Curriculum Vitae
Education
Ph.D., History, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2006
M.A., History, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2000
M.A., Education, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, 1994
A.B., History and American Civilization, Brown University, 1993
Fields of specialization: American colonial, revolutionary, and early republican periods; American religious history; American eighteenth- and nineteenth-century social and intellectual history; family history; New England regional history.
Employment
Professor, Department of History, Metropolitan State University of Denver, 2022-present
Associate Professor, Department of History, Metropolitan State University of Denver, 2016-2022
Assistant Professor, Department of History, Metropolitan State University of Denver, 2011-present (renamed from Metropolitan State College
of Denver in 2012)
Affiliate Faculty, Department of History, Metropolitan State University of Denver, 2009-2011
Lecturer, Departments of History and Philosophy, University of Colorado Denver, 2009-2011
Adjunct Faculty, Iliff School of Theology, 2009-2011
Instructional Assistant Professor, Department of History, Illinois State University, 2007-2008
Student Teaching Supervisor, Department of History, Illinois State University, 2003-2009
Selected Honors and Awards
Short-Term Fellowship, New-York Historical Society, 2022
Albert Bernhardt Faust Research Grant, Society for German-American Studies, 2020-21
Rev. Vernon H. Nelson Memorial Fund Grant, Moravian Archives, 2018-2019, 2019-2020
Phi Alpha Theta Best First Book Award, 2014, awarded for Rally the Scattered Believers
Young Scholars in American Religion, Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture, Indiana University- Purdue University Indianapolis,
2013-2015 (selected participant)
Professional Development Mini-Grant, School of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, Metropolitan State University of Denver, 2012-2013, 2013-2014,
2019-2020
Professional Development Travel Grant, School of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, Metropolitan State University of Denver, 2011-2012, 2015-2017,
2019-2020
Dissertation Fellowship, The Louisville Institute, 2005-2006
Rakove Conference Travel Grant, Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, 2005
Research Fellowship, New England Regional Fellowship Consortium, 2004-2005
Ruth Barton Fellowship, Department of History, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2004-2005
Colonial Dames of America Scholarship, National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the State of Wisconsin, 2004.
Kate B. and Hall J. Peterson Fellowship, American Antiquarian Society, 2003-2004
Vilas Travel Fellowship, Graduate Student Council, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2002-2003
Denis R.A. and Martha Washburn Wharton Fellowship, Department of History, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2000-2001
Publications and Works in Progress
PDFs of some publications are posted here.
Books
“Family Religion: The Politics of Practice in Early America.” (in progress)
"Occupied: The First Moravian Church of New York in the American Revolution." (an anthology co-edited with Dr. Joyce Goodfriend, with an
accompanying digital database, in progress)
Rally the Scattered Believers: Northern New England's Religious Geography. Religion in North America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2014.
Peer-Reviewed Articles and Essays
"The Wages of Sin: Esther Rodgers and the Betrayal of Puritan Motherhood." (in progress)
“Every House a Church and State: Piety, Authority, and the Problem of Family Governance in the Early Republic.” (in progress)
"Religion and the State." Chapter to be included in "Routledge History of Religion and Politics in the United States," eds. Lauren Turek and Cara
Burnidge.New York: Routledge. (under contract)
"True Virtue: Edwardsean Benevolence and the Search for a National Covenant." Essay to be included in Obbie Tyler Todd and John Lowe. eds.,
"Jonathan Edwards and the Early American Republic: Patriotism, Exceptionalism, and the Pursuit of Happiness." (in progress)
"Delivery and Deliverance: Childbirth as Religious Experience in Eighteenth-Century America." Church History 91 (March 2022): 62-82.
"In the Interest of True Religion: Disestablishment in Vermont." Chapter in Religious Dissent and Disestablishment: Church-State Relations in the New
American States, 1763-1833. Eds. Carl H. Esbeck and Jonathan den Hartog. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2019.
"'Dear Christian Friends': Charity Bryant, Sylvia Drake, and the Making of a Spiritual Network." Journal of Social History 50 (Summer 2017): 630-54.
"'Persecuted in the Bowels of a Free Republic': Samuel Ely and the Agrarian Theology of Justice, 1768-1797." Massachusetts Historical Review 15
(2013): 89-122.
"'Scattered as Christians Are in this Part of Our Country': Layfolk's Reading, Writing, and Religious Community in New England's Northern
Frontier, 1780-1830." New England Quarterly 83 (December 2010): 607-640.
"Equal Right and Equal Privilege: Separating Church and State in Vermont." Journal of Church and State 50 (Winter 2008): 23-48.
Book Reviews
My book reviews are published or forthcoming in the following journals: American Historical Review, Canadian Journal of History, Choice, Church History, H-Nationalism, History: Reviews of New Books, Journal of American History, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, Journal of Church and State, Journal of the Early Republic, Journal of the History of Sexuality, Journal of Southern Religion, New England Quarterly, Nursing Clio, and Teaching History.
