Nancy Rhoden

Associate Professor
PhD, Princeton University, 1994

Research Interests

Professor Rhoden is a specialist in colonial British America and the American Revolution, with particular interests in religious and social history. She is currently working on a history of the Virginia elite during the American Revolution.

Selected Publications

English Atlantics Revisited: Essays Honouring Professor Ian K. Steele, Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007.

"Patriarchal Authority in Revolutionary Virginia: Connecting Familial Relations and Revolutionary Crises," in English Atlantics Revisited (2007), 410-449.

"Patriots, Villains and the Quest for Liberty: How American Film has Depicted the American Revolution," Canadian Review of American Studies 37 no. 2 (2007), 205-38.

 Human Tradition in the American Revolution (Scholarly Resources, 2000). co-edited.
Description
 This collection of 17 biographies provides a unique opportunity for the reader to go beyond the popular heroes of the American Revolution and discover the diverse populace that inhabited the colonies during this pivotal point in history.

Revolutionary Anglicanism: The Colonial Church of England Clergy During the American Revolution (Macmillan UK, 1999 and NYU press, 1999).
"Dustjacket"
During the American Revolution decisions of loyalism or patriotism were rarely easy, but the colonial Anglican clergy faced a particularly difficult situation. All had taken oaths to the king and his church, but revolutionary governments demanded that they repudiate that oath, end prayers for the king, and alter the liturgy. This book tracks down every Anglican minister in the thirteen colonies (over 300 individuals) to assess their responses, which ranged from militant loyalism to overt support of the Revolution, although most clergy avoided these extremes and tried to survive by distancing themselves from politics. While the Revolution transformed and politicized the civilian population, Rhoden finds that the Anglican clergy experienced an opposite process of depoliticization. In the 1780s the American Episcopal Church embraced a number of revolutionary philosophies. This collective story of the church’s ministers offers a thoroughly researched exploration into the broad connections between the American Revolution and religious change.

The Human Tradition in Colonial America (Scholarly Resources, 1999) co-edited.
Description
The Human Tradition in Colonial America is an entertaining as well an enlightening book that brings the colonial period to life through the stories of the colorful participants who helped mold the British dependency that would eventually become the United States.

Doctoral Level supervisory privileges

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Current Courses

  • HIS 2301E - U.S. History
  • HIS 565-001 - First British Empire