I am an associate professor of history at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia. My specialties are early American history, cultural and intellectual history, the history of travel and tourism, and the cultural history of capitalism. I served as the founding editor of The Panorama, Extensive Views from The Journal of the Early Republic from 2017 to 2023.
More broadly speaking, my historical sensibility derives from growing up in the rust belt, where a thoughtful child is impelled to look to the past in order to explain the faded world around him. My roots on the banks of the Erie Canal have profoundly shaped my professional interests, both chronologically and thematically.
This site is a portal to my research and teaching interests. I also blog as the spirit moves me, about a range of topics of personal and professional interest.
