Maeve Kane

My research focuses on the social and economic history of gender, race and culture contact in early America and the early modern Atlantic world, with a focus on clothing as a site of conflict over religion, sovereignty and political economy. My first book, Shirts Powdered Red: Haudenosaunee Gender, Trade, and Exchange, examines Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) women's labor and consumer choices from first contact through the reservation period of the mid-nineteenth century. My research is interdisciplinary and draws on material culture, archaeology, oral history, art, and digital methods to examine economic change and consumer agency.

My second book examines the representation of early American histories in public spaces, library catalogs, and popular media, including construction of race and authenticity in public history through historical reenactments and hobbyist living history.  I am also currently developing a digital-first project on the creation of race and ethnicity in early New York before the American Revolution.

I am available for consultations on K12 curriculum development and the contextualization of monuments, murals, and other public representations of early American history.  For further details about my consultation work and information on how to book me as a speaker or consultant, please see my personal website.

I am interested in directing graduate and undergraduate research on race, consumerism, gender, and colonialism in early America, as well as work that incorporates digital quantitative and ethnohistorical methods.

PhD Students:

Elana Krischer, 2020 "Empire State Interrupted: Constructions of Law, Property, and Sovereignty in Debates Over Seneca Land, 1779-1889."  Winner, 2020 University President's Distinguished Dissertation Award.

Michelle Renee Henault, "The Reproductive Life Cycle of Eighteenth-Century Britons"

Sara C. Evenson, "The Domestic Spaces of the Hudson Valley"

Elisabeth Tatum, "Dutchess County Debtor Networks"