Selected Presentations
"Every House a Church and State: Piety, Authority, and the Problem of Family Governance in the Revolutionary Age." Paper presented at the
Sons of the American Revolution Annual Conference on the American Revolution, Providence, Rhode Island, June 2021.
"Infanticide and the Crisis of Puritan Motherhood in Early New England." Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Front Range Early
American Consortium (virtual), October 2020.
"'Userped Athority': Christian Wives, Unconverted Husbands, and the Problem of Household Governance in Early America." Paper presented at
the annual meeting of the American Historical Association, New York, New York, January 2020.
Roundtable participant, "At Home in the Early Republic." Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Historians of the Early Republic,
Cambridge, Massachusetts, July 2019.
"Delivery and Deliverance: Women's Religious Experience of Childbirth in Eighteenth-Century America." Paper presented at the annual meeting
of the Organization of American Historians, April 2019.
"The Sussex Declaration in the Classroom: Teaching the Founding Documents." Talk given as part of a roundtable, “The Sussex Declaration: New
Approaches to the Declaration of Independence.” Presented at the Front Range Early American Consortium, Boise, Idaho, October 2017.
"Death in the Family: Mortality and Household Religion in Early America." Presented at the annual meeting of the Pacific Coast Branch of the
American Historical Association, Northridge, California, August 2017.
"A Long Space of Country Between Us: Family Networks and the Geography of Rural Religion in the Early Republic." Paper presented at the
annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians, Providence, Rhode Island, April 2016.
"Houses of the Holy: The Early American Clergy's Plea for Family Prayer." Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Front Range Early
American Consortium, Tucson, Arizona, September 2015.
"The Family that Prays Together: Piety, Authority, and Practice in Early Republican Households." Paper presented at the annual meeting of the
Society of Historians of the Early American Republic, Raleigh, North Carolina, July 2015.
"A Constitution in His Pocket: Samuel Ely’s Theology of Justice, 1768-1797." Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Front Range Early
American Consortium, Spokane, Washington, October 2011.
"'Cold Water for a Thirsty Soul’: Reading, Writing, and the Religious Public Sphere in Northern New England, 1780-1830." Paper presented at the
annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians, Houston, Texas, March 2011. (panel co-organizer: "Communities of Readers
and Writers in Early America").
"Over the River and Through the Woods: New England Missionaries’ Encounters with Nature." Paper presented at the annual meeting of the
American Society for Environmental History, Portland, Oregon, March 2010 (panel organizer: "Jerusalem in America: Landscape, Faith, and
Settlement").
"The Religious Frontier: Space, Faith, and Community in Northern New England." Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Front Range
Early American Consortium, Boulder, Colorado, September 2009.
"'No Schism in the Body’: Negotiating Religious Community in Maine." Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society of Historians of the
Early Republic, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, July 2005 (panel organizer: "Governance of Faith: Remapping Church and State in the Early
Republic").
"'Rally the Believers Scattered Abroad': Religion and Regional Identity in Northern New England." Paper presented at the Washburn Humanities
Seminar, Livermore, Maine, June 2005.
Service
At Metropolitan State University of Denver, I have served on the History Department's Curriculum Committee, several tenure, promotion, and post-tenure review committees, the University Program Review Committee, and the Constitution Day Committee, which plans an event each September to commemorate the adoption of the Constitution. Most recently, I have served on the editorial board of The Rowdy Scholar, my university's interdisciplinary undergraduate journal (serving as Co-Senior Editor for the 2021 issue), and I have served on the American Democracy Project, which seeks to improve civic engagement on my campus. I have recently joined the Content Advisory Team for the Hart Center for Public Service, a new initiative by former Senator Gary Hart, which has developed a partnership with MSU-Denver (the course I launched in Spring 2020, Virtue and the American Republic, is part of this partnership). I have also served the wider community by consulting with middle school students on their National History Day projects, speaking to students and teachers in local schools, and consulting with Governor Hickenlooper's Colorado History Initiative, which sought to improve the teaching of Colorado history in the state's public schools. I have served the profession as a manuscript referee, a peer reviewer of grant applications for the National Historic Publications and Records Commission of the National Archives, a member of the Local Arrangements Committee for the Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association (2017), a member of the Teaching Committee for the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association (2020-2023), chair of the organizing committee for the 2013, 2016, and 2019 meetings of the Front Range Early American Consortium (FREAC), and a member of the Editorial Board for Commonplace: The Journal of Early American Life.
