Here is the Editorial Board of The Wall Street Journal: Since 1961 we’ve run a pair of editorials written by our former editor Vermont Royster. The first is a historical account about the Pilgrims in 1620 as related by William Bradford, a...
colonial America
Thomas Maule’s words were a stinging and prophetic critique of the Salem witch trials; they also landed him in jail for twelve months
I recently finished a lecture in my Colonial America class at Messiah University on the historiography of the Salem witch trials. We discussed all the major interpretations: Boyer and Nissenbaum, John Demos, Carol Karlson, Elizabeth Reis, Richard Godbeer, Mary Beth...
The Author’s Corner with Jared Hardesty
Jared Hardesty is Assistant Professor of History at Western Washington University. This interview is based on his new book, Mutiny on the Rising Sun: A Tragic Tale of Slavery, Smuggling, and Chocolate (NYU Press, 2021). JF: What led you to...
The Author’s Corner with Jonathan Barth
Jonathan Barth is Assistant Professor of History at Arizona State University. This interview is based on his new book, The Currency of Empire: Money and Power in Seventeenth-Century English America (Cornell University Press, 2021). JF: What led you to write The...
History Essentials: “Rethinking Colonial America”
Back in 2019, I spent a week traveling up and down the eastern seaboard with with a film crew from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History as part of the Institute’s “History Essentials” series, online lectures for the professional...
Snakes and late colonial America
My first or second year at Messiah College, the student history club produced t-shirts with Ben Franklin’s famous “Join or Die” snake image (see above) on the front. It was partly an attempt to raise the club’s membership. Messiah is...
Harvard’s Houghton Library digitizes its early American manuscripts
Here is Anne Buress at The Harvard Gazette: In a recent virtual curatorial discussion, Houghton librarian John Overholt took an item from the Colonial North America collections to share with his audience. Rather than highlighting a letter from John Hancock or a...
The Author’s Corner with Kate Mulry
Kate Mulry is Assistant Professor of History at California State University, Bakersfield. This interview is based on her new book, An Empire Transformed: Remolding Bodies and Landscapes in the Restoration Atlantic (NYU Press, 2021). JF: What led you to write...
History teachers: sign-up for a Gilder-Lehrman summer seminar!
I am back again this summer with my “Colonial North America” seminar. There are a lot of other great options this year, including: Carol Berkin on the Alexander Hamilton’s America Denver Brunsman on Revolutionary America Caroline Winterer on the American...
The “conspiratorial style” of American politics: colonial Pennsylvania edition
Historian J.L. Tomlin writes, “the historiography of the conspiratorial style in American politics is well-known but tends to start at the American Revolution and move forward.” Here is a taste of his Age of Revolutions piece, “‘They Chase Specters’: The...
The Author’s Corner with Carla Pestana
Carla Gardina Pestana is Professor of History, Department Chair, and Joyce Appleby Endowed Chair of America in the World at the University of California, Los Angeles. This interview is based on her new book, The World of Plymouth Plantation (Belknap...
The Author’s Corner with Francis Bremer
Frank Bremer is Professor Emeritus of history at Millersville University. This interview is based on his new book, One Small Candle: The Plymouth Puritans and the Beginning of English New England (Oxford University Press, 2020). JF: What led you to write One Small...
The Author’s Corner with Eric Smith
Eric Smith is Senior Pastor of Sharon Baptist Church in Savannah, Tennessee and Adjunct Professor of Historical Theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. This interview is based on his new book, Oliver Hart and the Rise of...
What happened to the Roanoke Colony?
Yesterday in my U.S. survey course I lectured on the founding of Jamestown. When I talk about mercantilism and other motivations for settlement of Jamestown, I often mention the “lost” colony of Roanoke. But a new book on Roanoke claims...
The Author’s Corner with William Hart
William Hart is Associate Professor of History at Middlebury College. This interview is based on his new book, “For the Good of Their Souls”: Performing Christianity in Eighteenth-Century Mohawk Country (University of Massachusetts Press, 2020). JF: What led you to write “For...
The Author’s Corner with Christopher Pearl
Christopher Pearl is Associate Professor of History at Lycoming College. This interview is based on his new book, Conceived in Crisis: The Revolutionary Creation of an American State (University of Virginia Press, 2020). JF: What led you to write Conceived in...
New Jersey and the Albany Congress
Some 18th-century history today: Yesterday I was reading the minutes of the Spring 1754 meeting of the New Jersey General Assembly held in Perth Amboy. The meeting opened with a message from royal governor Jonathan Belcher urging the Assembly to...
Christian historians and the “imago Dei”
Earlier today I posted on the politicization of the Judeo-Christian belief that human beings are created in the image of God. In this post, I want to cover how a belief in the imago Dei informs how I do history....
How fast did news of American independence spread?
I just ran across this Smithsonian piece from 2017. Fascinating: It was the breaking news to end all breaking news—the fledgling British colonies of North America were committing treason and declaring independence. But in an era long before smartphone push alerts, TV...
The Author’s Corner with Noeleen McIlvenna
Noeleen McIlvenna is Professor of History at Wright State University. This interview is based on her new book, Early American Rebels: Pursuing Democracy from Maryland to Carolina, 1640–1700 (University of North Carolina Press, 2020). JF: What led you to write Early American...