“These words sank deep into my heart, stirred up sentiments within that lay slumbering, and called into existence an entirely new train of thought.” Frederick Douglass
Matthew Rainbow Hale
Associate ProfessorHistory
Matthew Rainbow Hale is Associate Professor of History at Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland. Prior to his arrival at Goucher, he was an Assistant Professor of History at Mississippi State University. He also has taught classes at Brandeis University and Suffolk University. His research and teaching interests include: American history, especially before 1877; early modern European history; the French Revolution; print culture; political culture; democracy.
Publications
The Invention of the American Democrat: Political Identity, Popular Sovereignty, and the French Revolution (under contract, University of Virginia Press, Jeffersonian America Series).
Tracking the French Revolution in the United States: Popular Sovereignty, Representation, Absolutism, and Democracy,” in Cambridge History of the Age of Atlantic Revolutions, ed. Wim Klooster, 3 vols. (forthcoming)
“For the Love of Glory: Napoleonic Imperatives in the Early American Republic,” in Warring for America: Cultural Contests in the Era of 1812, eds. Nicole Eustace and Fredrika J. Teute (forthcoming, September 2017, University of North Carolina Press, Published for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture).
“Regenerating the World: The French Revolution, Civic Festivals, and the Forging of Modern American Democracy, 1793-1795,” Journal of American History 103 (March 2017), 891-920.
“American Hercules: Militant Sovereignty and Violence in the Democratic-Republican Imagination, 1793-1795,” in Between Sovereignty and Anarchy: The Politics of Violence in the American Revolutionary Era, eds. Patrick Griffin, Robert Ingram, Peter Onuf, and Brian Schoen (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2015), 243-62.
“On Their Tiptoes: Political Time and Newspapers during the Advent of the Radicalized French Revolution, circa 1792-93,” Journal of the Early Republic 29 (Summer 2009), 191-218 (awarded the Ralph D. Gray Prize).
External Awards, Honors, Grants
2016, Kentucky Historical Society Scholarly Research Fellowship.
2010, Ralph D. Gray Prize for the Best Article in Vol. 29 (2009) of the Journal of the Early Republic.
2010, Lord Baltimore Fellowship, Maryland Historical Society.
2009, Marc Friedlaender Fellowship at the Massachusetts Historical Society.
2009, SHEAR (Society for Historians of the Early American Republic) Fellowship at the Library Company of Philadelphia and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
2007-2008, Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies Gilder Lehrman Junior Research Fellowship.
2004, Batten Fellowship for Summer Research at the International Center for Jefferson Studies.
2003, Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History Fellowship for Summer Research at the New York Historical Society.
2003, William E. Parrish Outstanding Teacher Award, Gamma Nu Chapter of Phi Alpha Theta, Mississippi State University.
2003, I.M.A.G.E. (Increasing Minority Access to Graduate Education) Teaching Award, Mississippi State University.
2001, New England Historical Associate Prize for the Best Paper Presented by a Graduate Student at the Annual Spring and Fall Conferences.
2000-2001, McNeil Center for Early American Studies Dissertation Fellowship.
2000, American Antiquarian Society Legacy Fellowship.
1999, Virginia Historical Society Mellon Research Fellowship.
1999 Winterthur Museum, Garden, and Library Research Fellowship.
Invited Talks
“The Revolutionary Invention of the American Democrat,” Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia (forthcoming, October 2023)
“Constitutionalism’s Fallout: Sovereignty, Representation, Absolutiusm, and Democracy,” Westminster, Maryland Chapter, Sons of the American Revolution, Constitution Week Lecture, September 18, 2022.
“French Revolutionary Terror and Violence in Maryland and the United States, 1793-1795,” Maryland’s Four Centuries Project Fall 2019 Lecture Series, Maryland State Archives, Annapolis, Maryland, October, 2019.
“George Washington and Foreign Policy,” George Washington Teacher Institute, George Washington’s Mount Vernon, Alexandria, Virginia, August 2017, March 2019, August 2019, August 2021, August 2022, June 2023.
“Terror and the Guillotine in the American Democratic Movement, ca. 1793-1795,” Princeton University American Studies Workshop Series, Princeton, New Jersey, April 2017.
“Democratic Government, Regenerated Society: Thomas Paine and Joel Barlow Assess the French Revolution,” Special Conference on “Thomas Paine in the French Revolution, 1789-1802,” Paris, France, September 2014.
“George Washington and the Problem of the French Revolution,” Maryland Sons of the American Revolution, Baltimore, Maryland, December 2012.
“For the Love of Glory: Changing Notions of Military Heroism from the American Revolution to the War of 1812,” Broadmede Retirement Community, November 2012.
“The World of Books in Early America,” Goucher College Friends of the Library Bi-Annual Meeting, Baltimore, Maryland, April 2011.
“American Newspapers and Time during the French Revolution,” Baltimore Bibliophiles Meeting, Baltimore, Maryland, May 2010.
“Democratic-Republicans and the Regeneration of the World,” University of Chicago (sponsorship provided by the Political History Workshop and the Modern France Workshop), February 2008.
“The Romance of War in the Age of Jane Austen,” Maryland Chapter of the Jane Austen Society, Baltimore, Maryland, July 2007.
Academic or Professional Associations
American Historical Association
Organization of American Historians
Society for Historians of the Early American Republic
Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture
Historical Society of Pennsylvania
Maryland Historical Society
McNeil Center for Early American Studies
Southern Historical Association
Pennsylvania Historical Society