Deadline for submissions for the SHEAR Dissertation Prize extended to Friday, February 17. The Society for Historians of the Early American Republic invites submissions for the SHEAR Dissertation Prize. The Prize will be awarded to an exceptional dissertation pertaining to the history of North America from 1776 to 1861. Within that period, the dissertation may treat […]
The Journal of the Early Republic (JER) seeks applicants for a three-year term editing its book reviews section, effective July 2017. The Editor (or Editors) of Reviews manages the solicitation, review, and acceptance process for book reviews and longer review essays published by the JER. Duties include identifying appropriate titles for review and corresponding with […]
Zara Anishanslin is Assistant Professor of History and Art History at the University of Delaware. Her book Portrait of a Woman in Silk: Hidden Histories of the British Atlantic World was recently published by Yale University Press. At first glance, this portrait seems to send a straightforward message. It appears to be yet another example of a […]
David J. Silverman is an award-winning professor of history at George Washington University. He is the author of the new book, Thundersticks: Firearms and the Violent Transformation of Native America. Between the early seventeenth and late nineteenth centuries, indigenous people across North America revolutionized their lives with firearms. The implications of this intervention, however, are […]
The Society for Historians of the Early American Republic invites submissions for the SHEAR Dissertation Prize. The Prize will be awarded to an exceptional dissertation pertaining to the history of North America from 1776 to 1861. Within that period, the dissertation may treat virtually any aspect of history, including political, social, cultural, or literary history. […]
Over at the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy’s blog, SHEAR members John L. Brooke and Andrew W. Robertson make the case for an electoral “pause” in anticipation of Donald J. Trump’s presidency. Here is an excerpt: [T]hose who view Donald Trump’s accession to the presidency with apprehension should make use of the much-needed […]
A few months ago, my friend Richard Flavin (an amateur historian living in Cambridge MA) sent me a message attached interesting scans from early American newspapers, concerning St. Hubertus, a figure about whom I have published (in JSRNC in 2008 and in Religion Dispatches earlier this year). I didn’t get a chance to look at […]
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 […]
On August 24th of 1802, an elderly man reached the gate of the fort de Joux, in the Jura region of eastern France. Perched atop a mountain like an eagle in its aerie, the fort dated back to the Middle Ages and was now used as a political prison. The man was not just any […]
In today’s post, former SHEAR president Harry L. Watson, who is the Atlanta Alumni Distinguished Professor of Southern Culture at the University of North Carolina, reflects on the recent presidential election and its connection to the Early Republic. In the aftermath of the recent presidential election, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani quickly scrambled for […]
Several years ago I was at work on what I thought would be a group biography of the doughfaces, Northern politicians favorable to compromise with the South over slavery. I was prompted in large part by Leonard Richards’ book illustrating how instrumental doughfaces were in enabling Southern domination of the federal government. But as I […]
At the 2016 SHEAR conference, Donald F. Johnson, assistant professor of history at North Dakota State University, received the SHEAR Manuscript Prize for his Northwestern University dissertation, “Occupied America: Everyday Experience and the Failure of Imperial Authority in Revolutionary Cities under British Rule, 1775-1783.” The Republic (TR): How would you summarize the argument of your […]
April R. Haynes is an assistant professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her book, Riotous Flesh: Women, Physiology, and the Solitary Vice in Nineteenth-Century America, was co-winner of the James H. Broussard Best First Book Prize. The Republic (TR): For those who haven’t read your book, would you provide a synopsis? April R. […]
Shane White is the Challis Professor of History and an Australian Professorial Fellow in the History Department at the University of Sydney specializing in African-American history. His book, Prince of Darkness: The Untold Story of Jeremiah G. Hamilton, Wall Street’s First Black Millionaire, was this year’s SHEAR Book Prize winner. The Republic (TR): For those […]
Mary Sarah Bilder is Founders Professor of Law at Boston College Law School. Her book, Madison’s Hand: Revising the Constitutional Convention, was the inaugural winner of SHEAR’s James Bradford Biography Prize. The Republic (TR): For those who haven’t read your book, would you provide a synopsis? Mary Sarah Bilder (MB): Madison’s Notes of the Constitutional Convention remain the […]
The Republic (TR): For those who haven’t read your article, would you provide a synopsis? Rebeccah Bechtold (RB): “A Revolutionary Soundscape: Musical Reform and the Science of Sound in Early America, 1760–1840” examines how the growing accessibility of music in the mid eighteenth century cultivated a wider appreciation for music as an individuated art. In this […]
Dear SHEARites, At our recent annual meeting, C-SPAN taped panel 19, ‘”History is Happening in Manhattan:” A Critical Roundtable on Hamilton’ and the recording will air this weekend and next on C-SPAN 3. Look for it on Sunday, 8/21 at 8:00 a.m. and Saturday, 8/27 at 2:00 p.m ET. After the first airing, it will be available in C-SPAN’s […]
Jen Manion is Associate Professor of History at Amherst College. Manion’s book, Liberty’s Prisoners: Carceral Culture in Early America, was the inaugural winner of SHEAR’s Mary Kelley Book Prize. The Republic (TR): For those who haven’t read your book, would you provide a synopsis? Jen Manion (JM): The book examines the origins of the penitentiary system […]
Every year, the Program Committee can accept only 50 panels for the conference, and every year the number of proposals goes up. For the 2016 conference we received 75 panel proposals and 31 individual paper proposals, so we had to decline more than a third of all submissions. How do you give your panel the […]
Call for Papers SHEAR Philadelphia July 20 – 23, 2017 The 39th Annual Meeting of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic will return to its home in Philadelphia from July 20 – 23, 2017. The Program Committee invites proposals for sessions and papers exploring all aspects of the history and culture of […]