Joanne Freeman

Joanne B. Freeman, Alan J. Boles, Jr. Professor of History and American Studies, specializes in the politics and political culture of the revolutionary and early national periods of American history. She earned her Ph.D. at the University of Virginia. Her first book, Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic (Yale University), won the Best Book award from the Society of Historians of the Early American Republic (2002). She has also edited Alexander Hamilton: Writings (Library of America) – one of the Atlantic Monthly’s “best books” of 2001; and The Essential Hamilton: Letters and Other Writings (Library of America); and co-edited Jeffersonian Republicans in Power, 1800-1824 with Johann Neem. Her most recent book, The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War, explores physical violence in the U.S. Congress between 1830 and 1860, and what it suggests about Congress; American sectionalism; and the longstanding roots of the Civil War. A finalist for the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize, it was a New York Times Notable Book for 2018, a best book of the year for Mother Jones and National Public Radio, and one of the 10 best history books of the year for the Smithsonian. Recent articles include “The Ethos of Revolution: Past and Present,” in The Revolution at 250, ed. Frank Cogliano (forthcoming, University of Virginia); and “Thinking Like a Colonist: The Road to 1776,” in Declaring the Revolution (forthcoming, University of Chicago).

 

An elected member of the Society of American Historians, the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the American Antiquarian Society, Freeman has won fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Dirkson Congressional Research Center, the American Historical Association, and the Library of Congress, among others. During the 2007-8 academic year, she was a fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Writers and Scholars, New York Public Library. In 2021-22, she was the President of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic. Freeman is a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians and was rated one of the nation’s “Top Young Historians” in 2005. Board of Trustees or Advisory Board memberships include or have included The Society of American Historians, the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, the Library of America, the Benjamin Franklin Papers at Yale, the National Council for History Education, and the U.S. Capitol Historical Society. Recent awards include the William Hickling Prescott Award for Excellence in Historical Writing (with Heather Cox Richardson) from the Massachusetts Historical Society (2022); and the Paul Gagnon Prize for Scholarship and the Promotion of History Education from the National Council for History Education (2022).

 

Freeman’s articles have appeared in a wide range of academic journals including William and Mary Quarterly, Journal of the Early Republic, Journal of Policy History, and Yale Law Journal. She has written op-ed pieces for the New York Times, the Atlantic, Politico, and the Washington Post, among others; appeared in documentaries or as a commentator on PBS, CNN, ABC, CBS, and the History Channel; and on radio programs for NPR and the BBC. 

 

Long committed to public-minded history, Freeman has co-curated museum exhibitions, been a historical consultant for documentary filmmakers, and gives frequent public lectures. A leading expert on Alexander Hamilton, she was the historical consultant for the National Park Service in its reconstruction of Alexander Hamilton’s home, the Alexander Hamilton Grange National Memorial; Lin-Manuel Miranda used Freeman’s work and consulted with her in writing Hamilton: An American Musical; and she was the main historical consultant from 2017-19 for Hamilton: An Exhibition, an interactive history exhibit created by the musical’s producers in Chicago. Freeman has also worked extensively with high school history teachers in workshops, lectures, and symposia around the nation.

 

Freeman’s public history work is also online. She was a co-host of the popular history podcast, BackStory from 2017-2020; co-hosted the award-winning history podcast Now & Then with Heather Cox Richardson from 2021-23; and as of 2024, the two co-host What the Heck Just Happened?, available weekly on their YouTube channels. Since 2020, Freeman’s weekly podcast, History Matters (…and So Does Coffee!), reaches thousands of people every week. Her most recent venture, the nighttime podcast A Few Thoughts for Those Who Can’t Sleep, reaches tens of thousands.

 

Two of Freeman’s Yale courses are also online and available on YouTube: The American Revolution (2010) at https://oyc.yale.edu/history/hist-116; and The DeVane Lecture: America at 250: A History (2025) and the podcast that accompanied it – co-taught with David Blight and Beverly Gage – at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLh9mgdi4rNezTQrY_6XMNBWaZqLRdgpoq. Freeman maintains a professional web site at https://www.joannebfreeman.com/. Her lectures and online work are on her YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@joannefreeman1755.

 

Freeman teaches graduate reading and research courses in early national American and political history; and undergraduate seminars on early national politics and political culture, as well as lecture courses on the American Revolution and early national America. She was awarded the William Clyde DeVane Teaching Award in 2017, and the Sidonie Miskimin Clauss Prize for Teaching Excellence in the Humanities in 2028.