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About Abby


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About Abby


I read, write, teach and experience history

I've been formally studying history since my sophomore year of college.  Since then, I've come to appreciate historical interpretations and methods including material culture, economic and business history, the Atlantic World, and urban history.  My major field is Early US History (with an emphasis on African American history), and my minor fields are Atlantic World History and Economic/Quantitative History.  My dissertation is on the early merchants of Baltimore from 1790-1830.  I'm currently teaching Introduction to American Studies and a Freshman Research Seminar, "Maryland Plantations: Then and Now."  I have co-curated museum exhibits and currently serve as a docent at the Homewood Museum.  I've worked a forge, sailed a Clipper, spun wool, and cast a pewter spoon.   

Speaking as part of the "From Fells Point to Homewood Farm" Symposium, April 2015

Speaking as part of the "From Fells Point to Homewood Farm" Symposium, April 2015




Professional Activities


CV

Professional Activities


CV

Teaching Experience

Towson University

The Ohio State University


    Invited Talks

    • Enslaved at Homewood: Sources on Individual Experiences” at the “From Fells Point to Homewood Farm: Perspectives on Slavery” Homewood Symposium, Baltimore, MD, April 19, 2015
    • "Research Notes," Docent Enrichment,   Homewood Museum, Baltimore, MD, January 22, 2013
    • "The Grand Old Ditch: The Chesapeake & Ohio Canal,” On the Road: Travel and Transportation in Early Maryland Exhibit Speaker Series, Homewood Museum, Baltimore, MD, February 25, 2010
    • "By His Account Rendered,” Piscataqua Decorative Arts Society, Portsmouth, NH, June 9, 2008
    • “The Business of Cabinetmaking in York County,” Agreeable Situations at 21: Art, Objects and Culture in Maine, Maine Historical Society, Portland, ME, May 10, 2008
    • “Wood Grain and Material Selection,” Collector’s Circle, Winterthur Museum & Country Estate, Winterthur, DE, November 2007

    Conference Panels

    • “Roads, Canals, Rails: Environmental Change Resulting from Baltimore’s Flour Trade” as part of panel “Commodity Flows into and out of the American South” at the Atlantic Environments and the American South Conference, Rice University, Houston, TX, February 5-6, 2016

    • “Baltimore Merchants and the Caribbean, 1790-1830” as part of panel “Merchants and Empire in the Atlantic: Interactions between American Merchants and the British Empire in the Atlantic Colonies, 1780-1830” at the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic Annual Meeting, St. Louis, MO, July 18-21, 2013

    • “’To Promote Your Interest & Gain Your Confidence’:  Baltimore’s Merchants in the Atlantic World, 1790–1830,” as part of panel “From Mid-Atlantic to Mediterranean: Merchant Networks in the Long Eighteenth Century” at the 19th Annual Omohundro Conference, Baltimore, MD, June 13-15, 2013
    • “The Role of Baltimore Merchants in Caribbean Material Culture, 1790-1830,” as part of panel “Production, Trade, and the Creation of Regional Economies” at the Association of Caribbean Historians’ 45th Annual Conference, San Ignacio, Belize, May 12-17, 2013
    • The Spatial Turn in American Studies: A Pecha-Kucha Roundtable, New England American Studies Association conference "Digital Revolutions: Interpreting and Historicizing American Culture"  October 12-13, 2012

    Public History Experience

     

    Publications


    Publications


    Publications

    Public History / Interpretive Content

    "Merchants of Early Baltimore," Audio driving tour on izi.TRAVEL, August 2016.

     

    Book and Film Reviews

    "At the Movies: 'Birth of a Nation' after 100 Years." Origins, March 2015. 

    "From Sea to Shining Sea," Review of Schulten, Mapping the Nation: History and Cartography in Nineteenth-Century America. Origins, August 2013.