Department of History

Corcoran

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Bethany McGlyn

Contact

Office Hours: Wednesday, 11-12 or by appointment Nau 338

Field & Specialties

Early American History
American Material Culture
Slavery and Capitalism
Public History

Education

M.A. History, University of Virginia (2023)

M.A. Thesis, "'Scarcity of Skillful Hands': Carpentry at Monticello, 1769-1830"

M.A. American Material Culture, University of Delaware (2020)

M.A. Thesis, "Who Built the City on the Severn? Slavery, Material Culture, and Landscapes of Labor in Early Annapolis"

B.S., History, Towson University (2018)

Biography

Bethany McGlyn is a third-year PhD candidate and Jefferson Scholars Foundation Fellow studying craft labor and material culture in early America and the Atlantic World. Her dissertation is entitled "'Work and Be Happy': Craft, Slavery, and Freedom in Pennsylvania, 1783-1840."

Bethany has worked in curatorial departments at Historic Rock Ford, Winterthur, Historic Annapolis, and the National Parks Service, and is the inaugural Curatorial Fellow at the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello. Her work has been supported by the Alexandria Association, Furniture History Society, Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello, Jefferson Scholars Foundation, Winterthur Museum, Garden, and Library, The Decorative Arts Trust, George Washington’s Mount Vernon, Vernacular Architecture Forum, Homewood Museum at Johns Hopkins University, and the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts.

Publications

Review of Hayden R. Smith, Carolina’s Golden Fields: Inland Rice Cultivation in the South Carolina Lowcountry, 1670-1860 in H-Net Environment, July 2021.