Mary Beth Norton 
Mary Donlon Alger Professor of American History
Office: 325 McGraw Hall
Phone: (607) 255-7542
Fax: (607) 255-0469
E-Mail: mbn1@cornell.edu
BIO
Office Hours: W 9:00-10:30
Research and Teaching Interests
My research and teaching both focus on early America, starting with initial European settlement in North America and ending around 1815. In recent years I have also begun teaching courses with an Atlantic World theme. The only courses I teach that go beyond 1815 are the first half of the introductory U.S. history survey and a general survey of American women’s history.
Since the early 1980s I have focused on a large-scale project that should soon come to final fruition: an examination of the interplay of gender, society, and politics in America from the beginnings of settlement to approximately 1750. These works, taken together, in effect constitute the ‘prequel’ to my 1980 monograph, Liberty’s Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750-1800. Thus far I have published two books—Founding Mothers & Fathers: Gendered Power and the Forming of American Society (1996) and In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692 (2002)—as a part of this project. On sabbatical leave in 2008-9 I am writing the final volume in the series, an examination of gender and the development of the public=male/private=female divide in Anglo-America from the middle of the seventeenth century to the middle of the eighteenth century. Following completion of this work, I intend to return to the revolutionary era, the subject of Liberty’s Daughters and of my first book (my revised dissertation), The British-Americans: The Loyalist Exiles in England, 1774-1789 (1972).
Although I have directed Ph.D. dissertations in all eras of American history, in recent years I have accepted only students who work on early American topics.
Courses
| Fall 2009: | 1530 |
Introduction to American History I Syllabus |
|---|---|---|
4001 |
Honors Guidance Syllabus | |
| Spring 2010: | 2720 |
The Atlantic World from Conquest to Revolution |
4002 |
Honors Research |
Other Courses Taught at Cornell University
HIST 2090 Seminar in Early America
HIST 2720 Atlantic World
HIST 2730
Women in American Society, Past and Present
HIST 3210 The Origins of Multicultural America
HIST 3250
The Age of American Revolution, 1754-1815
Undergraduate lecture forthcoming: History of Exploration
Education
Ph.D. Harvard University, 1969
M.A. Harvard University, 1965
B.A. University of Michigan, 1964
Recent Publications and Awards
Books:
In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692 (Alfred A. Knopf, 2002; Vintage paperback, 2003).
Founding Mothers & Fathers: Gendered Power and the Forming of American Society (Alfred A. Knopf, 1996; Vintage paperback, 1997) [see reprint list].
ed., The American Historical Association's Guide to Historical Literature, 3d ed. (Oxford University Press, 1995).
ed., Major Problems in American Women's History (1st ed. D.C. Heath, 1989; 2d ed. [with Ruth Alexander], Houghton Mifflin, 1995; 3d ed. [with Ruth Alexander], Houghton Mifflin, 2003; 4th ed. [with Ruth Alexander], Houghton Mifflin, 2007.
ed. (with Carol Groneman), To Toil the Livelong Day: America's Women at Work, 1790‑1980 (Cornell University Press, 1987).
(with 5 others) A People and a Nation (Houghton Mifflin, 1st ed., l982; 2nd ed., 1986; 3rd ed., 1990; 4th ed., 1994; 5th ed., 1998; 6th ed., 2001; 7th ed., 2005; 8th ed., 2008); Japanese translation, 1996.
Liberty's Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, l750‑1800 (Boston: Little, Brown, l980; Cornell University Press, 1996) [see reprint list].
ed. (with Carol Berkin), Women of America: A History (Houghton Mifflin, l979).
The British‑Americans: The Loyalist Exiles in England, l774‑l789 (Little, Brown, 1972; London: Constable and Co., 1974).
Awards
2008 Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellowship
Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellowship, Huntington Library, spring 2001.
Starr Foundation Fellowship, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, Fall 2000.
Ambassador Book Award in American Studies, 2003, English-Speaking Union.
Finalist, LA Times book prize in History, 2003. (University Press of New England, 1999), 25-45.
Finalist, Pulitzer Prize in History, 1997.