Historical Political Economy and the United States
Price School of Public Policy
May 5-6, 2026
Lewis Hall (RGL) 308
May 5:
8:30 am to 8:55 am: Light Breakfast served
8:55 am to 9:00 am: Short comments by Jenkins
9:00 am to 9:50 am: Paper 1
“Boosters and Barracks: The Political Economy of Indian Industrial Schools”
Melissa Rogers (Claremont Graduate U)
10:00 to 10:50 am: Paper 2
“Geographies of the Nineteenth Century American State”
Adam Sheingate (Johns Hopkins U)
11:00 am to 11:50 am: Paper 3
“System or Self: The Role of Slaveholding on Congressional Behavior in the American North, 1789-1861”
Paul Rhode (University of Michigan)
12:00 pm to 1:30 pm: Lunch
1:30 to 2:40 pm: Paper 4
“Policy Consequences of Civil Society: Evidence from German-American Counter-Mobilization to Prohibition”
Benjamin Schneer (Harvard Kennedy School)
2:50 to 3:40 pm: Paper 5
“Democratic Land Policy”
John Ferejohn (New York University)
3:50 to 4:40 pm: Roundtable
Participants: Trevon Logan (Ohio State U), Hannah Simpson (Wash U), and Sean Gailmard (UC Berkeley)
6:30 pm: Dinner (Bacari West Adams)
May 6:
8:30 am to 9 am: Light Breakfast served
9:00 am to 9:50 am: Paper 6
“Competition as a Driver of Democratization? Suffrage and Migration in the Antebellum U.S.”
Netanel Ben-Porath (Northwestern U)
10:00 to 10:50 am: Paper 7
“Party Organizations and Patronage in Gilded Age America”
Boris Heersink (Fordham U)
11:00 am to 11:50 am: Paper 8
“The Contingent Racial Politics of Municipal Incorporation”
Michael Greenberger (U of Denver)