The New England Quarterly announces the publication of Volume 96.1: March 2023. We want to give a special thanks to our departing editor, Jonathan Chu, for his extraordinary contribution to our publication. Congratulations on your retirement!
Female Genius: Eliza Harriot and George Washington at the Dawn of the Constitution. By Mary Sarah Bilder by Martha J. King The Sewing Girl’s Tale: A Story of Crime and Consequences in Revolutionary America. By John Wood Sweet by Richard Brown Beyond the Boundaries of Childhood: African American Children in the Antebellum North. By Crystal Lynn Webster by Kibibi V. Mack-Shelton Useful Objects: Museums, Science, & Literature in Nineteenth- Century America. By Reed Gochberg by Caitlin Galante-DeAngelis Hopkins Paper Trails: the US Post and the Making of the American West. By Cameron Blevins by Joseph M. Adelman
The MIT Press is pleased to announce that Holly Jackson has been appointed as the Bernard Bailyn Editor of The New England Quarterly (NEQ). Jackson will build upon the success of the previous editor Jonathan Chu, who has retired after seven years of exceptional service.
“I’m honored to take on the editorship of The New England Quarterly,” said Holly Jackson, who is an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. “As we continue its nearly century-long tradition as a venue for exceptional research and writing on the region’s history, literature, and culture, we are eager to highlight both established and emerging scholars, approaches, and archives that will help us see New England anew.”
Holly Jackson is Associate Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, where she also serves as the interim Chair of the American Studies department. She is the author of prize-winning scholarly essays on 19th-century US literature and culture, social movements, radical thought, and the family, as well as pieces in popular venues including The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, and TheNew York Times. Her most recent book, American Radicals: How 19th-Century Protest Shaped the Nation, was named a top-ten history book of 2019 by Smithsonian Magazine and a nonfiction honoree by the Massachusetts Book Awards.
Nick Lindsay, director of journals and open access at the MIT Press noted that the Press is thrilled by Jackson’s appointment. “Holly is not only an esteemed researcher, but an excellent editor. We couldn’t be more excited to have her lead NEQ.”
The New England Quarterly covers a range of time periods, from before European colonization to the present, and discusses subjects germane to New England’s history. The journal also aims to link regional history and literary cultures to broader scholarly studies by encouraging work that treats the migration of ideas, people, and institutions from New England to other parts of the United States and the world. In addition to major essays, features include memoranda and edited documents, reconsiderations of traditional texts and interpretations, and book reviews.
The New England Quarterly announces the publication of Volume 95.4: December 2022.
Editorial
by Jonathan M. Chu
2021 Whitehill Prize Essay The Rights of God’s Stewards: Property, Conscience, and the Great Awakening in Canterbury, Connecticut by Erik Nordbye
Essays Sonic Piety in Early New England by Francis Russo Beyond “Sectional Superiority”: Memorializing Black History in Northern New England by Eve Allegra Raimon
Memoranda and Documents Selling Books in Eighteenth-Century Boston: The Daybook of Benjamin Guild by Leah Orr
Book Review Native Americans of New England. By Christoph Strobel by Neal Dugre The Transcendentalists and Their World. By Robert A. Gross by Benjamin E. Park Speaking for the People: Native Writing and the Question of Political Form. By Mark Rifkin by Alison Russell Unfaithful: Love, Adultery, and Marriage Reform in Nineteenth-century America. By Carol Faulkner by April Haynes Useful Objects: Museums, Science, & Literature in Nineteenth-Century America. By Reed Gochberg by Caitlin Galante-DeAngelis Hopkins
Celebrating fifty years of the MIT Press journals program, the New England Quarterly is excited to announce our current sale– 50% off for all new subscribers. Looking for a present to send a loved one this holiday season? If you are already a subscriber, take advantage of this sale by sending the journal as a gift. Sale ends January 1st, 2023.
The Colonial Society of Massachusetts Announces the 2022
Walter Muir Whitehill Prize in Early American History Competition
This prize of two thousand five hundred dollars, established in memory of Walter Muir Whitehill, for many years Editor of Publications for the Colonial Society and the moving force behind the organization, will be awarded for a distinguished essay on early American history (up to 1825), not previously published, with preference being given to New England subjects. The Society hopes that the prize may be awarded annually.
A committee of eminent historians will review the essays. Their decision in all cases will be final.
By arrangement with the editors of The New England Quarterly, the Society will have the winning essay published in an appropriate issue of the journal.
Essays are now being accepted for consideration. All manuscripts submitted for the 2022 prize must be postmarked no later than January 15, 2023. The Society expects to announce the winning candidate in the spring of 2022.
Entries submitted for consideration should be sent as a word attachment to neq@umb.edu. Hard copies may be sent to
Whitehill Prize Committee c/o The New England Quarterly Department of History University of Massachusetts, Boston 100 Morrissey Blvd. Boston, MA 02125
For additional information, including prize specifications and a list of past winners, see www.nequarterly.wordpress.com.
