@oieahc
We support the scholars and scholarship of early America, broadly understood to mean the Atlantic World between roughly the 1480s and 1820. We publish the William and Mary Quarterly and a series of award-winning books as well as sponsor conferences & more.
The January issue of The William and Mary Quarterly is out now, featuring new work on Indigenous land claims, revolutionary law and governance, and the line between sailor and pirate in early America.
Read Vol. 83, No. 1: muse.jhu.edu/journal/664
More ways to discover Vast Early America
The OI Reader is the Omohundro Institute’s digital platform for exploring innovative born-digital projects.
Check out the many free tools available via Open OI and Open WMQ on oireader.wm.edu
Jonathan Gienapp joins the Omohundro Institute for a public lecture on constitutional originalism & the authority of history.
📅 Mar 18, 2026, 4–5:30 PM EDT
📍 Hennage Auditorium
Register: oieahc.wm.edu/events-overview/events/vast-early-america-lecture-with-jonathan-gienapp
Image: Wikimedia Commons
Christopher Baldwin’s “An Enslaved Community, Imperial Warfare, and the 1746 Invasion of Saint-Barthélemy” on a 1746 raid. In WMQ: muse.jhu.edu/article/973896 Image: “La Saint-Barthélemy et la critique moderne,” British Library (Flickr Commons/Wikimedia)
How did people manage menstruation before modern products?
This Commonplace article explores the history of menstrual padding, examining the materials, practices, and social meanings that shaped menstrual management in the past. Read the full piece here: commonplace.online/article/padding-out
How does a republic come undone? “Unmaking an American Republic,” published in The William and Mary Quarterly, examines the forces that challenged the stability of the early United States. Read the full article in this issue of WMQ on Project MUSE: muse.jhu.edu/issue/55884
Did one invention reshape U.S. history? Commonplace revisits Eli Whitney’s cotton gin and its role in deepening slavery and driving sectional conflict.
commonplace.online/article/how-...
📷 Eli Whitney, by Samuel Morse (1822), public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
WMQ Spotlight: “Old Soldiours trained up in the Netherlands.”
This early-17th-century phrase, tied to Richard Hakluyt’s 1609 counsel, shows how military training, persuasion, and coercion shaped early imperial thought.
Read on Project MUSE: muse.jhu.edu/issue/55884
Image: Jacob de Gheyn II (CC0).
We’re hiring: Editor of William & Mary Quarterly — a ten-year, renewable, tenure-eligible appointment at the rank of Full or advanced Associate Professor. Appointment begins June 25, 2026. Review begins November 24, 2025. williammary.wd12.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/WM/det...
The Oct. issue of The William and Mary Quarterly is out now! It follows Dutch-trained soldiers to Jamestown, uncovers enslaved resistance in the Caribbean, revisits abolition-era debates through new eyes, and shows how Equiano’s reach went farther than previously known. muse.jhu.edu/issue/55884
Congrats to Naomi Sussman, winner of the 2025 Robert F. Heizer Article Award for “‘Related Around the Mountain’” (in Ethnohistory). @ethnohistjournal.bsky.social
More info: ethnohistory.org/awards-suppo...
📅 Oct. 24–25 • 📍 Williamsburg, VA
For 2026: Wartime Transformations Conference — how Revolutionary conflict reshaped lives across & beyond British North America.
Register & learn more: oieahc.wm.edu/events-overv...
#For2026 #WartimeTransformations #History
Conflict in the age of Revolution reached far beyond battlefields.
Join scholars & public historians at For 2026: Wartime Transformations (Oct. 24–25, Williamsburg, VA).
Register & learn more: oieahc.wm.edu/events-overv...
#For2026 #WartimeTransformations
What he said! And don't forget that the deadline to apply for seats at Sarah Finley's and Kristin Gallas's excellent tables has been extended to midnight, Sunday, October 19!
Join us for the Digital Projects Coffeehouse for fascinating digital initiatives in #vastearlyamerica, and be sure to apply for Prof. Sarah Finley's “Oceanic Perspectives on Vast Early America” or Kristin Gallas “Whose History, Whose Voice? The Future of Interpreting Enslavement at Historic Sites”
Coffeehouse ad for extended deadline of October 19, 2025.
Extended deadline to apply for seats at our two NEW OI Coffeehouses, #VastEarlyAmerica AND a whole new year of the Digital Projects Coffeehouse and the "Just Write" table -- check it out! oieahc.wm.edu/events-overv...
We are diving back in to another season of OI Coffeehouses, Vast Early America! Come check them out - two have application deadlines of midnight, October 12, so apply now! oieahc.wm.edu/events-overv...
The Forest History Society's Blegen Article Award has gone to Eric Herschthal and John L. Brooke for their WMQ article “The Plantation Carbon Complex: Slavery and the Origins of Climate Change in the Early Modern British Atlantic” (April 2024). Congratulations to both! lnkd.in/ePkYr5nt
Still time to apply for the 2026 WMQ-EMSI workshop at the Huntington Library. Proposals due Sept. 15:🗃️
oieahc.wm.edu/events-overv...
What he says!
Little less than a month left to get your proposal in for "WARTIME TRANSFORMATIONS" the 4th in the "For 2026" series. What better time to discuss the AmRev than now and where better than Williamsburg? CFP closes 4/15. bit.ly/3Fk6Rl5
Thanks for catching that! We will get it fixed!
In or around Williamsburg VA tomorrow afternoon? We may not have a huge bridge, hip restaurants, or even any restaurants -hip or not- open after about 9 pm but! we DO have none other than MARLENE DAUT coming to speak! Join us!
oieahc.wm.edu/events-overv...
We've had two great @oieahc.bsky.social DH Coffeehouse sessions so far this term featuring two compelling projects on slavery, archives, artificial intelligence, and the orality of early America. Check out Jane Landers, Daniel Genkins, and Sophie White. More to come!
youtube.com/playlist?lis...
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Excited to announce that Sara E. Johnson has won the 2024 P. Sterling Stuckey Book Prize from the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora (ASWAD)! Congratulations, Prof. Johnson!
And another great lecture next week - join us for the Vast Early America Lecture with Marlene Daut, "A King's World: The Rise and Fall of Haiti's King Henry Christophe." Hennage Aud., Art Museums of Colonial Wmsbg, 5:00 pm on WEDS, MARCH 5. oieahc.wm.edu/events-overv...
If you are in the Williamsburg area then join us on Thursday, 2/27, at 5 pm for a talk by the APS's Pat Spero on Andre Michaux, "The Scientist Turned Spy" - bit.ly/oi-lecture-s...
The last bits of winter storm "Kingston" are gone and we are back on track...
Thank you! Glad to be here.
Thank you!!