Dr. Daniel Scroop, B.A. (Oxon), M.A. (Lancaster), D.Phil. (Oxon)
Senior Lecturer in American History
Email: d.scroop@sheffield.ac.uk
Room: Jessop West: 1.05 | Telephone: (0114) 22 22598
Office Hours, Spring 2011-12: Tuesdays 14:00-16:00
| Biography |
Daniel Scroop joined the History Department at Sheffield in September 2007. He read history at St. Anne´s College, Oxford and, after completing an MA at Lancaster University, returned to St. Anne's for his D.Phil, during which time he spent a year in the United States as a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University. Before moving to Sheffield, he taught at the University of Cambridge (2001-2), the University of Wales, Bangor (2002-3), and Liverpool University (2003-7). In 2007 he was a Visiting Fellow at the Rothermere American Institute and at St. Anne's College, Oxford.
Daniel's research is concerned with the political and social history of the United States in the twentieth century. He has particular interests in the New Deal and in the politics of consumption. His first book, Mr. Democrat: Jim Farley, the New Deal and Modern American Politics, explores the relationship between between American liberalism and the Democratic Party. It is also the first major study of Franklin D. Roosevelt's campaign manager, Jim Farley. More recent work on the origins of modern consumer politics has led to the publication in 2007 of Consuming Visions, an edited collection comprising essays written by an interdisciplinary group of European and American scholars, and to articles on the anti-chain store movement published in American Quarterly and History Compass. Work in progress includes a short e-book on the New Deal for the Humanities Insights series and essays on antimonopolism in postwar US politics.
Daniel is a founder member and the treasurer of Historians of the Twentieth-Century United States (HOTCUS), a new organisation established to bring together historians of modern America. Its inaugural conference was held at the Institute for the Study of the Americas in June 2008. He also has an interest in mentoring and is participating in the pilot Career Accelerator mentoring scheme run by the Oxford University Careers Service.
| Membership of Professional Bodies |
- Founder member and Treasurer of Historians of the Twentieth-Century United States (HOTCUS)
- Member of the British Association for American Studies (BAAS)
- Member of the Organization of American Historians (OAH)
- Member of the American Historical Association (AHA)
| Prizes |
- 'The Anti-Chain Store Movement and the Politics of Consumption', American Quarterly, 60, 4 (December 2008), pp. 925-950.
[Winner of the 2009 Contance M. Rourke prize awarded by the American Studies Association for the best essay published in American Quarterly in 2008]
[Winner of the 2009 Arthur Miller Prize awarded by BAAS/UEA for the best journal article on an American Studies topic by a UK citizen published in 2008]
| Research |
Current Research
I am currently working on a series of articles on antimonopoly and the politics of reform in the twentieth-century United States. To what extent did antimonopoly function as a critique of capitalism from within in this period? How far did it persist beyond the New Deal to influence the post-1945 era, informing the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s? Related to this, I am continuing work on the anti-chain store movement of the 1920s and 1930s.
Research Interests
My main research interests are in twentieth-century US political and social history, with a focus on the place of the New Deal – and the various strands of reform that contributed to it – in modern US history. In more broadly thematic terms, my work engages with the relationship between political ideologies (especially liberalism) and institutions, and with the politics of consumption and consumer politics since 1900.
Research Supervision
Current PhD students:
- Thom Keep, The Tennessee Valley Authority and Environmentalism at the Grassroots (primary supervisor)
- Patrick Glen, Popular Subcultures and the Music Press in the 1960s and 1970s (secondary)
- Chris Olewicz, Corporate liberalism in the United States: A History (primary)
- W. Ray Palmer, The Origins of the War Refugee Board (secondary)
Completed PhD students:
- Eleanor Capper, Caroline Ware and the politics of women and consumerism (primary: January 2009)
- David Sarias, All the President's Conservatives: the Nixon Administration and the American Conservative Movement (primary: January 2011)
| Administrative Roles and Responsibilities |
- Director of the MA in American History
- Level 3 Tutor
- Level 1 registration organiser
- Member of Postgraduate Committee
| Selected Publications |
Books
- Consuming Visions: New Essays on the Politics of Consumption in Modern America (ed.) (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007)
- Mr Democrat: Jim Farley, the New Deal, and the Making of Modern American Politics (Ann Arbor: Michigan University Press, 2006)
Journal and Book Articles
- 'The Great Depression' in Dale Southerton, Encyclopedia of Consumer Culture (SAGE, 2011)
- 'The Anti-Chain Store Movement and the Politics of Consumption', American Quarterly, 60, 4 (December 2008), pp. 925-950.
- 'Local and National Identities in the Politics of Consumption: The Anti-Chain Store Movement Reconsidered', History Compass, 6, 3 (May 2008), pp. 947-968.
- 'A Faded Passion? Estes Kefauver and the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly', Business and Economic History On-Line 5 (October 2007)
Book reviews for the following journals:
- Journal of American History, Journal of American Studies, Labour History Review, French History, Safundi.