What is your favorite class to teach? Why?

It’s hard to pick a favorite but I’d say History 3011, American Revolution and New Nation. Studying the revolution in college helped me decide to become an early American historian. It’s such an amazing event—so many contingencies, so many possible outcomes, so much radical potential. Even its failures and omissions are a huge part of the American story. The revolution is a continuing event in many ways.

Tell us about your current research.

Right now I am working on several projects. One is about the “Native American uprisings across North America and the Caribbean,” where I look at uprisings and wars against colonization across the Caribbean in the late seventeenth century. The other is a biography of William and Ellen Craft. The Crafts escaped slavery (Ellen posed as a male slaveholder and William as her slave) and made it from Georgia to Philadelphia by train and steamboat. I’m interested in their story because they were ordinary working-class people who wanted the freedom to have a family and not worry about separation and violence, but like many other fugitives they became activists. They had to keep starting over—first in Boston, then in the UK, where they fled to escape kidnapping by slavecatchers. Everywhere they went, though, they fought for Black freedom and equality, and for women’s rights. They gave public antislavery lectures all over Massachusetts and the UK and even staged a protest at the London Crystal Palace Exhibition in 1851. William went to Africa to try and convince African leaders to end the slave trade there. The Crafts returned to the South after the Civil War and operated a cooperative farm near the plantation Ellen had been enslaved in. They worked to help newly-free African Americans in the post-Reconstruction South gain literacy and economic independence.

What current research in your field excites you? Who is doing that research?

The field of Native American history is very innovative and exciting. I like Lisa Brooks’ recent books on King Philip’s War (Our Beloved Kin) and her earlier book, “The Common Pot: The Recovery of Native Space in the Northeast.” Lisa is Abenaki and her perspective on colonial New England history is so unique. Her books have really influenced my thinking on the Native American Revolution of 1676 project.

What’s a fun fact about you that we might not know?

I collect contemporary art. I was on the board of the Ohio Art League for ten years. It is a member-based organization, and any member could propose an art show. We used to have a gallery on High Street. I curated two art shows, and one made the “Top 10 Visual Arts Exhibits of the year” list at the Columbus Dispatch!

What do you do for entertainment in your “down time” (during COVID or non-COVID)?

I spend a lot of time at my son’s baseball and soccer games. I’m a runner and like to hike and be outside, too. I love the movies so I’m really missing the movie theater experience right now, but I have found some TV series worth bingeing: Ted Lasso and Dickinson are two faves.