I started out working in early American History, first the 17th and then 18th centuries, and then in 1987 was asked to teach a New Jersey History class at Rutgers. Now I find myself working in all three areas, sometimes they overlap and other times they do not. Most often my research and teaching coincide, with happy consequences is that what I discover in one can be used in the other.
The most rewarding moments are when I can get my students, teachers at workshops, of the public in lectures, to share my enthusiasm and interest in the small state we live in, and the complexities of the birth of the American nation.
Education:
- Ph.D., University of Wisconsin 1968
- MA, University of Rochester 1963
- BA, Alfred University 1962
Courses at Seton Hall:
- HIST 1301 & 1302, Survey of American History
- HIST 2180, Introduction to Historical Research
- HIST 2319, History of New Jersey
- HIST 3341, Colonial America
- HIST 3342, Revolutionary America
- HIST 3351, New Nation
- HIST 3352, Jacksonian America
- HIST 4710, Internships
- HIST 5199, Senior Seminar
- HIST 5710, Honors Research
- HIST 6319, New Jersey History
Awards, grants and fellowships:
- Seton Hall University Service Learning Grant, 2005-2006.
- Certificate of Appreciation to New Jersey Encyclopedia from New Jersey Studies Academic Alliance, Author Award Committee, Oct. 2004.
- Special Recognition Award from New Jersey Council for the Humanities to New Jersey Encyclopedia, October 2004.
- Richard J. Hughes Award from the New Jersey Historical Commission for important contributions to research, preservation, and promotion of New Jersey History. December 1997.
- Award of Recognition from the New Jersey Historical Commission for: contributions to scholarship about New Jersey history and for efforts to help teachers to present New Jersey subjects in their classrooms. December 1995.
Representative publications:
“New Jersey: Radical or Conservative in the Crisis Summer of 1776?” in Barbara Mitnick, ed., New Jersey in the American Revolution A project of the Washington Association of New Jersey. (Rutgers University Press, 2005), 31-43, 210-214
“The State of New Jersey,” in Benjamin F. Shearer, ed., The Uniting States: The Story of Statehood for the Fifty United States (Greenwood Press, 2004), v. 2, 813-841
Co-editor-in chief, New Jersey Encyclopedia, Rutgers University Press, 2004.
Compiled and edited, A New Jersey Anthology published by the New Jersey Historical Society, 1994. Reprinted by Rutgers University Press, 2002.
Co-editor, Minutes of the East Jersey Proprietors 1764-1794, published by the New Jersey Historical Society, 1985.
Articles including in: Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography; Journal of Rutgers University Libraries; Maryland Historical Magazine; New Jersey History; American Historical Association's Newsletter Perspectives; Organization of American Historian’s Newsletter; Docket (Newsletter of the New Jersey Social Studies Council); American National Biography; History Teacher ; International Association of Media and History.