Memberships
American Historical Association
American Society of Church History
Front Range Early American Consortium
Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture
Organization of American Historians
Society for German-American Studies
Society of Historians of the Early American Republic
Ph.D., History, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2006
M.A., History, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2000
M.A., Education, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, 1994
A.B., History and American Civilization, Brown University, 1993
Fields of specialization: American colonial, revolutionary, and early republican periods; American religious history; American eighteenth- and nineteenth-century social and intellectual history; family history; New England regional history.
Employment
Professor, Department of History, Metropolitan State University of Denver, 2022-present
Associate Professor, Department of History, Metropolitan State University of Denver, 2016-2022
Assistant Professor, Department of History, Metropolitan State University of Denver, 2011-present (renamed from Metropolitan State College
of Denver in 2012)
Affiliate Faculty, Department of History, Metropolitan State University of Denver, 2009-2011
Lecturer, Departments of History and Philosophy, University of Colorado Denver, 2009-2011
Adjunct Faculty, Iliff School of Theology, 2009-2011
Instructional Assistant Professor, Department of History, Illinois State University, 2007-2008
Student Teaching Supervisor, Department of History, Illinois State University, 2003-2009
Selected Honors and Awards
Short-Term Fellowship, New-York Historical Society, 2022
Albert Bernhardt Faust Research Grant, Society for German-American Studies, 2020-21
Rev. Vernon H. Nelson Memorial Fund Grant, Moravian Archives, 2018-2019, 2019-2020
Phi Alpha Theta Best First Book Award, 2014, awarded for Rally the Scattered Believers
Young Scholars in American Religion, Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture, Indiana University- Purdue University Indianapolis,
2013-2015 (selected participant)
Professional Development Mini-Grant, School of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, Metropolitan State University of Denver, 2012-2013, 2013-2014,
2019-2020
Professional Development Travel Grant, School of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, Metropolitan State University of Denver, 2011-2012, 2015-2017,
2019-2020
Dissertation Fellowship, The Louisville Institute, 2005-2006
Rakove Conference Travel Grant, Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, 2005
Research Fellowship, New England Regional Fellowship Consortium, 2004-2005
Ruth Barton Fellowship, Department of History, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2004-2005
Colonial Dames of America Scholarship, National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the State of Wisconsin, 2004.
Kate B. and Hall J. Peterson Fellowship, American Antiquarian Society, 2003-2004
Vilas Travel Fellowship, Graduate Student Council, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2002-2003
Denis R.A. and Martha Washburn Wharton Fellowship, Department of History, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2000-2001
Publications and Works in Progress
PDFs of some publications are posted here.
Books
“Family Religion: The Politics of Practice in Early America.” (in progress)
"Occupied: The First Moravian Church of New York in the American Revolution." (an anthology co-edited with Dr. Joyce Goodfriend, with an
accompanying digital database, in progress)
Rally the Scattered Believers: Northern New England's Religious Geography. Religion in North America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2014.
Peer-Reviewed Articles and Essays
"The Wages of Sin: Esther Rodgers and the Betrayal of Puritan Motherhood." (in progress)
“Every House a Church and State: Piety, Authority, and the Problem of Family Governance in the Early Republic.” (in progress)
"Religion and the State." Chapter to be included in "Routledge History of Religion and Politics in the United States," eds. Lauren Turek and Cara
Burnidge.New York: Routledge. (under contract)
"True Virtue: Edwardsean Benevolence and the Search for a National Covenant." Essay to be included in Obbie Tyler Todd and John Lowe. eds.,
"Jonathan Edwards and the Early American Republic: Patriotism, Exceptionalism, and the Pursuit of Happiness." (in progress)
"Delivery and Deliverance: Childbirth as Religious Experience in Eighteenth-Century America." Church History 91 (March 2022): 62-82.
"In the Interest of True Religion: Disestablishment in Vermont." Chapter in Religious Dissent and Disestablishment: Church-State Relations in the New
American States, 1763-1833. Eds. Carl H. Esbeck and Jonathan den Hartog. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2019.
"'Dear Christian Friends': Charity Bryant, Sylvia Drake, and the Making of a Spiritual Network." Journal of Social History 50 (Summer 2017): 630-54.
"'Persecuted in the Bowels of a Free Republic': Samuel Ely and the Agrarian Theology of Justice, 1768-1797." Massachusetts Historical Review 15
(2013): 89-122.
"'Scattered as Christians Are in this Part of Our Country': Layfolk's Reading, Writing, and Religious Community in New England's Northern
Frontier, 1780-1830." New England Quarterly 83 (December 2010): 607-640.
"Equal Right and Equal Privilege: Separating Church and State in Vermont." Journal of Church and State 50 (Winter 2008): 23-48.
Book Reviews
My book reviews are published or forthcoming in the following journals: American Historical Review, Canadian Journal of History, Choice, Church History, H-Nationalism, History: Reviews of New Books, Journal of American History, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, Journal of Church and State, Journal of the Early Republic, Journal of the History of Sexuality, Journal of Southern Religion, New England Quarterly, Nursing Clio, and Teaching History.
