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WORK TITLE: Inventing George Whitefield
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://providentialatlantic.wordpress.com/
CITY: Boston
STATE: MA
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-parr-347ba423 * https://unh.academia.edu/JessicaParr * http://manchester.unh.edu/faculty/parr
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Female.
EDUCATION:Simmons College, B.A., 2000, M.A., M.S., 2005; University of New Hampshire, M.A., Ph.D., 2012.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Historian, educator, and writer. Worked as an archivist at several universities; University of New Hampshire, Durham, instructor, 2005-09, project place assistant, 2016–; University of New Hampshire, Manchester, adjunct professor, 2012–, project coordinator for public history, 2015–; Granite State College, Concord, NH, lecturer, 2011-13; Southern New Hampshire University, Manchester, adjunct professor, 2011-13; Emmanuel College, Boston, MA, lecturer, 2014-15.
MEMBER:American Historical Association; American Studies Association; Berkshire Conference of Women Historians; Boston Area American Religious History Group; Eighteenth Century Studies; Forum on European Expansion and Global Interaction; New England Archivists; New England Historical Association; Omohundro Institute (associate); Organization of American Historians; Society of American Archivists; Society of Early Americanists.
AWARDS:Phi Alpha Theta, 2006; University of New Hampshire, teaching assistantship and tuition fellowship, 2005-09, Steelman Fellowship, 2008, Gunst-Wilcox Research Grant, 2008, 2009; Munson Institute of Mystic Seaport and American Antiquarian Society, Paul Cuffe Memorial Fellowship, 2008; Gilder Lehrman Short-Term Fellowship, 2009; Boston Athenaeum, Washington College Fellowship in Early American History, 2009.
WRITINGS
Contributor of chapters to books, including The Early Republic: People and Perspectives, edited by Andrew Frank, ABC-CLIO, 2008; and The Routledge Handbook of U.S. Diplomatic and Military History, Colonial Period to 1877, edited by Christos Frentzos and Antonio Thompson, Routledge, 2014. List editor for H-Atlantic; contributor to Junto: A Group Blog on Early American History.
SIDELIGHTS
Jessica M. Parr is a project place assistant for the geospatial digital repository at the University of New Hampshire. She has lectured at several New Hampshire schools, including Emmanuel College, Granite State College, and Southern New Hampshire University, and has taught classes on the early modern Atlantic world, American history, African history, world history, humanities, and oral history. Parr has also worked in a number of museums, libraries, and archival repositories; is a list editor for H-Atlantic; and is a regular contributor to Junto: A Group Blog on Early American History. She holds a master’s degree in history from Simmons College and a Ph.D. in history from the University of New Hampshire.
In 2015, Parr published Inventing George Whitefield: Race, Revivalism, and the Making of a Religious Icon. Whitefield was a transatlantic minister of the mid-eighteenth century who originated in England and preached through the American colonies, in New England, the mid-Atlantic, and the South. Parr explains how Whitefield, the founding force in American evangelism, became an iconic figure and how his image was used by diverse groups of people to further their agendas. Parr draws on historical sources such as diaries, letters, poems, sermons, newspapers, and memorial logbooks to portray Whitefield and examine the evolving ideas and legacy of the man. She describes transatlantic revivalism, Whitefield’s relationship with slavery, and the broader relationships between Christianity and slavery in eighteenth-century America.
In his own time, Whitefield was both revered and despised. His desire to unify Protestant Christians and practice revivalism was seen by many as a threat. Whitefield was also a hypocritical figure who criticized South Carolinian slaveholders for their cruel treatment of slaves, yet also advocated the legalization of slavery and preached proslavery Christianity that emphasized paternalism and submission. According to Emily Conroy-Krutz in her review for H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online, “Parr addresses the question of Whitefield’s use by abolitionists in a very full chapter that also discusses his place in the history and memory of the American Revolution. This was just one of many examples of Whitefield’s memory being used to different purposes.”
Despite her conclusions about Whitefield reading as a bit well-worn, according to William Taylor in the Journal of Southern History, “Parr’s unique analytical perspective and her tight interpretative focus on Whitefield’s image allow her to make a significant contribution to the growing literature on the man and his world.” Parr clearly and persuasively makes her case, said Taylor, who added, “the result is a book that is refreshingly straightforward and accessible.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Journal of Southern History, August, 2016, William Taylor, review of Inventing George Whitefield: Race, Revivalism, and the Making of a Religious Icon, p. 658.
ONLINE
Jessica M. Parr Home Page, https://providentialatlantic.wordpress.com/ (April 10, 2017).
H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online, https://networks.h-net.org/ (July 1, 2016), Emily Conroy-Krutz, review of Inventing George Whitefield.
University of New Hampshire-Manchester Web site, http://manchester.unh.edu/ (April 10, 2017), author profile.
Jessica Parr
American Congregational Association Fellow at The Boston Athenaeum
University of New Hampshire University of New Hampshire
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I am a historian, specializing in Early American and Early Modern Atlantic History, with a particular interest in
race, religion, and memory studies. I been teaching at the college level since 2005, and I have held several fellowships. I also consult. My first book, "Inventing George Whitefield: Race, Revivalism and the Making of a Religious Icon," was published by the University Press of Mississippi in March 2015. I am a fellow of the Royal Historical Society.Specialties: Early Modern British History, African American History, African Diaspora, Atlantic World, Revolutionary World, Religious History, Historic Preservation, Digital Humanities.
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Experience
University of New Hampshire
Project Place Assistant
Company NameUniversity of New Hampshire
Dates EmployedJun 2016 – Present Employment Duration10 mos LocationDurham
Assist with metadata, scanning, reports, and other work for a geospatial digital repository.
