Department of History

Personal Statement:

I am a historian of early American political economy and the Atlantic world specializing in money, debt, and finance. My current research explores the role of money in the formation and development of colonial spaces and the conflicts that arose within them in eighteenth-century North America. I am especially interested in money as a terrain of contestation over the nature of value, the distribution of resources, and the terms of public belonging during times of economic and social transformation. I approach money as a process and a relationship as a much as a thing: a moral obligation; a shared language; a technology of power. To return money to history, I draw insights from anthropology, sociology, political philosophy, and heterodox economics.

Research and Teaching Interests:

• Early America
• Atlantic World
• History of Capitalism
• History of Money
• U.S. History

Current Projects:

Promise to Pay: The Politics and Power of Money in Early America

Selected Publications:

Review of Joshua R. Greenberg, Bank Notes and Shinplasters: The Rage for Paper Money in the Early Republic in Journal of the Early Republic Vol. 41, Issue 4 (Winter 2021): 679-681.

“The Blood That Nourishes the Body Politic: The Origins of Paper Money in Early America,” Early American Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal Vol. 17, Issue 1 (Winter 2019): 1-36.

Review of Justin du Rivage, Revolution Against Empire: Taxes, Politics, and the Origins of American Independence in Journal of British Studies Vol. 57, Issue 2 (Spring 2018), pp. 371-373.

“America’s First Economic Stimulus Package: Paper Money and the Body Politic in Colonial Pennsylvania, 1715-1730,” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies Vol. 83, No. 4 (October 2016): 529-557.

*Received the Robert Grant Crist Prize for best article by a graduate student in Pennsylvania History

Courses Taught:

HIST 17A The American People

HIST 201AM Advanced Historical Literature: Trade, Politics, and Power in Early North America and the Atlantic World

HIST 193MA The Making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1800 (to be offered Winter 2022)

HIST 101MQ Readings in the Social History of Money and Debt (to be offered Winter 2022)

Honors and Professional Activities:

NEH Fellowship, The Huntington Library, 2019-2020

MHS-NEH Fellowship, Massachusetts Historical Society, 2019-2020 (declined)

Shotwell Dissertation Fellowship, Department of History, Boston University, 2016-2017

W.B.H. Dowse Fellowship, Massachusetts Historical Society, 2015-2016

Program in Early American Economy and Society (PEAES) Short-Term Fellowship, The Library Company of Philadelphia, 2015-2016