The American People Vol. 1 : Creating a Nation and a Society

Gary B. Nash received his Ph.D. from Princeton University. He is currently Director of the National Center for History in the Schools at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he teaches colonial and revolutionary American History. Among the books Nash has authored are Quakers and Politics: Pennsylvania, 1681-1726 (1968); Red, White, and Black: The Peoples of Early America (1974, 1982, 1992, 2000); The Urban Crucible: Social Change, Political Consciousness, and the Origins of the American Revolution (1979); Forging Freedom: The Formation of Philadelphia’s Black Community, 1720-1840 (1988); First City: Philadelphia and the Forging of Historical Memory (2002); and The Unknown American Revolution: The Unruly Birth of Democracy and the Struggle to Create America (2005). A former president of the Organization of American Historians, his scholarship is especially concerned with the role of common people in the making of history. He wrote Part One and served as general editor of this book.

Julie Roy Jeffrey earned her Ph.D. in history from Rice University. Since then she has tought at Goucher College. Honored as an outstanding teacher, Jeffrey has been involved in faculty development activities and curriculum evaluation. She was Fulbright Chair in American Studies at the university of Southern Denmark, 1999-2000 and John Adams Chair of American History at the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands, 2006. Jeffrey’s major publications include Education for Children of the Poor (1978); Frontier Women: The Trans-Mississippi West, 1840-1880 (1979-1997); Converting the West: A Biography of Narcissa Whitman (1991); The Great Silent Army of Abolitionism: Ordinary Women in the Antislavery Movement (1998) and Abolitionists Remember (forthcoming 2008). She collaborated with Peter Frederick on American History Firsthand, two volumes (2002, 2007). She is the author of many articles on the lives and perceptions of nineteenth-century women. Her research continues to focus on abolitionism as well as on history and film. She wrote Parts Three and Four in collaboration with Peter Frederick and acted as a general editor of this book.

John R. Howe received his Ph.D. from Yale University. At the University of Minnesota, he has taught the U.S. history survey and courses on the American revolutionary era and the early republic. His major publications include The Changing Political Thought of John Adams (1966), From the Revolution Through the Age of Jackson (1973), The Role of Ideology in the American Revolution (1977), and Language and Political Meaning in Revolutionary America (2003). His present research deals with the social politics of verbal discourse in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Boston. He has received a Woodrow Wilson Graduate Fellowship, and John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Research Fellowship from the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History. Howe wrote Part Two of this book.

Peter J. Frederick received his Ph.D. in history from the University of California, Berkeley. His career of innovative teaching began at California State University, Hayward, in the 1960s and continued at Wabash College (1970-2004) and Carleton College (1992-1994). He also served as distinguished Professor of American History and Culture at Heritage University on the Yakama Nation reservation in Washington between 2004 and 2006. Recognized nationally as a distinguished teacher and for his many articles and workshops on teaching and learning, Frederick was awarded the Eugene Asher Award for Excellence in Teaching by the AHA in 2000. He has also written several articles on life-writing and a bo