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The Boston Athenaeum
American Congregational Association Fellow
Company NameThe Boston Athenaeum
Dates EmployedMay 2016 – Present Employment Duration11 mos LocationGreater Boston Area
See description See more about American Congregational Association Fellow, The Boston Athenaeum
University of New Hampshire at Manchester
Adjunct Professor of History and Project Manager for Public History
Company NameUniversity of New Hampshire at Manchester
Dates EmployedJun 2015 – Present Employment Duration1 yr 10 mos LocationManchester, New Hampshire
See description See more about Adjunct Professor of History and Project Manager for Public History, University of New Hampshire at Manchester
Duke University
John Hope Franklin Fellow
Company NameDuke University
Dates EmployedMay 2015 – Dec 2015 Employment Duration8 mos LocationRaleigh-Durham, North Carolina Area
See description See more about John Hope Franklin Fellow, Duke University
Emmanuel College
Adjunct Professor of History
Company NameEmmanuel College
Dates EmployedJul 2014 – Dec 2015 Employment Duration1 yr 6 mos LocationBoston, MA
See description See more about Adjunct Professor of History, Emmanuel College
University of New Hampshire, Manchester
Adjunct Professor of History
Company NameUniversity of New Hampshire, Manchester
Dates EmployedMar 2012 – May 2015 Employment Duration3 yrs 3 mos
See description See more about Adjunct Professor of History, University of New Hampshire, Manchester
More than a Mapp
Contributing Historian
Company NameMore than a Mapp
Dates Employed2011 – 2014 Employment Duration3 yrs
Granite State College
Lecturer in History
Company NameGranite State College
Dates EmployedJun 2011 – Aug 2013 Employment Duration2 yrs 3 mos LocationConcord, NH
See description See more about Lecturer in History, Granite State College
Southern New Hampshire University
Adjunct Professor of History
Company NameSouthern New Hampshire University
Dates EmployedApr 2011 – May 2013 Employment Duration2 yrs 2 mos
See description See more about Adjunct Professor of History, Southern New Hampshire University
The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Fellow
Company NameThe Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Dates EmployedMar 2009 – Mar 2010 Employment Duration1 yr 1 mo
See description See more about Fellow, The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
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Education
University of New Hampshire
University of New Hampshire
Degree Name PhD Field Of Study Atlantic History
Dates attended or expected graduation 2005 – 2012
Activities and Societies: Phi Alpha Theta
Qualifying exams in Atlantic/Early American History, Modern American History, African History, and Caribbean Studies. Additional coursework in undergraduate teaching, including writing across the curriculum.
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University of New Hampshire
University of New Hampshire
Degree Name Master of Arts (MA) Field Of Study History
Dates attended or expected graduation 2005 – 2012
Simmons College
Simmons College
Degree Name MS Field Of Study Archives Management
Dates attended or expected graduation 2002 – 2005
See description See more about Simmons College, MS
Simmons College
Simmons College
Degree Name MA Field Of Study History
Dates attended or expected graduation 2002 – 2005
Simmons College
Simmons College
Degree Name BA Field Of Study History
Dates attended or expected graduation 1997 – 2000
See description See more about Simmons College, BA
Hood College
Hood College
Accomplishments
Jessica has 5 languages5
Languages
Language nameFrench
Language nameSpanish
Limited working proficiency
Language nameGerman
Professional working proficiency
Language nameWelsh
Limited working proficiency
Language nameDutch
Limited working proficiency
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Jessica has 4 publications4
Publications
publication titleImagining George Whitefield: Race, Revivalism and the Making of a Religious Icon
publication descriptionhttp://www.upress.state.ms.us/books/1799
publication descriptionUniversity Press of Mississippi (March 2015) (Paperback: September 2016)
publication dateMar 1, 2015
Authors
Jessica Parr
publication title"The Evolution of the Franco-American Alliance and France's Military Contribution," in Frentzos and Thompson, eds, The Routledge Handbook of American Military and Diplomatic History: The Colonial Period to 1877
publication descriptionRoutledge
publication dateAug 27, 2014
Authors
Jessica Parr
publication title"Freeborn Americans: the Rise of the Urban Wage Earner and the Rhetoric of the Early American Republic," in Andrew K, Frank, ed, Early Republic: People and Perspectives
publication descriptionABC-CLIO, 2008
publication dateDec 10, 2008
Authors
Jessica Parr
publication title"Plotting Piety: Mapping George Whitefield's World"
publication descriptionWesley and Methodist Studies
publication dateJun 2016
Honors & Awards
honor titleFellow
honor descriptionI was Appointed a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in recognition of my scholarship and public history activities.
honor dateNov 2015
honor issuerRoyal Historical Society, London, England
honor titleNational Endowment for the Humanities, Doing Digital History 2016
honor descriptionReceived two weeks (45 hours) of intensive Digital History training at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University in July 2016. This program is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
honor dateMay 2016
honor issuerNational Endowment for the Humanities
Jessica Parr
University of New Hampshire, History, Adjunct/Project Coordinator for Public History | History +31
I received my PhD from the University of New Hampshire, Durham in 2012. I specialize in religious and race in Early America/Early Modern British Atlantic World. I also hold an MA in History and an MS in Archives and Preservation Management from Simmons College in Boston. I am a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. I am a co-editor of the H-Atlantic list, and also a contributor to The Junto Blog: a Group Blog on Early American History..
