Entries by Mark Cheathem

SHEAR 2017: HSP Hours & Free Admission

As in the past, The Historical Society of Pennsylvania will open early (10am) on the Thursday of SHEAR, July 20.  On both Thursday and Friday, library admission will be free to registered conference attendees; please show a conference badge or registration confirmation along with a photo ID when you sign in. (General admission is always free for students with ID, and $8.00 […]

#SHEAR17 Social Media Recommendations

For attendees who use Twitter during the annual meeting this week, we recommend using the official conference hashtag #SHEAR17 to make conversations easy to follow. In addition, if you tweet about an individual session, we recommend adding a second hashtag in the form #PN[number]. Tweets about, e.g., Panel 53, “The Public Language of Class in […]

SHEAR 2017: Less Than One Week Away!

Dear SHEARites, it’s less than a week until our 39th annual meeting opens in Philadelphia and I have a few updates and reminders to share with you. Pre-registration is now closed. You may register on-site but please remember that we can accept only cash or checks, no credit cards. Thursday registration from 5:00 to 7:30 […]

SHEAR 2017: Conference Pre-Registration Ends This Friday

If you are planning to attend SHEAR’s annual meeting in Philadelphia later this month, remember that pre-registration closes this Friday, July 7. Please also note that on-site registration is possible, but you must pay with cash or check (no credit cards), and there is an additional $30 fee as well.

Indians in the Family: Adoption and the Politics of Antebellum Expansion

Dawn Peterson is an assistant professor of early North American and U.S. history at Emory University. She is the author of the new book Indians in the Family: Adoption and the Politics of Antebellum Expansion (Harvard Univ. Press, 2017). In 1813, Andrew Jackson invaded the Upper Creek Nation (in what is now the state of Alabama), ordered […]

JER Social Media Rollout: Hashtags to Know and Love

Over at The Panorama, JER editor Cathy Kelly has written a post about the journal’s social media effort. SHEAR members are encouraged you to read about the relevant social media hashtags that the JER will be using and to become acquainted with the journal’s new social media editor, Dr. Nora Slonimsky.

Michael A. Morrison, 1948-2017

Dear Colleagues, I write with the sad and shocking news that our dear friend and SHEAR president-elect Michael A. Morrison passed away on Sunday, May 14, 2017, at his residence. Michael served as a professor in the Department of History at Purdue University from 1991 to 2016, retiring after 25 years. Following his military service […]

Other People’s Money: How Banking Worked in the Early Republic

Sharon Ann Murphy,  a professor of history at Providence College, examines the complex interactions between financial institutions and their clientele during the nineteenth century. She is the author of Investing in Life: Insurance in Antebellum America (2010), winner of the 2012 Hagley Prize for the best book in business history. Her newest book is Other People’s […]

A New Look at Old Hickory

In June 1820, several dozen legislators gathered in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, then the state capital, for an emergency session. Their goal was “Relief”: legislative action to protect Tennessee households from economic crisis. The previous year, as the Panic of 1819 first hit, these same representatives had passed a law to prevent creditors from suing debtors. Now […]

SHEAR 2017: Pre-Registration, Hotel, and Travel Information

Hello SHEARites! The 2017 annual meeting of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic is only three months away, and plans are well underway. On 1 May, an online version of the program will be available at shear.org; printed programs will be available to conference attendees upon check-in. For those of you eager […]

The Press and Slavery in America

Brian Gabrial is an associate professor of journalism at Concordia University. A former journalist and television producer, he is the author of The Press and Slavery in America, 1791-1859: The Melancholy Effect of Popular Excitement (Univ. of South Carolina Press, 2016). Between 1751 and 1859, a shifting 70-year conversation about free and slave black Americans, […]

CFP: Religion and Politics in Early America (Beginnings to 1820)

We seek proposals for panels and individual papers for the special topics conference on Religion and Politics in Early America, March 1-4, 2018, in St. Louis, Missouri.  Individual papers are welcome, but preference will be given to completed panel submissions. This conference will explore the intersections between religion and politics in early America from pre-contact […]

CFA: SHEAR 2017 Graduate Research Seminars

SHEAR is pleased to open registration for the 3rd annual graduate student research luncheon seminars.  Reserve your spot for a free catered luncheon facilitated by two senior scholars in the field on Friday, July 21, 2017. These seminars permit grad students and senior faculty to discuss common themes, important areas of research, and the challenges […]

The Bible in the Political Culture of the American Founding

Daniel L. Dreisbach is a professor at American University in Washington, D.C. He has authored or edited 10 books, including Reading the Bible with the Founding Fathers (Oxford University Press, 2017), from which this article is adapted. You can follow him on Twitter. The American founders read the Bible. Their many quotations from and allusions […]

CFA: Inaugural SHEAR Second-Book Writers’ Workshop (Extended Deadline)

SHEAR is pleased to announce the creation of the SHEAR Second-Book Writers’ Workshop and to invite applications for its inaugural session at the annual meeting 20 – 23 July 2017 in Philadelphia. The journey from first to second book can be a difficult one. From choosing a topic for a second book to finding the […]

Evangelical Religion, Honor, and Identity in the Deep South

Robert Elder is an assistant professor of history at Valparaiso University. He is the author of The Sacred Mirror: Evangelicalism, Honor, and Identity in the Deep South, 1790-1860 (2016). Elder is currently working on a biography of John C. Calhoun. Histories of southern evangelicalism between the Revolution and the Civil War usually hold to a modern […]

CFP: Lenses and Contacts: Framing Early America

Call for Papers Lenses and Contacts: Framing Early America McNeil Center Biennial Graduate Student Conference Philadelphia, 5–7 October 2017 How vast is too vast? How small is too small? Where do you get your frames? In recent years, scholars have been questioning traditional boundaries and envisioning new frontiers. The advent (and departure?) of the Atlantic […]

Introducing The Panorama: Expansive Views from the Journal of the Early Republic

Check out the newly launched The Panorama, the digital forum for the Journal of the Early Republic. The Panorama explores teaching, researching, and communicating about the Early American Republic in an informal and collaborative fashion, supported by, and extending, the scholarship published in the JER. The Panorama is planning roundtables on a variety of subjects over the coming year, each with a […]

In Memoriam: David Jaffee

Sadly, SHEAR lost our good friend, scholar, and teacher David Jaffee on January 20, 2017, after a valiant struggle with pancreatic cancer.  A native New Yorker, David received his B.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University. Trained in colonial American history, David soon became interested in American material and visual culture and reinvented himself as a […]