All attendees must register to attend the conference. Note that conference presenters and commenters do NOT need to register.
In order to attend both days of the conference, please register for both events below.
Register to attend dinner and keynote on 16 September at the Somerset Club here.
Register to attend programs at the Massachusetts Historical Society on 17 September including lunch here.
Registration for events on both days of conference will close on 2 September.
Questions about registration? Email Research Coordinator Cassandra Cloutier ccloutier@masshist.org.
Schedule
Friday, September 16
Reception and dinner: 6 p.m. Friday, September 16, Somerset Club
Keynote address:Sean Wilentz, 8 p.m. “The Radicalism of Northern Emancipation.” George Henry Davis 1886 Professor of History, Princeton University
Saturday, September 17
Massachusetts Historical Society
Arrival: 8:30-9:00 a.m. Coffee, tea, snacks
First Session: 9:00-10:15 a.m.
“Property in the Age of Revolutions” Panel Discussion
Gordon Wood, Alva O. Way Professor of History, Emeritus, Brown University
Wim Klooster, Robert H. and Virginia Scotland Professor in History and Foreign Relations, Clark University
Mark A. Peterson, Edmund S. Morgan Professor of History, Yale University
Rebecca L. Spang, Ruth N. Halls Professor of History, Indiana University
Short Break/Coffee, 10:15-10:30 a.m.
Second Session: 10:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Politics and Personality in New England
“‘Hereafter there will be no intimacy:’ Charles Francis Adams, Charles Sumner, and the Emerging Divisions Within the Republican Party.”Douglas Egerton, Professor of History, Le Moyne College
“Charles Sumner’s Political Culture and the Foundation of Civil Rights.”John Stauffer, Sumner R. and Marshall S. Kates Professor of English and of African and African American Studies, Harvard University
Comment: Manisha Sinha, James L. and Shirley A. Draper Chair and Professor in American History, University of Connecticut
Buffet Lunch, 12:00-1:30 p.m.
Third Session, 1:30-2:45 p.m.
The Politics and Culture of Investing
“American Expectations: the Culture of Interest, and Return on Investment in the New Republic.” Hannah Farber, Assistant Professor of History, Columbia University
“Silicon Politics, from Big Science to Big Tech.”Margaret O’Mara, Howard and Frances Keller Professor of History, University of Washington
Short Break/Coffee, 2:45-3:00 p.m.
Fourth Session, 3:00-4:15 p.m.
Creating a New New England
“Making a Post-Industrial New England.” Lizabeth Cohen, Howard Mumford Jones Professor of American Studies, Harvard University
“Overlapping Diasporas and the New England Metropolis: Black Communities and Histories since the 1970s.”Brian Purnell, Geoffrey Canada Associate Professor of Africana Studies and History, Bowdoin College
Conclusion, 4:20-5:30 p.m.
Themes in American Political Cultures: A Concluding Discussion
Closing Reception: Beverages and Light Refreshments
The New England Quarterly is Pleased to Announce its Forum on AMERICAN POLITICAL CULTURES September 16 and 17, 2022
Friday, September 16
Reception and Dinner, Somerset Club Keynote Address: Sean Wilentz George Henry Davis 1886 Professor of History, Princeton University
Saturday, September 17
Massachusetts Historical Society
First Session
Panel Discussion: Gordon Wood, Mark Peterson, Wim Klooster, Rebecca Spang
Second Session
Douglas Egerton, “’Hereafter there will be no intimacy:’ Charles Francis Adams, Charles Sumner, and the Emerging Divisions Within the Republican Party.”
John Stauffer, “Charles Sumner’s Political Culture and the Foundation of Civil Rights.”
Third Session
Hannah Farber, “On Economy, the Law, and the State in the Early Republic”
Margaret O’Mara, “Silicon Politics, from Big Science to Big Tech”
Fourth Session
Lizabeth Cohen, “Making a Post-Industrial New England”
General Discussion of American Political Cultures—Regional and Chronological
Professor Cornelia H. Dayton will present her essay “Lost Years Recovered: John Peters and Phillis Wheatley Peters in Middleton” at a Pauline Maier Early American History Seminar at the Massachusetts Historical Society on Tuesday, September 21 at 5:15pm EDT.
From MHS:
Litigation in Essex County reveals where the African-born poet Phillis Wheatley Peters and her husband John Peters went when they left Boston for three years starting in spring 1780. Peters came into possession of a substantial farm where he had been enslaved as a child. But his tenuous legal position and the hostility of many townspeople led to his eventually losing the land and deciding to move the family back to Boston. Panelists will discuss the implications of these new findings, the future research pathways they suggest, and investigative methods that expand our awareness of Black lives in the late eighteenth-century northeast. Attendees are invited to read the recently published article by Dayton that delineates the complicated litigation record.