Supervisors: Eliga H. Gould and J. William Harris
Jessica Parr
PROJECT COORDINATOR FOR PUBLIC HISTORY/ADJUNCT PROFESSOR OF HISTORY
HISTORY, B.A.
PUBLIC HISTORY MINOR
UNH Manchester
jessica.parr@unh.edu
Website:
Jessicaparr.org
Profile
Professor Parr has been teaching at UNH Manchester since 2012. She teaches courses in Atlantic, American, and Public History. She also serves as an Editor for H-Atlantic and is a regular contributor to The Junto.
Courses
HIST 405/405W: History of Early America
HIST 410: Religion in American History and Politics
HIST 422: World History since 1600
HIST 500: Historical Methods
HIST 595: Issues in Public History
HIST 595: Material Culture
HIST 595: Digital History
HIST 595: Haitian Revolution
HIST 602: American Revolution
Interests
Early Modern Atlantic
History of Race
World/Early America
Trans Atlantic Slave Trade
Religious History
Memory Studies
Public History
Digital History
Affiliations
American Historical Association
American Society of Church History
Omohundro Institute for Early American History and Culture
New England Historical Association (Executive Committee, 2016 -2018)
Royal Historical Society (UK)
Awards
2015- Fellow, Royal Historical Society
Publications
BOOK
Imagining George Whitefield: Race, Revivalism, and the Making of a Religious Icon. (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2015; paperback forthcoming Sept. 2016).
ARTICLES
“Plotting Piety: Religious Spaces and the Mapping of George Whitefield’s World,” Wesley and Methodist Studies (June 2016).
ESSAYS & CHAPTERS:
“George Whitefield,” Travis Burnham, ed, Oxford Biographies in Atlantic History (Forthcoming: Oxford University Press, 2017).
“The Evolution of the Franco-American Alliance and France’s Military Contribution.” Christos Frentzos and Antonio Thompson, eds, The Routledge Handbook of U.S. Diplomatic and Military History, Colonial Period to 1877. New York: Routledge, 2014).
“Freeborn Americans: the Rise of the Urban Wage Earner in the Early Republic, 1788-1830.” Andrew Frank, ed, The Early Republic: People and Perspectives. New York: ABC- CLIO, 2008).
Education
Ph.D. (History) - University of New Hampshire at Durham (2012)
M.A. (History) - University of New Hampshire at Durham (2012)
M.S. (Archives Management) - Simmons College School of Information Science (2005)
M.A. (History) - Simmons College (2005)
B.A. (History /w Dept Honors) - Simmons College (2000).
Grants
2016 - American Congregational Association Fellowship, Boston Athenaeum/Congregational Library
2016 - Doing Digital History Institute, NEH/Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media
2015 - Travel Grant, Congregational Library in Boston
2015 - John Hope Franklin Grant, John Hope Franklin Research Center, Duke University
2012 - Travel Grant, University of New Hampshire
2011 - Annette K. Baxter Grant, American Studies Association
2011 - Travel Grant, University of New Hampshire
2010 - Gunst-Wilcox Research Grant, University of New Hampshire
2009-2010 - Visiting Researcher, Phillips Library, Peabody Essex Museum
2009 - Gunst-Wilcox Research Grant, University of New Hampshire
2009 - Washington College Fellowship in Early American History, Boston Athenaeum
2009 - Helen Watson Buckner Fellowship, John Carter Brown Library, Brown University [Declined]
2008 - Gilder-Lehrman Short Term Fellowship, New-York Historical Society
2008 - Paul Cuffe Memorial Fellowship, Munson Institute of Mystic Seaport
2008 - Steelman Fellowship, Department of History, University of New Hampshire at Durham
2005-2009 - Teaching Assistantship, Department of History , University of New Hampshire at Durham
2005 - Research Assistantship, Simmons College School of Information Science
2003 - Research Assistantship, Simmons College Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
About
I am a historian of the Early Modern Atlantic World, with interests in race, religion, and memory studies. I currently teach at the University of New Hampshire at Manchester. I received a Ph.D. and an M.A. in History from the University of New Hampshire at Durham. I also received an M.A. in History and M.S. in Archives Management, and my B.A. from Simmons College in Boston. I have been the recipient of several research grants and fellowships, including from the John Hope Franklin Research Center at Duke University, the Boston Athenaeum, the Gilder-Lehrman Institute for Early American History, Mystic Seaport, and the American Studies Association, as well as a number of internal fellowships from UNH. I have also worked in a number of museums, libraries and archival repositories, and am a list editor for H-Atlantic. I am a regular contributor to the Junto: a Group Blog on Early American History. My first book, Inventing George Whitefield: Race, Revivalism, and the Making of a Religious Icon was published by the University Press of Mississippi in 2015 (paperback forthcoming: 2016)
You can learn more about me on the research and teaching pages. I also have an Academia.edu, LinkedIn, and Twitter feed. All blog posts, tweets, etc are my opinion and do not reflect the views of my employer.
C.V.
Current Position:
Univ. of New Hampshire at Manchester, Coordinator for Public Hist/Adjunct, 2015-present
Education:
University of New Hampshire May 2012
Ph.D., History
M.A., History
Fields: Early American History, African-American History, Religious History, Atlantic History, Early Modern British History, Modern US History, West African History, and Caribbean History
Additional coursework in College Teaching, including writing across the curriculum, 2005-2008
Simmons College May 2005
M.A., History
M.S., Archives Management
Fields: Early America History, Atlantic History, Early Modern British History, Public History
Additional coursework in digital stewardship, 2014
Simmons College May 2000
B.A. in History, with departmental honors
Fields: Early American History, Modern European History
Publications:
Books:
Inventing George Whitefield: Race, Revivalism, and the Origins of a Religious Icon (Jackson: University of Mississippi, 2015 March)
Miscellaneous Essay Contributions:
“Evolution of the Franco-American Alliance and France’s Military Contribution.” Christos Frentzos and Antonio Thompson, eds., The Routledge Handbook of U.S. Diplomatic and Military History, Colonial Period to 1877 (NY: Routledge, Forthcoming, 2014 Aug.)
