Evelyn Strope
I am a final-year PhD candidate in American History and a Cambridge Trust International Scholar, supervised by Dr Bronwen Everill. I received an MPhil in American History from Cambridge and a BA in History (summa cum laude) and a NIAHD Certificate in Early American History, Material Culture, and Museum Studies from the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, VA, USA. In 2019-2020, I was the Barra Foundation Short-Term Fellow at the American Philosophical Society and the Program in Early American Economy and Society (PEAES) Short-Term Fellow at the Library Company of Philadelphia. In 2020-21, I served as the Co-Editor-in-Chief for the Faculty's blog, Doing History in Public. For the 2021-22 academic year, I am a Dissertation Fellow at the McNeil Center for Early American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.
I am interested in early American history, material culture, consumption, commerce, nationhood, politics, and public history. My doctoral project, "The Politics of Material Culture in the Early Republic, 1800-15," explores the deep connections between the 'world of goods,' public political culture, and nation-building in the early American republic. Built upon a self-curated database of around 600 extant material objects, it centers on five political moments: the Death of George Washington, the Election of 1800, the Embargo, the Abolition of the Slave Trade, and the War of 1812. My MPhil dissertation, “‘Voting’ Consumers and the Continental Association, 1774-1775,” explored the First Continental Congress’ Association of 1774 as an early example of consumer-citizenship. As an undergraduate, I completed an honors thesis examining the lasting cultural and material impact of Virginia's colonial capital - "Textiles and Trade: Williamsburg's Material Culture, 1699-1815" - which received Highest Honors in History at the College of William & Mary.
Supervisions: Pt 1 Paper 22, Pt 2 Papers 14 & 26
2021 Yale Early American Historians Working Group, Yale University
- "'The Father of the Nation': The Material Culture of the Death of George Washington, c.1800"
2021 American History Workshop, University of Cambridge
- "Naval Nationalism: The Material Culture of the War of 1812"
2020 Oxford Early American Republic Seminar, University of Oxford
- "Naval Nationalism: The Material Culture of the War of 1812"
2020 American History Workshop, University of Cambridge
- "Materializing ‘Our National Character’"
2019 LCP/HSP Colloquium, Library Company of Philadelphia & Historical Society of Pennsylvania
- "The Politics of Material Culture in the Early Republic, 1800-1815"
2019 APS Brown Bag Lunch, American Philosophical Society
- "The Politics of Material Culture in the Early Republic, 1800-1815"
2019 Faculty of History Graduate Presentation Days, University of Cambridge
- "‘Voting’ Consumers and Cultures of Consumer Activism, 1775-1815"
Contact
Tags & Themes
Newnham College, Sidgwick Ave, Cambridge, CB3 9DF
Key publications
Contributor, Feast & Fast: The Art of Food in Europe, 1500-1800, eds. Victoria Avery and Melissa Calaresu (London: PWP, 2019).
- Author, “Fair trade, slavery and the politics of sugar,” 82-83.
- with Victoria Avery and Melissa Calaresu, “Food and politics,” 226-227.
- with Victoria Avery, “Gillray’s Substitutes for Bread,” 228.
- with Victoria Avery, “The Uncharitable Monopolizer,” 229.
Doing History in Public Posts:
"Top 3 Digital Tools for Doing History," Doing History in Public, 10 November 2020, https://doinghistoryinpublic.org/2020/11/10/top-3-digital-tools-for-doing-history/.
“14. The Ace of Spades,” Advent Calendar 2019, Doing History in Public, 14 December 2019, https://doinghistoryinpublic.org/2019/12/14/2/.
“Review: The Museum of the American Revolution,” Doing History in Public, 1 October 2019, https://doinghistoryinpublic.org/2019/10/01/review-the-museum-of-the-american-revolution/.
“‘No Stamp Act’: Pots and Politics in Early America,” Doing History in Public, 2 July 2019, https://doinghistoryinpublic.org/2019/07/02/no-stamp-act-pots-politics-in-early-america/#more-4501.