Joanne Freeman

Joanne Freeman, M.A., Ph.D.

Alan J. Boles, Jr. Professor of History and American Studies
Expertise: The American Founding, founding fathers, early American politics and elections, political violence, 18th & 19th centuries, duels, the culture of Congress before the Civil War, Alexander Hamilton
Field: Arts & Humanities

I work on the culture of politics in the 18th and 19th centuries: how politics worked on a ground level; how elite politicians fought political battles; how they fought each other (with guns and knives, as well as otherwise); how they improvised the national government into being in the 1790s; how they tried to hold that government together in the 1840s and 1850s; how they contributed to the coming of the Civil War. Political violence is a major component of my work.

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Featured Video

Historian Joanne Freeman on 19th Century Violence in U.S. Congress at OAH in Milwaukee

In the Media

The language we use to describe history matters, explains Yale’s Joanne Freeman
PBS

‘I see reason to fear — and hope’: Joanne Freeman explores what history can teach us about the present moment
The Atlantic

Yale’s Joanne Freeman on political violence in the U.S.: We’ve had these moments before
MSNBC

Contact Info

joanne.freeman@yale.edu

203-432-1392