“‘Freeborn Americans:’ the Rise of the Urban Wage Earner in the Early Republic, 1788-1830.” Andrew Frank, ed. The Early Republic: People and Perspectives. (New York: ABC-Clio, 2008 Nov.)
Encyclopedia Articles:
“Mourning,” “Traveling Preachers,” Religious Services, Military Camps,” and “Eulogies.” Frank, Lisa Tendrich, ed. Encyclopedia of the American Civil War (New York: ABC-Clio, 2015)
“Samuel Gridley Howe” and “The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass.” Finkelman, Paul and L. Diane Barnes, eds. Encyclopedia of African American History: From the Colonial Period through the Age of Frederick Douglass, Vol. 2. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).
“Canada,” “Mount McKinley,” “Nicaragua” and “United States.” Mccoll, R.W., ed. Encyclopedia of World Geography. (New York: Facts on File, 2005).
Reviews (Selected)
Review Essay, Edward Andrews, Native Apostles: Black and Indian Missionaries in the British Atlantic World and Hilary Wyss, English Letters and Indian Literacies: Reading, Writing, and New England Missionary Schools, 1750-1830. William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., 71, No. 4 (Oct 2014): 645-649.
Review of Ireland in the Virginian sea: colonialism in the
British Atlantic, by Audrey Horning. H-War
Review of An Empire of Small Places: Mapping the Southeastern Anglo-Indian Trade, 1732-1795, by Robert Paulett. H-War
Review of Nobility Lost: French & Canadian Martial Cultures, Indians & the End of New France, by Christian Ayne Crouch. H-War
Review of American Zion: the Old Testament as a Political Text from the Revolution to the Civil War, by Eran Shalev. H-War
Review of Creole Indigeneity: Between Myth and Nation in the Caribbean, by Shona N. Jackson. Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, Vol. 16, No. 3.
Review of Bradford’s Indian Book: Being the True Roote & Rise of American Letters as Revealed by the Native Text Embedded in Of Plimoth Plantation, by Betty Booth Donahue. Indigenous Peoples Issues and Resources [October 2012]
Review of Global Circuits of Blackness: Interrogating the African Diaspora, edited by Jean Muteba Rahier, Percy C. Hintzen and Felipe Smith. H-LatAm (September 2012)
Review of Thomas Paine: Enlightenment, Revolution and the Birth of Modern Nations, by Craig T. Nelson. NEHA News, Vol. XXXV, No. 2. (October 2009)
Review of Freedom’s Empire; Race and the Rise of the novel in Atlantic Modernity 1640-1940, by Laura Boyle. Atlantic Studies: Literary, Cultural and Historical Perspectives, 5.2 (Winter 2009)
Review Essay, Saltwater Slavery: a Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora, by Stephanie Smallwood and An African Republic: Black and White Virginians in the Making of Liberia, by Marie Tyler-McGraw. Journal of the Early Republic (Spring 2009)
Funding, Honors and Awards:
Travel Scholarship, Congregational Library, Boston, MA (2015)
John Hope Franklin Grant, John Hope Franklin Research Center, Rubinstein Library, Duke University (2015)
Travel Grant, Graduate School of the University of New Hampshire (2012)
Annette K. Baxter Grant, American Studies Association (2011)
Travel Grant, Graduate School of the University of New Hampshire (2011)
Visiting Researcher, Philips Library, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA (2009-2010)
Gunst-Wilcox Research Grant, Department of History, University of New Hampshire (2009)
Gunst-Wilcox Research Grant, Dept. of History, University of New Hampshire (2008)
Washington College Fellowship in Early American History, Boston Athenaeum (2009).
Helen Watson Buckner Memorial Fellowship, John Carter Brown Library (2009) [Declined]
Gilder Lehrman Short-Term Fellowship (2009)
Paul Cuffe Memorial Fellowship, Munson Institute of Mystic Seaport and American Antiquarian Society (2008).
Steelman Fellowship, Dept of History, University of New Hampshire (2008)
Phi Alpha Theta (Induction 10 May 2006)
Teaching Assistantship and Tuition Fellowship, Dept. of History, University of New Hampshire (2005-2009)
Travel Grant, Graduate College of Arts and Sciences, Simmons College (2004)
Papers, Presentations and Invited Talks (Selected):
“Religion and Social Networks, 1680-1765,” to be presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, 9 January 2016, Atlanta, GA. Co-sponsored by the American Society for Church History and the North American Council for British Studies.
Invited Paper: “Of All the Knowledge We Can Obtain:” Evangelism and the Making of Religious Social Networks in New England, 1730-1800,” to be presented at the Omohundro Institute for Early American History and Culture, College of William and Mary.
Invited Paper: Plotting Piety: Mapping George Whitefield and His Contemporaries. Paper to be presented at Whitefield at 300, Pembroke College, Oxford University, England, 25-27 June 2014.
Commentator, “Eighteenth-Century New England.” Panel at the spring conference of the New England Historical Association, Springfield College, Springfield, MA. 27 April 2014.
“Twas Mercy Brought me from my Pagan Land:” Religion and Racial Hierarchies in the Black Atlantic. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies, Cleveland, OH, 5 April 2013.
