All sessions will take place at The McNeil Center for Early American Studies, 3355 Woodland Walk (34th and Sansom Streets), Philadelphia

Conference Program

 

Thursday 7 November 2013

 

12:00–1:30 pm: Conference registration

1:30–3:15 pm: New Methodologies in the Digital Age

“Mapping the Boston Poor: Inmates of the Boston Almshouse, 1795–1811”
Ruth Herndon and Amilcar E. Challu (Bowling Green State University)

“‘The Appeal of the 1797 Deaths is that We Can Track the  Mortality Day by Day’: Mapping Richard Folwell’s Short History of the Yellow Fever
Paul Sivitz (Idaho State University)

“Strength in Numbers?: Past and Future Intersections of Class, Early America, and Digital History”
Andy Schocket (Bowling Green State University)

Panel Chair: Wayne Bodle (Indiana University of Pennsylvania)

3:30–5:15pm: Freedom Seekers in the Atlantic World

“The Surprising Story of Johanna Boston, a Runaway Slave”
Susan E. Klepp (Temple University)

“Runaways, rewards, and the social history of money”
Simon Middleton (University of Sheffield)

“An Atlantic World of Runaways”
Simon P. Newman (University of Glasgow)

Panel Chair: Leslie Patrick (Bucknell University)

5:30–6:30 pm Opening Reception

 

Friday 8 November 2013

 

8:30-9:00 am: Registration and Coffee

9:00–10:45 am: Emerging Sciences and Expressions of Class

“‘A Mobbing Spirit’: The Philadelphia Balloon Riot of 1819”
Susan Branson (Syracuse University)

“‘A Gardener May Live Very Comfortably in America’: Horticultural (and Literary) Labours in Early Nineteenth-Century New York”
Marina Moskowitz (University of Glasgow)

“Thomas Nuttall, Apprentice in the Wilderness: Labor Relations in Scientific Research in Early National Philadelphia”
Greg Nobles (Georgia Institute of Technology)

Panel Chair: Mary Maples Dunn (American Philosophical Society)

11:00 am–12:45 pm: The Eighteenth-Century Fever Archive: Ideas, Practices, and Relationships

“Pathologizing ‘the Indigent and Laborious Class of Mankind’ Across the Eighteenth-Century British Atlantic World”
Tristan Tomlinson (Stony Brook University)

“Grotesque Voices: Accounting for the Fevered Body in 1793”
Sarah Scheutze (University of Kentucky)

“Materializing Medicine in Eighteenth-Century Jamaica: Cadavers, Case Studies, and the Politics of Yellow Fever Interpretation”
Claire Gherini (Johns Hopkins University)

Panel Chair: Richard Dunn (American Philosophical Society)

12:45-3:00 pm: Lunch (on your own)

3:00–5:00 pm: McNeil Center Seminar

“A Flâneur in Philly: Class, Gender, Race and All that Jazz”
Billy Smith (Montana State University)

Panel Chair: Daniel K. Richter (University of Pennsylvania)

5:00–6:00 pm: Reception

 

Saturday 9 November 2013

 

8:30-9:00 am: Coffee

9:00–10:15 am: Atlantic World Workers and Goods

“The Materiality of Anti-Slavery: The Origins of the Free Produce Movement in Philadelphia”
Michelle Craig McDonald (Stockton College)

“Working on the Dock of the Bay: Outfitting Philadelphia’s Ships in the Revolutionary Era”
Cathy Matson (University of Delaware)

Panel Chair: Karin Wulf (Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture)

10:30 am–12:15 pm: Class and Race Outside of the Cities

“Paupers’ Admission Narratives and the Negotiation of Authority over Social Welfare in Chester County, Pennsylvania, 1841–51”
Monique Bourque (Willamette University)

“Indian Land Rights versus the Discovery Doctrine: The Legal Basis for the Colonization of the United States”
Tom Humphrey (Cleveland State University)

“‘Now Open, Now Hidden’: Asymmetrical Class War in the Early National Upper South”
Steve Sarson (University of Swansea)

Panel Chair: Lorena Walsh (independent scholar)

12:15–2:00 pm: Lunch (on your own)

2:00–3:15 pm: Elite Perceptions of Urban and Social Hierarchies

“Walking Roseau’s Streets: A Day in the Life of a ‘Bustling City on the Rim of the Atlantic World’ in 1789,”
Roderick A. McDonald (Rider University)

“Alexander Hamilton's ‘History of the Ancient and Honorable Tuesday Club,’”
Mike Zuckerman (University of Pennsylvania, emeritus)

Panel Chair: Rick Beeman (University of Pennsylvania)

3:30–4:30 pm Forum: The Smiths of Early American History: Past Achievements and New Frontiers

Panel Chair: Gary B. Nash (UCLA)
Susan Klepp (Temple University)
Simon Middleton (University of Sheffield)
Simon Newman (University of Glasgow)
Billy G. Smith (Montana State University)

4:30-5:30 pm:   Reception