Author Description

About the Author Mary Beth Norton, the Mary Donlon Alger Professor of American History at Cornell University, received her B.A. from the University of Michigan and her Ph.D. from Harvard University. She teaches courses in the history of exploration, early America, women's history, Atlantic world, and American Revolution. Her many books have won prizes from the Society of American Historians, Berkshire Conference of Women Historians, and English-Speaking Union. Her book, FOUNDING MOTHERS & FATHERS (1996), was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. In 2011 her book SEPARATED BY THEIR SEX: WOMEN IN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE IN THE COLONIAL ATLANTIC WORLD was published. She was Pitt Professor of American History at the University of Cambridge in 2005-2006. The Rockefeller Foundation, Guggenheim Foundation, and Huntington Library, among others, have awarded her fellowships. Professor Norton has served on the National Council for the Humanities and is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has appeared on Book TV, the History and Discovery Channels, PBS, and NBC as a commentator on Early American history.Carol Sheriff received her B.A. from Wesleyan University and her Ph.D. from Yale University. She has taught at the College of William and Mary since 1993, where she has won the Thomas Jefferson Teaching Award, the Alumni Teaching Fellowship Award, and the University Professorship for Teaching Excellence. Carol teaches the U.S. history survey as well as classes on the Early Republic, the Civil War Era, and the American West. Her publications include THE ARTIFICIAL RIVER: THE ERIE CANAL AND THE PARADOX OF PROGRESS (1996), which won the Dixon Ryan Fox Award from the New York State Historical Association and the Award for Excellence in Research from the New York State Archives, and A PEOPLE AT WAR: CIVILIANS AND SOLDIERS IN AMERICA'S CIVIL WAR, 1854-1877 (with Scott Reynolds Nelson, 2007). Carol has written sections of a teaching manual for the New York