The University of Sheffield
Department of History

Dr. Simon Middleton, M.A., Ph.D.

Senior Lecturer in History [Colonial American social and cultural history]

[On research leave, semester 2 2011-12]

Photo of Dr. Simon Middleton

Email: s.middleton@sheffield.ac.uk
Room: Jessop West: 3.02 | Telephone: (0114) 22 22596
Office Hours, Spring 2011-12: On Research Leave

Biography


Simon Middleton joined the History Department in 2005. He was educated at Kingston Polytechnic, Harvard University, and the City University of New York Graduate Center, where he completed a Ph.D. From 1997-2005 he taught in the School of American Studies at the University of East Anglia. His research interests lie in the area of early American social and cultural history. Simon has won several awards for his work including a 2001 PEASE. Prize for the best journal article in early American economic history, and the Hendricks Manuscript Award and 2007 BAAS Book Prize for, From Privileges to Rights: Work and Labor in Colonial New York.

His course offerings include a second-year seminar in early American history from the European expansion to the New World to the American Revolution (HST279), a second-year document option examining the Salem Withcraft Trials (HST2004), and a third-year Special Subject (HST3087/88) investigating European and Indian relations in seventeenth-century northeastern America. Simon has received grants from the Arts and Humanities Research Board, British Academy, New York State Archives, Gilder Lehrman Foundation, Library Company of Philadelphia, and the Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library in support of his work.

Membership of Professional Bodies

 

 

Research


Current Research
I am extending my previous research on law and economic culture in early New York to Philadelphia and the middle colonies backcountry. The project investigates how interpersonal relations founded on private credit were culturally interpreted and how economic change affected these interpretations. I retain an interest John Underhill, a puritan zealot, Indian fighter, and political gadfly who was born in the Dutch Republic of English parents and fought for the Dutch against the Spanish before moving to New England in the 1630s and then New Netherland in the 1640s. I began my inquiries into Underhill's life and times in an article – "Order and Authority in New Netherland: The 1653 Remonstrance and Early Settlement Politics," The William and Mary Quarterly, (January, 2010).

I am also part of a Leverhulme Funded project, "You, the People: National location and the writing of American history - the example of Europe," which is considering European perspectives on American history in a series of workshops, a journal special issue, and a collection essays. Finally, with three others, I am writing a survey of American history under contract with Routledge.

Research interests
My research to date has focused on issues raised by the intersection of daily life, political theory, and law in an urban setting in early America. To this end I published several articles and book chapters considering artisanal commerce, municipal regulation, and civic culture. My first book, From Privileges to Rights: Work and Politics in Colonial New York City (Philadelphia, 2006) examined the linkages between perceptions and representations of artisanal work and the shift in political discourse from a concentration on objective privileges to subjective rights in colonial New York City.

While completing Privileges to Rights, and in part because of the questions raised towards the end of the book concerning class formation, I collaborated with Professor Billy G. Smith of Montana State University in the organization of a conference focusing on the different manings of class and class struggle in the early modern Atlantic World. This conference led to a second, one-day meeting, at the University of Pennsylvania (under the auspices of the McNeil Centre for Early American History), three special issues of US journals (Early American Studies, Labor, and The William and Mary Quarterly), and a collection of essays drawn from the conference, Class Matters. Early North America and the Atlantic World (Philadelphia, 2008)

Research supervision and current PhD students
I am happy to supervise research students in early American history, particularly those interested in coastal communities, religious history, political theory, the law and, in general, topics in social, political, and cultural history.

MA dissertations have included, Benjamin Franklin and the Albany Conference, 1754; Dominick LaCapra, Alexis de Tocqueville, and intellectual history; slavery and civic humanism in seventeenth-century America; women and trade in eighteenth-century New York.

Administrative Roles and Responsibilities


Simon has served as a member of many of the department's committees and has been involved in the planning of teaching and administration at all levels. As Senior Tutor for Undergraduate Admission (2006-08) he oversaw the centralization of History admissions. Current roles include member of Undergraduate Affairs Committee, (2009- present), Research and Knowledge Exchange Committee (2008 – present), Careers Liaison Officer, Teaching Quality Officer; he also convenes the department´s research seminar.

Selected Publications