Forthcoming Conference

The Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of British Columbia invite proposals for papers to be presented at a conference entitled “The Age of Sail, 1450-1850.”  This meeting, to be held at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada on October 7-10, 2010 will bring together scholarship on the history of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans  across the early modern period in its cultural, social, economic, political, and environmental dimensions.

The call for papers can be found at:

Age_of_Sail.pdf

Books

The Autobiography of Ashley Bowen, 1728-1813. Broadview Press: Peterborough, Ont., 2006

Young Men and the Sea: Yankee Seafarers in the Age of Sail, with Vince Walsh. Yale University Press: New Haven, 2005.

A Companion to Colonial America. Blackwell Publishers: Malden, Mass., 2003.

Farmers and Fishermen: Two Centuries of Work in Essex County, Massachusetts, 1630-1850. University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill, N.C., 1994.

Selected Articles and Book Chapters

“Those Dammed Shad: Would the River Fisheries of New England Have Survived in the Absence of Industrialization?" William & Mary Quarterly, 3d Ser., LXI (2004), 685-712.

"An Honest Tar: Ashley Bowen of Marblehead." New England Quarterly, LXIX (1996), 531-553.

"The Northern Colonies: Economy and Society, 1600-1775." Cambridge Economic History of the United States. Eds. Robert Gallman and Stanley Engerman (Cambridge, 1996), 209-248.

"Competency and Competition: Economic Culture in Early America," William and Mary Quarterly, 3d Ser., XLVII (1990), 3-29.

"`A Knowen and Staple Commoditie': Codfish Prices in Essex County, Massachusetts, 1640-1775." Essex Institute, Historical Collections, CXXIV (1988), 186-203.

"Nantucket Whalemen in the Deep-Sea Fishery: The Changing Anatomy of an Early American Labor Force." Journal of American History, LXXII (1985), 277-96.

"The First Whalemen of Nantucket." William and Mary Quarterly, 3d Ser., XL (1983), 560-583.

Prizes and Awards

Lester Cappon Prize. Awarded to “Those Dammed Shad,” by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture., 2005

Keith Matthews Award. Awarded to “An Honest Tar: Ashley Bowen of Marblehead,” by the Canadian Nautical Research Society, 1996.

John H. Dunning Prize. Awarded to Farmers and Fishermen by the Am. Hist. Assoc., 1995

Louis Gottschalk Prize. Awarded to Farmers and Fishermen by the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 1995.

Douglas Adair Memorial Prize. Awarded to "Competency and Competition: Economic Culture in Early America," by the Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1992.

Best Article in the Essex Institute, Historical Collections, in 1988, awarded by the Institute for "A knowen and staple commoditie: Codfish Prices in Essex County, Massachusetts, 1640-1775," 1989.

Current Research

I am currently beginning a study of borrowing and lending in early America. This work will use a number of sources but principally daily work diaries to examine the distinction between commercial and neighborly obligations in the pre-industrial world. By uncovering the rules of repayment both in New England and in the Chesapeake region during the period, 1600-1850, I hope to add to our understanding of early modern economic culture.