Megan Cherry

Bio

Megan Lindsay Cherry is an associate professor in North American history during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.  They received their Ph.D. in History from Yale University in 2013.  Professor Cherry’s research interests focus on the political, imperial, and social history of North America during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Cherry’s forthcoming first book, New York Asunder, explains the causes and consequences of Leisler’s Rebellion, which shook New York from 1689 to 1691, while its legacy continued to shape New York politics for the next three decades.  The majority of colonists in New York supported the uprising, which stripped the ruling elite of their power and instituted a new local government.  Previous scholarship has portrayed the rebellion as an ethnic, class, or religious conflict.  Their work shows that the rebellion was an ideological uprising that had deep roots in contemporary political developments in England and the Netherlands. This work has received external support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the New-York Historical Society, the Whiting Foundation, the Institute for Historical Research, and the Gilder Lehrman Institute.

Their second book project will focus on gin in eighteenth century North America.  Other research topics range from taxation policy in the British Atlantic, to election controversies in New York, to Jacobitism in North America.

Cherry teaches courses on colonial North America, the American Revolution, early America to 1865, sexuality in U.S. history, the Atlantic world, and standard departmental courses on historical methods for undergraduates and historical writing for graduate students. They also serve as a co-coordinator for the local Triangle Early American History Seminar. 

Website: https://ncsu.academia.edu/MeganCherry

Publications

“The Hanoverian Succession in North America,” in The Protestant Succession: The Dawn of the Hanoverian Age in Great Britain and its Empire, ed. Allan MacInnes and Brent Sirota (Boydell & Brewer, 2019): 119-135.

Review of Antoinette Sutto, Loyal Protestants and Dangerous Papists: Maryland and the Politics of Religion in the English Atlantic, 1630-1690 (University of Virginia Press, 2015), in The William and Mary Quarterly 74, no. 2 (April 2017), 189-192.

“The Imperial and Political Motivations Behind the English Conquest of New Netherland,” Dutch Crossing: A Journal of Low Countries Studies 34, no. 1 (March 2010): 77-94.

Presentations

“Did Salutary Neglect Exist? A Case Study of New York, c.1691-1715,”  conference on ‘Crafting Narratives of Empire: Contested Roots of Revolution in the Long Eighteenth Century,’ Institute of Thomas Paine Studies at Iona College, 24 September 2022.

“Adaptable Bingo Game for Students Learning to Use Research Databases,” ITLC Lilly National Online Conference, April 2022.

“Shooting the Sh*t about Androboros: British North America’s First Play,” Triangle Early American History Seminar, 19 November 2021.

“Reframing America’s First Play in an Atlantic Context: Political Economy in Androboros” Omohundro Institute 26th annual Conference, online, June 17-19 2021.

“Scatalogical Satire and Political Economy in Early Eighteenth-Century New York,” North American Conference on British Studies, Vancouver, 14-17 November 2019.

“Teaching the U.S. Survey in the Age of #VastEarlyAmerica,” Omohundro Institute 24th Annual Conference, Williamsburg, Virginia, 14-17 June 2018.

“Anglo-Dutch political thought in colonial New York,” North American Conference on British Studies, Denver, 3-5 November 2017.

“New York Factionalism during the British ‘Rage of Party,’” public talk presented at the New-York Historical Society, 6 March 2017.

“Rumor Has It: Rumor as a Political Tool in New York in the 1690s,” North American Conference on British Studies, Portland, 8-10 November 2013.

“‘This City Divided’: The Ideology of Leisler’s Rebellion,” Triangle Early American History Seminar, 19 April 2013.

“Rebels with a Cause: Leislerian Ideology in New York,” Department of History, Duke University, 15 April 2013.

“Competing Imperial Designs in New York,” North American Conference on British Studies, Denver, 18-20 November 2011.

“Explaining the Esopus Mutiny in Seventeenth-Century New York,” McNeil Center for Early American Studies, University of Pennsylvania, 17 November 2010.

“Leislerian and Anti-Leislerian Political Ideologies in an Atlantic Context,” Cities in Revolt: The Dutch-American Atlantic, ca. 1650-1830, Columbia University, 13-14 November 2009.

“Political Fault Lines in Late Seventeenth-Century New York City,” Anglo-American Conference of Historians: Cities, Institute of Historical Research, University of London, 2 -3 July 2009.

“Colonizing the Dutch: English Imperial Strategies in Late Seventeenth-Century New York,” Low Countries Seminar, Institute of Historical Research, University of London, 1 May 2009.

“Why did the English capture New Netherland?” Conference on New York State History, Skidmore College, 5-7 June 2008.

Graduate Advising

I am happy to work with graduate students (and undergraduate honors students) on topics relating to early North America and/or the early modern Atlantic world.  I recommend that students who want to work with me contact me before they apply to our graduate program.