Mandy L. Cooper

I am a broadly trained scholar of US history, specializing in the intersections of gender, business, and political history in the decades between the Revolution and Reconstruction. Currently, I am a lecturer of women’s history at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. My research combines the history of the Atlantic World with women’s, economic, political, and legal history to explore the economic and political implications of the connections between the “private,” domestic world of the family and the “public” world of governance at the federal, state, and local levels. Both my research and teaching are fundamentally concerned with questions of gender, race, and region, particularly how different facets of identity shaped the way that individuals experienced and interacted with the political, economic, legal, and cultural forces that shaped their lives.

I am currently writing a book tentatively titled A Republic of Credit: Building a National Family from Revolution to Reconstruction, which explores the relationship between emotional family bonds, commerce, and governance from the Revolution to Reconstruction. This book shows how enduring practices, focused on family ties, informed conceptions of business and government among the nation’s political leaders.