Colonial Georgia and the Evolution of George Whitefield’s Pro-Slavery Thought. Paper presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society of Early Americanists, Savannah, GA, 28 Feb 2013; also served as the panel’s co-organizer.
Chair and Commentator, “Religious Controversies.” Panel at the fall conference of the New England Historical Association, Merrimack College, North Andover, MA, 13 Oct. 2012.
Imagining George Whitefield: The Evolution of Whitefield’s Posthumous Image. Paper Presented to the Dissertation Seminar of the Department of History, University of New Hampshire, 1 May 2012.
“Only Dire Necessity Could Drive Me to it:” Henry Laurens and the Problem of Slavery in Revolutionary South Carolina.Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Organization of American Historians, Milwaukee, WI, 19 April 2012.
“…Under God, the Province will Flourish:”The Role of Colonial Georgia in the Transformation of George Whitefield. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association, Baltimore, MD, 23 October 2011; also served as the panel’s co-organizer.
“Baptism of Slaves Doth not Exempt them from Bondage:” the Conversion of Slaves in Colonial Virginia. Paper presented at the Second Biennial Conference on Race, Monmouth University, West Long Branch, New Jersey, 13 November 2010; also served as the panel organizer.
Never to Belong: The Making of Sierra Leone and the Limits of Englishness, 1790-1810. Paper presented at the University of Maine-University of New Brunswick International Graduate Conference, Orono, Maine, 3 October 2010; also served as the panel organizer.
Invited Panelist, Roundtable: The State of Graduate History Curricula. University of Maine-University of New Brunswick International Graduate Conference, Orono, Maine, 2 October 2010.
On the Margins of Empire: the Spectre of Black Mobility in the Age of Reason. Paper presented at the Graduate Forum at the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 7 May 2010.
Invited Talk: “…and Grace Invites him to Assert his Freedom”: Charles-Town as a Spiritual Epicenter to the Spectre of Black Mobility. Presented at the Boston Athenaeum, 26 April 2010.
Patriot or Pilferer?: Privateers and the Bounds of Republican Virtue in Revolutionary Massachusetts. Paper presented at the fall 2008 conference of the New England Historical Association at Endicott College, Beverly, MA.
Giving Voice to ‘the Black Experience:’ Slave Narratives and the Emergence of African Identity. Paper presented at the fall 2004 conference of the New England Historical Association at the College of St. Joseph, Rutland, VT.
From Anxiety to Ennui: the Rise and Fall of the Red Scare Through Cold War Film, 1947-1972. Paper presented at the spring 2004 conference of the New England Historical Association at the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA.
Teaching Experience (Selected):
Courses Taught:
African History
Amer. Civilization: Race and Ethnicity in Amer. Soc. (Writing Intensive)
American Enlightenment
American History to 1865
American History Since 1865
American Women’s History
Atlantic Slave Trade
Digital History
Haitian Revolution
History of New England
Humanities I: Ancient World through the Renaissance (Writing Intensive)
Humanities II: the Enlightenment (Writing Intensive)
Introduction to Archives
Material Culture
Oral History
Religion in American Society (Writing Intensive)
World History to 1500
World History in the Modern Era
University of New Hampshire, Manchester, Adjunct Professor 2012-2015
Emmanuel College (Boston, MA) 2014-2015
Granite State College (NH), Lecturer 2011- 2013
Ottawa University (Kansas), Online Adjunct 2012-2013
Southern New Hampshire University, Adjunct Professor 2011-2013
University of New Hampshire, Instructor, T.A. 2005-2009
Consulting:
Contributing Historian, More than a MAPP [http://www.morethanamapp.org/]
Service:
List Editor, H-Atlantic, 2013-present
University Service:
Graduate Representative to the Graduate Committee, Department of History, University of New Hampshire, 2006-2007
Graduate Representative to the Graduate Admissions Committee, Department of History, University of New Hampshire, 2006-2007
Invited Lectures/Workshops:
Civil War Roundtable, G.A.R./Lynn, MA
Workshop on Abolition, Lynn Public Schools
Online Exhibits:
“Frank Palmer Speare: Educational Visionary” Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections Department, fall 2004. [http://www.lib.neu.edu/archives/Speare/]
Natalia Garza, Michelle Light, Molly Overholt and Jessica M. Parr, “We Raise Our Voices: Celebrating Activism for Equality and Pride in Boston’s African-American, Feminist, Gay and Lesbian and Latino Communities.” Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections Department, spring 2004. [http://www.lib.neu.edu/archives/voices/]
Other Relevant Employment and Internships:
Note: Many positions were part time or temporary
Archives Assistant, Institute Archives, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 2005
Duties included processing and developing preservation plans for large collections, including the Jay Wright Forrester Papers.
Processing Assistant, Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine of Harvard Med. School, Boston, MA, 2003; Intern, spring 2004
Short-term position processing a small photographic collection documenting the history of women in medicine.
Library Assistant, Horticultural Library of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, Jamaica Plain, MA, 2002-2003; Intern, fall 2004.
Duties included processing collections, and updating and creating finding aids in OASIS and catalog records in Aleph. Completed Aleph training during the spring of 2003. I also created a preservation and disaster plan for the repository.
Library Assistant, Archives and Special Col., Northeastern University 2002-2005
Duties included processing archival collections, updating finding aids, supervising the reading room and answering research queries. I also wrote much of the code for the online finding aid delivery system and was involved in creating digital exhibits from the collections.
Tour Guide (Seasonal), William Hickling Prescott House 2001-2003
I gave tours of the William Hickling Prescott House, an eighteenth-century federalist mansion on Beacon Street in Boston, MA.
