frontier

The Author’s Corner with Christian Goodwillie

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Christian Goodwillie is Director and Curator of Special Collections at Hamilton College, Burke Library and Associate Editor of the Richard W. Couper Press. This interview is based on his new book, Richard McNemar: Frontier Heretic and Shaker Apostle (Indiana University Press, 2023). JF: What led you to write Richard McNemar? CG: Beginning in 2001, I became fascinated with this relatively unknown, but extremely important, figure in early American religious history. … [Read more...] about The Author’s Corner with Christian Goodwillie

The Author’s Corner with Amy Kohout

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Amy Kohout is Associate Professor of History at Colorado College. This interview is based on her new book, Taking the Field: Soldiers, Nature, and Empire on American Frontiers (University of Nebraska Press, 2023). JF: What led you to write Taking the Field? AK: I’m a cultural and environmental historian, and I began grad school with a deep interest in understanding American ideas about the natural world. Like with anything, there are probably multiple ways I could … [Read more...] about The Author’s Corner with Amy Kohout

The Author’s Corner with Andrea McDowell

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Andrea McDowell is Professor of Law at Seton Hall University School of Law. This interview is based on her new book, We the Miners: Self-Government in the California Gold Rush (Harvard University Press, 2022). JF: What led you to write We the Miners? AM: I was first attracted to the subject of law in the California Gold Rush because of the number and quality of the sources. Half a dozen local newspapers sprang up in new towns near the mines and reported the gold rush as … [Read more...] about The Author’s Corner with Andrea McDowell

The Historic Link Between Gun Violence and White Supremacy

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Mark Tseng-Putterman, a graduate student in history at Brown University, makes the case in this Boston Review piece.  Here is a taste: Just as frontier violence marked a decisive period of American nation-building, so white supremacist shootings attempt to return the nation to its glorified colonial past. They are not instances of destructive “terrorism,” attempting to tear down society, but rather affirmative acts of white supremacist nation-building, whose aim is to … [Read more...] about The Historic Link Between Gun Violence and White Supremacy

Saul Cornell on the “Mythic Second Amendment”

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Fordham University's Saul Cornell, the author of A Well-Regulated Militia: The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control, explains the myth that the Second Amendment relates to the history of the American frontier.  Here is a taste of his piece, "Bearing Arms vs. Hunting Bears: The Persistence of a Mythic Second Amendment in Contemporary Constitutional Culture": The myth of the frontier is one of the most enduring in American history; it has been commodified and used … [Read more...] about Saul Cornell on the “Mythic Second Amendment”

The Author’s Corner with Harry Stout

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Harry Stout is the Jonathan Edwards Professor of American Religious History at Yale University. This interview is based on his new book, American Aristocrats: A Family, a Fortune, and the Making of American Capitalism (Basic Books, 2017). JF:  What led you to write American Aristocrats? HS:  In 2012 I was awarded a year-long fellowship to the Huntington Library. I was free to pursue any subject that I wanted that was included in their archives. On my first day there I … [Read more...] about The Author’s Corner with Harry Stout

The Author's Corner with Craig Thompson Friend

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Craig Thompson Friend is CHASS Distinguished Graduate Professor of History and Director of Public History at NC State University. This interview is based on his new book, Along the Maysville Road: The Early American Republic in the Trans-Appalachian West (University of Tennessee Press, 2017). JF: What led you to write Along the Maysville Road? CTF: I came across a map exhibited at the Kentucky Historical Society. Drawn by Victor Collot, a French traveler, “Road from Limestone … [Read more...] about The Author's Corner with Craig Thompson Friend

The Author's Corner with Honor Sachs

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Honor Sachs is Assistant Professor of History at Western Carolina University. This interview is based on her new book, Home Rule: Households, Manhood, and National Expansion on the Eighteenth-Century Kentucky Frontier (Yale University Press, 2015). JF: What led you to write Home Rule? HS: I went to grad school planning to study women and migration into the Deep South during the nineteenth century. But when I got to Wisconsin, everybody was talking about The Middle Ground and … [Read more...] about The Author's Corner with Honor Sachs

The Author’s Corner with Katherine Grandjean

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Katherine Grandjean is Assistant Professor of History at Wellesley College. This interview is based on her new book, American Passage: The Communications Frontier in Early New England (Harvard University Press, January 2015).JF: What led you to write American Passage?KG: It was somewhat accidental. I’d been looking through colonial letters, while working on some other project, and I noticed something: Indians were carrying letters. For Englishmen. Then I started to think: How … [Read more...] about The Author’s Corner with Katherine Grandjean

The Author’s Corner with David Narrett

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David Narrett is Professor of History at University of Texas Arlington. This interview is based on his new book, Adventurism and Empire: The Struggle for Mastery in the Louisiana-Florida Borderlands, 1762-1803 (The University of North Carolina Press, December 2014).JF: What led you to write Adventurism and Empire?DN: I wrote Adventurism and Empire because of my fascination with colonial adventurism as a phenomenon involving commerce, settlement schemes, and military … [Read more...] about The Author’s Corner with David Narrett

My Visit to Marietta College

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I am writing from Marietta, Ohio where I have been spending some time with the History Department at Marietta College.On Tuesday night I gave a public lecture on Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?: A Historical Introduction.  The McDonough Auditorium on campus was mostly filled with students, faculty, and members of the community.  (The college president, provost, and assistant provost were also in attendance).  I was glad to hear that my book is being used in two … [Read more...] about My Visit to Marietta College