Positions

Research Areas research areas

Overview

  • Dr. Jessica Lepler is an associate professor of history. At UNH, she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on the History of Animals, Early American Republic, American Intellectual History, the Emergence of Industrial America, Capitalism in the Long Nineteenth Century, Historiography, Historical Methods, and Professionalization for Historians.

    In 2013, Cambridge University Press published Professor Lepler’s first book, _The Many Panics of 1837: People, Politics, and the Creation of a Transatlantic Financial Crisis._ It won the James H. Broussard Best First Book Prize from the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic and was a finalist for the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians Book Prize. Professor Lepler is currently researching and writing a book under contract with the University of North Carolina Press entitled _Canal Dreamers: The Epic Quest to Connect the Atlantic and Pacific in the Age of Revolutions_. During the Fall 2023 term, she is on research leave from UNH as the 2023-2024 Central American Visiting Scholar at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University.

    Professor Lepler earned her B.A. in history and religious traditions of the West from Newcomb College of Tulane University. As an undergraduate, she also studied at Mansfield College, Oxford University. She earned her M.A. and Ph.D. from Brandeis University. The Society of American Historians awarded her doctoral dissertation the 2008 Allan Nevins Prize. She has also been the recipient of a Hench Post-Dissertation Fellowship from the American Antiquarian Society, a Dissertation Fellowship from the Library Company of Philadelphia’s Program in Early American Economy and Society, a John E. Rovensky Dissertation Fellowship in Business History, and a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship from the U.S. Department of Education. Prior to her arrival at UNH in 2008, Professor Lepler was a visiting assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University.

    Professor Lepler co-founded the Second-Book Writers’ Workshop of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic. She has served on the Advisory Council of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic and as a Distinguished Lecturer of the Organization of American Historians.
  • Selected Publications

    Academic Article

    Year Title
    2022 Made in Britain: Nation and Emigration in Nineteenth-Century AmericaJournal of American History.  109:153-154. 2022
    2020 Introduction The Panic of 1819 by Any Other NameJournal of the Early Republic.  40:665-670. 2020
    2020 The Panic of 1819: The First Great DepressionJournal of the Early Republic.  40:361-364. 2020
    2018 American Sectionalism in the British Mind, 1832-1863Journal of American History.  105:666-667. 2018
    2018 Exeter’s Declaration of Independence: A Festival, A Broadside, and A Lesson in Public HistoryCommon-place.  18. 2018
    2012 ‘THE NEWS FLEW LIKE LIGHTNING’Journal of Cultural Economy.  5:179-195. 2012
    2010 Pictures of Panic: Constructing Hard Times in Words and ImagesCommon-place.  10. 2010

    Book

    Year Title
    2013 Many Panics of 1837: People, Politics, and the Creation of a Transatlantic Financial Crisis 2013
    2013 The Many Panics in 1837 2013
    The Visionary and the Ass: The Culture of Commercial Expansionism in Nineteenth-Century America

    Chapter

    Year Title
    2013 A Very "Gamblous" Affair.  8-42. 2013
    2013 EPILOGUE Panic-less Panics of 1837.  235-254. 2013
    2013 INTRODUCTION The Many Panics of 1837.  1-+. 2013
    2013 Mysterious Whispers.  94-122. 2013
    2013 Parallel Crises.  157-190. 2013
    2013 Practical Economists.  67-93. 2013
    2013 States of Suspense.  191-234. 2013
    2013 The Pressure of 1836.  43-66. 2013
    2011 'To save the commercial community of New York': Panicked Business Elites in 1837.  117-138. 2011

    Principal Investigator On

    Teaching Activities

  • Dir Read/Early American Hist Taught course
  • History of Animals Taught course
  • History of Animals Taught course
  • History of Animals Taught course
  • History of Animals Taught course
  • History of Animals Taught course
  • History of Animals Taught course
  • History of Animals Taught course
  • History Proseminar Taught course 2024
  • History of American Thought Taught course 2024
  • Readings Early American Hist Taught course 2024
  • ExplHistPersp/Hist of Animals Taught course 2023
  • Intro to Historical Thinking Taught course 2023
  • Emergence Industrial America Taught course 2022
  • History Proseminar Taught course 2022
  • Research Sem Early Amer Hist Taught course 2022
  • Expl/History of Animals Taught course 2021
  • Readings Early American Hist Taught course 2021
  • History Proseminar Taught course 2020
  • History of American Thought Taught course 2020
  • History of the Early Republic Taught course 2020
  • Expl/History of Animals Taught course 2020
  • Sem/Amer Culture&Capitalism Taught course 2020
  • Dir Read/Early American Hist Taught course 2019
  • History of American Thought Taught course 2019
  • Research Sem Early Amer Hist Taught course 2019
  • Dir Read/Early American Hist Taught course 2018
  • History of Early America Taught course 2018
  • Independent Study Taught course 2018
  • Sem/Capitalism Taught course 2018
  • Emergence Industrial America Taught course 2018
  • Readings Early American Hist Taught course 2018
  • History of Early America Taught course 2017
  • History of the Early Republic Taught course 2017
  • Expl/History of Animals Taught course 2017
  • Intro to Historical Thinking Taught course 2017
  • History of American Thought Taught course 2016
  • Sem/Amer Culture, Capitalism Taught course 2016
  • Dir Read/Early American Hist Taught course 2015
  • Expl Hist/Animal History Taught course 2015
  • History of the Early Republic Taught course 2015
  • Emergence Industrial America Taught course 2014
  • History of the Early Republic Taught course 2014
  • Education And Training

  • B.A. History, Tulane University
  • B.A. Religious Studies, Tulane University
  • M.A. History, Brandeis University
  • Ph.D. History, Brandeis University
  • Full Name

  • Jessica Lepler