Jon Grinspan
PhD Candidate (ABD)
Email: jcg8j (at) virginia.edu
Fields & Specialties
The Politics, Youth, Comedy, and Food of Nineteenth-Century America.Current Project
The Virgin Vote: Young Americans in the Age of Popular Politics tells the story of a time when young people powered American democracy. From 1840 through 1900, men and women in their teens and twenties used partisan politics to announce their identities, assert their maturity, and enjoy the “fun and frolic” of the era’s wild campaigns. Their excited participation also caught the attention of many party bosses. This project explores how the small, personal ambitions of millions of young people accumulated to sustain an unprecedented democratic experiment.
Position: Jefferson Scholars Foundation, Dissertation Year Fellow.
Education
Ph.D. Candidate, University of Virginia, Graduation in August 2013.
M.A. in American History, University of Virginia, 2008.
B.A., Sarah Lawrence College, 2006.
Recent Publications
"Riling Up the 'Shrewd, Wild Boys'", New York Times, August 10, 2012.
"The Stephen Colbert of the Civil War," New York Times, June 11, 2012.
"Humor and Comedy During Wartime," New York Times, January 10, 2012.
“Miscellaneous Foods in a Feverish Haste,” Gastronomica (August, 2011). http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/10.1525/gfc.2011.11.3.84.pdf?acceptTC=true
Academic Publications
“Sorrowfully Amusing: The Popular Comedy of the Civil War,” Journal of the Civil War Era, (September, 2011). Project MUSE - The Journal of the Civil War Era - “Sorrowfully Amusing”: The Popular Comedy of the Civil War
“‘Young Men for War’: The Wide Awakes and Lincoln’s 1860 Presidential Campaign,” Journal of American History, Lincoln Bicentennial Issue, Vol. 96, No. 2 (Sept, 2009), 357 – 378. http://www.journalofamericanhistory.org/projects/lincoln/contents/grinspan.html
Teaching
“Barbecue, Beer, and Ballots: The Political Culture of Nineteenth-Century American Campaigns,” University of Virginia Major Seminar (Fall, 2010).
Presentations
Featured Speaker, “Campaigning in the Age of Popular Politics,” at “Political Machines: Innovations in Campaigns and Elections” Symposium, Smithsonian Institution, Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation, (November 3, 2012).
