Susan V. Spellman

Dr. Spellman's work intersects the history of capitalism, in addition to social, cultural, consumer, and technology history.  Her forthcoming book, Cornering the Market: Independent Grocers and Innovation in American Small Business, 1860-1940 (Oxford University Press), considers the ways in which small grocers--often portrayed as holdovers from a nostalgic past--were key agents of a "modernizing" impulse in American capitalism from the Civil War era to the New Deal.  She has begun work on a second book project, Go-Getters! Ambition and the American Business Traveler, from the Steamboat to the Frequent Flyer.