Library and Archives Assistant, Historic New England, Boston, MA 2000-2001
Assisted with research queries, supervised the photograph usage requests, digitizing collections, and I created a database for tracking the photographic collections. I also assisted with exhibits.
Intern, Facing History and Ourselves, Brookline, MA spring 2000
Assisted with photographic research for educational materials on the Armenian Genocide and the development of a Holocaust Literature and Film course for Arlington High School in Arlington, MA.
Languages:
Reading: French and German
Translation Experience: French, German, Latin, Spanish, Dutch and Welsh
Additional Skills:
Web Programming Skills, including HTML, XML, CSS, Javascript, and CGI.
EAD, MARC, and familiarity with Winnebago, Millennium and Voyager.
Current and Past Affiliations:
American Historical Association; American Studies AssociationBerkshire Conference of Women Historians; Boston Area American Religious History Group; Eighteenth Century Studies; Forum on European Expansion and Global Interaction; New England Archivists; New England Historical Association; Omohundro Institute – Associate; Organization of American Historians; Society of American Archivists; Society of Early Americanists
Teaching
My classrooms are active learning environments in which students engage with the material and with each other. In my courses, students read both secondary and primary sources. While the latter give them a taste of being historians, the former demonstrates the construction of nuanced, analytical, and evidence-driven arguments. Courses are designed to encourage collaborative learning, and students in my courses often become tight-knit collectives who are supportive of each other.
My teaching is also informed by Atlantic history in an early modern sense, and America’s place in the global community during the modern era. My preparation enables me to teach courses in the Atlantic Slave Trade and the Atlantic World, as well as more thematic courses like religious history, African American studies and race and ethnicity. I taught a writing-intensive race and ethnicity themed course at UNH Durham a few years ago to a largely homogeneous enrollment that was initially resistant to the subject matter, and received a 4.5 on my teaching evaluations. I approached the course as a historical inquiry into how ideas about race and ethnicity involved, which the students enjoyed. Many feared that the course might be sanctimonious in tone.
I have successfully taught students to approach controversial subjects in a thoughtful way. For example, many of my New England-born students are reluctant to confront the fact that New Englanders were not all abolitionists. Presenting them with thoughtful, well-researched studies, like Joanne Pope Melish’s Disowning Slavery, or Margot Minardi’s Making Slavery History encourages the students to consider the evidence, rather than approaching the topic viscerally. They come to understand that they do not always have to agree with ideas to consider them, and that in being open to considering evidence they can gain a greater understanding and appreciation of a topic. A recent student in this class told me that he “learned more about New England history in this class” than he “learned in 12 years of public school and 25 years of living here.”
Research
My forthcoming book, Inventing George Whitefield: Race, Revivalism, and the Making of a Religious Icon (U. Press of Mississippi: 2015) explores the evolution of eighteenth-century Anglican evangelist minister George Whitefield as a symbol shaped in the complexities of revivalism, the contest over religious toleration, and the conflicting role of Christianity for enslaved people.
I have two additional books in progress, both in early stages. One book is tentatively titled, ‘Twas Mercy Brought me from my Pagan Land:’ Conversion and Self-Making in the Black Atlantic.” It will examine the ways in which conversions complicated notions of freedom, race and status among black denizens of the British Atlantic. I am still in the early stages of researching and writing this book, but have some solicitations for the finished manuscript from academic presses. My analysis necessarily draws not only from slave narratives, literature, sermons, poems, and correspondences by black writers, but also from the writings of philosophers like Kant and Hume, and from the slave owners, traders, and clergy who contributed to the political, theological, and social ideas about “freedom,” “race” and “blackness.
The other book, which has a working title of “Plotting Piety,” explores the complexities of empire, religious pluralism, and revivalism, and how informal exchanges among the historical actors of the Providential Atlantic contributed to the shaping of that landscape.
Inventing George Whitefield: Race, Revivalism, and the Making of a Religious Icon
William Taylor
Journal of Southern History. 82.3 (Aug. 2016): p658.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Southern Historical Association
http://www.uga.edu/~sha
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Inventing George Whitefield: Race, Revivalism, and the Making of a Religious Icon. By Jessica M. Parr. (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2015. Pp. [viii], 235. $60.00, ISBN 978-1-62846-198-5.)
With her debut work, Inventing George Whitefield: Race, Revivalism, and the Making of a Religious Icon, Jessica M. Parr offers a compelling contribution to a well-researched field that includes Thomas S. Kidd's notable recent study, George Whitefield: America's Spiritual Founding Father (New Haven, 2014). It is understandable, then, that some of Parr's broader conclusions about Whitefield as a transatlantic personality feel more well-worn than they might have otherwise. Nevertheless, Parr's unique analytical perspective and her tight interpretative focus on Whitefield's image allow her to make a significant contribution to the growing literature on the man and his world.
