogers began her career at the University of Iowa as assistant professor in the departments of History and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.
[10] They Were Her Property challenges previous depictions of white antebellum women as only minimally involved in the institution of slavery, onlookers to male relatives' active practice of enslaving African-Americans.
[11] Jones-Rogers draws on court records and oral histories to show the active role white women play in enslavement, both on a day-to-day basis and in the buying and selling of slaves,[12] for their personal economic gain.
[13][14] Jones-Rogers demonstrates that white women exercised extraordinary control over the enslaved people in their households and had a deep economic investment in slavery.
As of 2022 her research tends to focuses on gender and American slavery as well as colonial and 19th century legal and economic history with a focal point on women, systems of bondage, and the slave trade.
[22] In February 2023, Jones-Rogers received the $300,000 Dan David Prize–the largest financial reward for excellence in the historical discipline in the world.