Penn State Harrisburg Faculty Details

Vita

Dr. George Boudreau is a scholar of eighteenth-century America, with particular interests on the cultural history of early Pennsylvania. His research explores the intersections of history, art, material culture, and literature, particularly looking at what these topics tell us about the transformations that took place during the American enlightenment. His current projects range from studies of portraits and poems to club behavior and the way people formed memories.

In addition to his work in teaching and research, Dr. Boudreau is also an active public historian, working with museums and historic sites to tell the story of America’s heritage. He has received two major grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities to lead workshops in Philadelphia’s historic district exploring the life of Benjamin Franklin and his contemporaries, and is currently completing a book manuscript for the general public on the Independence area that will be published by Penn State Press.

Education

• Ph.D. (1998) Indiana University, Bloomington. History, American Studies minor. Dissertation: The Surest Foundation of Happiness: Education and Society in Franklin Philadelphia.
• M.A. (1988) Indiana University, Bloomington. History.
• B.A. (1987) Manchester College, North Manchester, IN. History.

Teaching and Research Interests

American colonial, revolutionary, and early national history, public history, history of Pennsylvania, cultural history, Native American history, material culture, history of American religions.

Publications

• Independence: The Official Guide to Independence National Historical Park (Penn State Press, forthcoming).
• "Penn, Paine, Pacifism, and Pennsylvania Politics: Memory and Society in Revolutionary Philadelphia" in William Pencak, editor, Pennsylvania in the American Revolution (forthcoming).
• "Memory, Identity, and Heritage in the Great Depression: The LaPorte, Indiana Centennial of 1932 as a Case Study." Forthcoming in the Indiana Magazine of History, (June 2007).
• Review of David W. Maxey, A Portrait of Elizabeth Willing Powel (1743-1830). Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography (forthcoming, 2007).
• "Provost Smith and his Circle: The College of Philadelphia and the Cultural Transformation of Pennsylvania" in Educating the Youth of Pennsylvania: Worlds of Learning in the Age of Franklin, John Pollack, editor (University of Pennsylvania Library, 2006).
• Entry on "Professional Education" in Paul Finkleman, editor, Encyclopedia of the New American Nation (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2006), 1: 430-432.
• Thomas Paine, Common Sense and Other Writings. Introduction by Gordon S. Wood, notes and bibliography by George W. Boudreau (New York: The Modern Library, 2003).
• "’Done by a Tradesman’: Franklin=s Educational Proposals and the Culture of Eighteenth-Century Pennsylvania," Pennsylvania History 69, 4 (Fall 2002) 524-57.
• Entries on the American Philosophical Society, Boston Philosophical Society, Dartmouth College, King=s College, Massachusetts School Acts, the College of Philadelphia, and extended essay on colonial American education for The Facts on File Encyclopedia of American History Series, vol. 2. Billy G. Smith, volume editor, Gary B. Nash, general editor (New York: Facts on File, 2003).
• Review of Donna Rilling, Making Houses, Crafting Capitalism: Builders in Philadelphia, 1790-1850, Comparative American Studies 1, 2 (2003).
• Review of Carla Mulford, editor, Teaching the Literatures of Early America, Pennsylvania History, 68, 4 (Autumn 2001) 565-68.
• Biographies of Michael Hillegas and Isaac Norris, American National Biography, John A. Garraty, editor (Oxford University Press, 1999).
• Review of Howard B. Rock, et al., American Artisans: Crafting Social Identity, 1750-1850; Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 121, 4 (October 1997) 381-83.
• Highly Valuable and Extensively Useful:= Community and Readership among the Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia Middling Sort,@ Pennsylvania History 63, 3 (Summer 1996) 302-29.

Manuscripts in Progress

• The Surest Foundation of Happiness: The Enlightenment, Useful Knowledge, and the Transformation of Philadelphia (book manuscript under revision).
• "’Mr. Breintnall’s Poem on the Junto:’ Rediscovering and Reattributing an Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia Text."
• "John Jones, Shoemaker of Philadelphia: Unraveling the Mystery of the Junto’s Lost Member."
• Faces and Places in Early America: Art and the World of Objects, George W. Boudreau and Margaretta Lovell, editors (compilation and editing of conference essays in progress).
• "’An Object on Which a Young Man May Well Congratulate Himself:’ Philadelphians, the Grand Tour, and the Anglicization of Early American Culture
• "Penn, Paine, Pacifism, and Pennsylvania Politics: Memory and Society in Revolutionary Philadelphia" in William Pencak, editor, Pennsylvania in the American Revolution.

Scholarly Editting

• Founding Editor, Early American Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal. Semiannual journal published by the University of Pennsylvania Press for the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, 2002-2006.
• Editor, with William Pencak. Explorations in Early American Culture, 1998-2001.