Skillfully employing a variety of sources, including diaries, letters, poems, sermons, newspapers, and memorial logbooks, Parr soundly argues that George Whitefield should be seen as the key figure who unified and shaped the unwieldy Anglo-American evangelical Christianity that emerged from the Great Awakening and extended into at least the nineteenth century. Central to her argument is the unique use of the concept of a religious icon as an analytical tool. To this end, Parr relies heavily on the definition of an icon expressed by the early Christian theologian St. John of Damascus. This iconic perspective reveals that "[i]t is no accident that evangelical Christianity took off in the British Atlantic around 1739, just as Whitefield's missionary career took off. Whitefield embodied a religious culture that he helped to shape and promote" (p. 7). The process of making or "inventing" Whitefield into "a model by which a diverse group of observers could find spiritual fulfillment in an emerging, diverse, and nebulous religious culture" was not uncontested, and there were multiple contributors (p. 7). Whitefield himself used print as his preferred medium to carefully construct his transatlantic image as a reforming Anglican revivalist who emphasized the New Birth and religious toleration and who could be readily accepted by Protestants from every denomination. But he was not alone. Both during and after his life there were others who worked to shape Whitefield as an icon, such as John and Charles Wesley, Selina the Countess of Huntingdon, Phillis Wheatley, Nathaniel Whitaker, Anthony Benezet, Olaudah Equiano, and John Marrant. They co-opted his memory for their own varied purposes, which ranged from pro- and antirevivalism, to pro- and antislavery efforts, to support for the American Revolution.
Throughout, Parr clearly and persuasively makes her case, and she succeeds in this effort by focusing closely on her main interpretative claim. This limited scope is seen, among other places, in the narrow endnotes and the lack of tangential historiographical digressions. The result is a book that is refreshingly straightforward and accessible. Unfortunately, the book's few difficulties also stem from this approach. For instance, Parr primarily focuses on Whitefield and his image during the 1730s, the 1740s, and the period after his death in 1770. The wealth of evidence available for these years helps explain this emphasis, but the strategy leaves the 1750s and 1760s largely overlooked. Another curious oversight can be found in the treatment of Whitefield's wife, Elizabeth. She is never mentioned by name, and when she is briefly addressed it is on the occasion of her death. While the book's single-minded and carefully limited focus is generally a benefit, these few instances reveal a need to read Inventing George Whitefield alongside a more thorough account of Whitefield's life. In the end, though, this should not seriously detract from Parr's convincing argument regarding the significance of George Whitefield's iconic image in shaping Anglo-American evangelical Christianity from the First Great Awakening through the Second Great Awakening and beyond.
WILLIAM TAYLOR
Alabama State University
Taylor, William
Conroy-Krutz on Parr, 'Inventing George Whitefield: Race, Revivalism, and the Making of a Religious Icon'
Author:
Jessica M. Parr
Reviewer:
Emily Conroy-Krutz
Jessica M. Parr. Inventing George Whitefield: Race, Revivalism, and the Making of a Religious Icon. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2015. 235 pp. $60.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-62846-198-5; $30.00 (paper), ISBN 978-1-4968-0963-6.
Reviewed by Emily Conroy-Krutz (Michigan State University)
Published on H-AmRel (July, 2016)
Commissioned by John D. Wilsey
The Ironic and Iconic George Whitefield
In 1834, Andrew Reed and James Matheson, two Congregationalist ministers from England, walked into the Old South Presbyterian Church in Newburyport, Massachusetts. After asking the permission of the minister, they entered a tomb, removed the lid of a coffin, and looked inside. One of them picked up the skull, unable to say much as he considered the remains. This was all that was left of George Whitefield, the transatlantic minister of the mid-eighteenth century who electrified congregations in his own time and long after his death. Reed and Matheson were hardly the first to visit Whitefield’s tomb, nor the first to handle his remains. In Inventing George Whitefield, Jessica M. Parr seeks to understand how Whitefield became a figure whose bodily remains would inspire such reverence, and what this can tell us about transatlantic religion in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Whitefield has already been the subject of biographical studies and has been featured prominently in work on the First Great Awakening. Parr’s contribution to this field is to argue that to understand Whitefield, we must see him as an icon in three interconnected senses. He was at once “Whitefield the American icon, Whitefield the British Atlantic icon, and Whitefield the accidental abolitionist” icon (p. 154). How he became iconic and how his image was used by a diverse group for different ends are the subjects of Parr’s book. She is particularly interested in including Whitefield’s complicated relationship to slavery and to enslaved Christians into discussions of Whitefield and his legacy. In six brief chapters, she traces Whitefield’s origins in England, his early tours of the mid-Atlantic and southern colonies, his complex role in debates about slavery and Christianity in Georgia and South Carolina, his tours of New England, and the shifting meaning of his memory after his death in 1770.
In tracing Whitefield’s various tours of colonial America, Parr does a wonderful job of highlighting the contentious religious landscapes that Whitefield encountered everywhere he went. In England he emerged in an Anglican Church that was being challenged by dissent and the Methodist reforms of his friends Charles and John Wesley. Colonial America introduced additional divisions and tensions. Whitefield became an important figure for discussions of religious tolerance as he preached across denominational (and racial) lines and sought to unify Protestant Christians in his emphasis on the New Birth and revivalist practice. In Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, and Massachusetts, Whitefield’s arrival acted as a lightning rod in already intense conflicts within the individual colonies over many of these questions. Whitefield at first attempted to present himself as a reformer within the Anglican Church. He quickly became an icon of the New Lights and revivalism. He was warmly welcomed by some and loudly critiqued by others. To his critics, Whitefield seemed to pose a great risk to the public peace. Focusing particularly on heated disagreements with Commissary Andrew Garden in South Carolina, Parr draws our attention to moments in which Whitefield became both a participant and a subject of debate and conflict over the meaning and practice of Christianity in British America. Of particular concern were the dangers that could arise if the enslaved heard his message of human equality before God, inspiring them to rise against their masters.