Selected Presentations
"Every House a Church and State: Piety, Authority, and the Problem of Family Governance in the Revolutionary Age." Paper presented at the
Sons of the American Revolution Annual Conference on the American Revolution, Providence, Rhode Island, June 2021.
"Infanticide and the Crisis of Puritan Motherhood in Early New England." Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Front Range Early
American Consortium (virtual), October 2020.
"'Userped Athority': Christian Wives, Unconverted Husbands, and the Problem of Household Governance in Early America." Paper presented at
the annual meeting of the American Historical Association, New York, New York, January 2020.
Roundtable participant, "At Home in the Early Republic." Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Historians of the Early Republic,
Cambridge, Massachusetts, July 2019.
"Delivery and Deliverance: Women's Religious Experience of Childbirth in Eighteenth-Century America." Paper presented at the annual meeting
of the Organization of American Historians, April 2019.
"The Sussex Declaration in the Classroom: Teaching the Founding Documents." Talk given as part of a roundtable, “The Sussex Declaration: New
Approaches to the Declaration of Independence.” Presented at the Front Range Early American Consortium, Boise, Idaho, October 2017.
"Death in the Family: Mortality and Household Religion in Early America." Presented at the annual meeting of the Pacific Coast Branch of the
American Historical Association, Northridge, California, August 2017.
"A Long Space of Country Between Us: Family Networks and the Geography of Rural Religion in the Early Republic." Paper presented at the
annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians, Providence, Rhode Island, April 2016.
"Houses of the Holy: The Early American Clergy's Plea for Family Prayer." Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Front Range Early
American Consortium, Tucson, Arizona, September 2015.
"The Family that Prays Together: Piety, Authority, and Practice in Early Republican Households." Paper presented at the annual meeting of the
Society of Historians of the Early American Republic, Raleigh, North Carolina, July 2015.
"A Constitution in His Pocket: Samuel Ely’s Theology of Justice, 1768-1797." Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Front Range Early
American Consortium, Spokane, Washington, October 2011.
"'Cold Water for a Thirsty Soul’: Reading, Writing, and the Religious Public Sphere in Northern New England, 1780-1830." Paper presented at the
annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians, Houston, Texas, March 2011. (panel co-organizer: "Communities of Readers
and Writers in Early America").
"Over the River and Through the Woods: New England Missionaries’ Encounters with Nature." Paper presented at the annual meeting of the
American Society for Environmental History, Portland, Oregon, March 2010 (panel organizer: "Jerusalem in America: Landscape, Faith, and
Settlement").
"The Religious Frontier: Space, Faith, and Community in Northern New England." Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Front Range
Early American Consortium, Boulder, Colorado, September 2009.
"'No Schism in the Body’: Negotiating Religious Community in Maine." Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society of Historians of the
Early Republic, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, July 2005 (panel organizer: "Governance of Faith: Remapping Church and State in the Early
Republic").
"'Rally the Believers Scattered Abroad': Religion and Regional Identity in Northern New England." Paper presented at the Washburn Humanities
Seminar, Livermore, Maine, June 2005.
Service
At Metropolitan State University of Denver, I have served on the History Department's Curriculum Committee, several tenure, promotion, and post-tenure review committees, the University Program Review Committee, and the Constitution Day Committee, which plans an event each September to commemorate the adoption of the Constitution. Most recently, I have served on the editorial board of The Rowdy Scholar, my university's interdisciplinary undergraduate journal (serving as Co-Senior Editor for the 2021 issue), and I have served on the American Democracy Project, which seeks to improve civic engagement on my campus. I have recently joined the Content Advisory Team for the Hart Center for Public Service, a new initiative by former Senator Gary Hart, which has developed a partnership with MSU-Denver (the course I launched in Spring 2020, Virtue and the American Republic, is part of this partnership). I have also served the wider community by consulting with middle school students on their National History Day projects, speaking to students and teachers in local schools, and consulting with Governor Hickenlooper's Colorado History Initiative, which sought to improve the teaching of Colorado history in the state's public schools. I have served the profession as a manuscript referee, a peer reviewer of grant applications for the National Historic Publications and Records Commission of the National Archives, a member of the Local Arrangements Committee for the Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association (2017), a member of the Teaching Committee for the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association (2020-2023), chair of the organizing committee for the 2013, 2016, and 2019 meetings of the Front Range Early American Consortium (FREAC), and a member of the Editorial Board for Commonplace: The Journal of Early American Life.
Memberships
American Historical Association
American Society of Church History
Front Range Early American Consortium
Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture
Organization of American Historians
Society for German-American Studies
Society of Historians of the Early American Republic