Dr. Jennifer Dorsey will discuss her current book project, a documentary edition that tells the story of how and why New York became such a hotbed of religious revivalism and reform movements. This documentary edition will include approximately 70 historical documents curated to help readers view this pivotal moment in New York’s history through the eyes of the men and women who lived it and helped make it so.

Jennifer Dorsey, Ph.D. is Professor of History and the founding director of Siena College’s McCormick Center for the Study of the American Revolution. She has recently completed a co-edited volume with Dr. Spencer McBride, PhD (The Joseph Smith Papers) on the history of the Second Great Awakening in New York State for Cornell University Press. This book project grew out of her experience as the project director of two NEH-funded workshops for School Teachers on the history of the Shakers (2013 and 2016). She is the author of “Conscription, Charity, and Citizenship in the Early Republic: The Shaker Campaign for Alternative Service” in Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture (2016) and "The Shakers and the Perfecting Spirit in Early America" in A Companion to American Religious History (2021). She is also the author of Hirelings: African American Workers and Free Labor in Early Maryland (Cornell University Press 2011) and related articles on labor, race, and political economy in the early Republic.