In light of the book’s subtitle, race is clearly a central interest for Parr. Indeed, making sense of Whitefield involves grappling with the full complexity of the relationship between Christianity and slavery in eighteenth-century America. Whitefield is hardly consistent. In 1740, we see Whitefield criticizing South Carolinian slaveholders for both their cruel treatment of slaves and their reluctance to introduce them to Christianity. The enslaved and their masters were equal before God, Whitefield insisted. Both sinners, they stood in equal need of God’s grace and the experience of conversion. Whitefield was not convinced, though, that this spiritual equality related to any kind of earthly equality. Later in the decade, we see Whitefield campaigning for the legalization of slavery in Georgia after the initial colonial laws had banned it there. He preached a proslavery Christianity that emphasized paternalism and the importance of submission and obedience. He owned a plantation, and he owned slaves who were not freed either during his lifetime or upon his death. Due to these inconsistencies, Parr argues, “Whitefield became a symbol of the hypocrisies that his opponents saw in revivalism, and Whitefield particularly” (p. 61).
How, then, Parr asks, do we make sense of the way that Whitefield lived on after his death as an inspiration to African American Christians who made religious arguments against slavery? Prominent African Americans including Olaudah Equiano, Phillis Wheatley, and John Marrant claimed Whitefield as an important figure for their own religious lives. The three found inspiration in Whitefield’s arguments that “equality in the eyes of God suggested that freedom should extend to their earthly lives.” Given his proslavery statements in the final decades of his life, Parr notes that this was at least “somewhat ironic” (p. 148). Parr addresses the question of Whitefield’s use by abolitionists in a very full chapter that also discusses his place in the history and memory of the American Revolution. This was just one of many examples of Whitefield’s memory being used to different purposes, and Parr highlights these in the final chapters of the book. It was this tension around Whitefield and slavery, though, that had first inspired Parr to work on Whitefield, as she explains in the introduction. Although she found that there was not enough to build an entire book around, I found myself wanting to hear more in these sections and would have appreciated more of Parr’s keen insights into how to reconcile these seeming inconsistencies.
The use of the language of iconography in the book is significant and worth examining. In its casual usage, it is easy to identify Whitefield as an “icon” of revivalism. For both his supporters and his detractors, he was deeply identified with this movement to the point that he became a symbol of it. To critique Whitefield was to critique the movement he stood for; to support him was, in turn, to support the centrality of the New Birth to true Christianity. In his own writings, as Parr argues, Whitefield carefully constructed an image of himself as one upon whom Christian readers could model themselves. He presented himself as Christlike, emphasizing the ways that his own life story and his behavior paralleled that of Jesus. This was, Parr notes, in line with the concept of “Imitatio Christi” (p. 5). During his life and after his death, those who found his message compelling constructed an image of Whitefield that spoke to their own needs: to a movement for religious tolerance, for antislavery, for revivalism, and so on. Emerging as he did at a particularly conflicted moment in the religious world of the British Atlantic, Whitefield’s self-presentation allowed his supporters from a wide range of Protestant backgrounds to seize upon him as a central and unifying figure. As Parr puts it, Whitefield helped to “provide a framework to try to make sense of a nebulous, expanding, providential (protestant) British Atlantic that cried out for clarification and structure” (p. 6). Parr demonstrates beyond a doubt Whitefield’s significance in this process.
We might ask, though, whether what she has described is best understood as an icon in the religious sense, and what the use of this terminology does to help us understand Whitefield and his era more completely. Other terms might be used: in The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism (1991), for example, Harry Stout uses “celebrity” to describe a similar aspect of Whitefield’s significance. Parr’s argument is slightly different. He was “image-conscious,” but the focus on image went beyond celebrity or salesmanship (to evoke Frank Lambert’s framing of Whitefield as a “Pedlar in Divinity” in “Pedlar in Divinity”: George Whitefield and the Transatlantic Revivals [1994]). For Parr, Whitefield wasn’t simply selling revivalism or himself but rather was becoming fully identified with the movement in a profound way that allowed both followers and detractors to make sense of the religious world in which they lived by responding to him.
In making this argument about Whitefield as an icon of revivalism, Parr describes Whitefield’s detractors as “iconoclasts,” claiming that he was “scorned in the tradition of iconoclasm, even as the iconoclasm of the Protestant Reformation had long since passed” (p. 10). Accordingly, in the description of the conflict between Garden and Whitefield, Parr describes Garden as “the ultimate anti-Whitefield iconoclast” (p. 53). Rev. Dr. Durrell later becomes “another example of anti-Whitefield iconoclasm” (p. 112). This is an intriguing argument that could be more fully developed. It is unclear what about the critiques of Garden and Durrell would take them beyond the level of simple detractors to iconoclasts. On the one hand, this is simple logic in Parr’s framework: if Whitefield is an icon, then those who would take him down become iconoclasts. On the other hand, I would have liked to see Parr explain more fully how their critiques were “in the tradition of iconoclasm,” which might have helped, further, to explain the ways in which Whitefield is best understood as an icon.
Parr comes closest to answering this question in the final two chapters that focus on the years after his death. The book follows Whitefield’s image through the 1830s, and Parr brings our attention to the half-century in which Whitefield was no longer in charge of his own image and visitors to his tomb regularly handled his skull. As Parr argues for Whitefield as an icon, this image of acolytes holding and considering his remains, as well as contemporary rumors that his body had not in fact decomposed, is compelling evidence. These chapters also examine Whitefield’s funeral and the various eulogies and poems written in his honor. After his death, Parr argues, Whitefield’s importance did not diminish. It remained, and perhaps even increased, as the British Atlantic world that he occupied was changed by both the American Revolution and the shift from the First to the Second Great Awakening.
Readers interested in transatlantic revivalism or slavery and Christianity will find much to think about after reading this book. It is a useful and engaging addition to the literature on the Great Awakening and Whitefield.