Acting Director of the Residential College; Professor of Afroamerican and African Studies, Professor of History & Arts and Ideas in the Humanities Program, Professor in the Residental College
jonwells@umich.eduOffice Information:
4732 Haven Hall
phone: 734.763.8215
Afroamerican and African Studies
About
Education
University of Michigan, Ph.D., American History, 1998
University of Michigan, M.A., American History, 1995
University of Florida, M.A., American History, 1993
Publications and Related Activities
Books (published):
(author) Women Writers and Journalists in the Nineteenth-Century South Cambridge University Press (2011) [Honorable Mention, Spruill Prize, Southern Association of Women Historians, 2012]
(author) A House Divided: The Civil War and Nineteenth-Century America Routledge (2011) (second edition forthcoming in Fall 2016)
(co-editor) The Southern Middle Class in the Long Nineteenth Century LSU Press (2011)
(co-editor) Entering the Fray: Gender, Culture, and Politics in the New South University of Missouri Press (2010)
(editor) Slavery and the New World Pickering & Chatto Publishers, London (2009)
(editor) The Southern Literary Messenger, University of South Carolina Press (2007)
(author) The Origins of the Southern Middle Class, 1800-1861, University of North Carolina Press (2004)
(co-editor) The Literary and Historical Index to American Magazines, Praeger (2004)
Books (in progress):
(author) The New York Kidnapping Club: Slavery and Freedom in America’s Metropolis
(editor) The Routledge Handbook on Nineteenth-Century America
Selected Essays, Articles, and Reviews:
“Charles Dickens, the American South, and the Transatlantic Debate over Slavery,” Slavery & Abolition 35 (May 2014)
“Writers, Editors, and Intellectual Exchange between the Antebellum North and South,” Alabama Review 67 (January 2014)
Professionalization and the Southern Middle Class,” essay/chapter in, Louis M. Kyriakoudes, ed., The Transformation of Southern Society (University of Missouri Press, 2011)
“Class and Slavery,” 35-page essay in Mark M. Smith, ed., The Oxford Handbook on Slavery (Oxford University Press, 2010)
“A Voice in the Nation: Women and Journalism in the Antebellum South,” American Nineteenth-Century History (June 2008)
“The Southern Middle Class,” invitation-only, state-of-the-field essay for the 75th anniversary issue of the Journal of Southern History (August 2009)
“The Transformation of John Pendleton Kennedy: Maryland, the Republican Party, and the Civil War,” Maryland Historical Magazine, 95 (Fall 2000): 290-307
Book manuscripts reviewed for Cambridge University Press, LSU Press, University of Kentucky Press, University of Illinois Press, University of Georgia Press, University of South Carolina Press, and others. Article manuscripts reviewed for The Journal of the Early Republic, Civil War History, Journal of Southern History, and The Journal of the Civil War Era.
Book reviews published in Journal of American History, American Historical Review, Civil War History, Journal of Southern History, Georgia Historical Quarterly, American Nineteenth-Century History, Southern Spaces, New Left History, Journal of the Civil War Era, H-SOUTH, H-SAWH, North Carolina Historical Review, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, and others
Grants, Fellowships, and Awards
Julia Spruill Book Prize, Honorable Mention, Southern Association for Women Historians 2012, for Women Writers and Journalists
American Antiquarian Society, Visiting Scholar, 2011
The Virginia Historical Society, Research Grant. 2008-2009
Franklin Research Grant, American Philosophical Society 2008
Gilder Lehrman Institute Fellowship 2003
Albert J. Beveridge Research Grant, American Historical Association
Archie K. Davis Research Grant, North Caroliniana Society
Mellon Dissertation Fellowship, University of Michigan 1996-1998
Mellon Dissertation Research Fellowship, University of Michigan 1996
Selected Conferences and Invited Lectures
"Blind No More: Self-Emancipation, Northern Politics, and the Sectional Crisis," University of Hawaii, February 2015
"The Literary Culture of the Nineteenth-Century South," Southern Intellectual History Circle, South Carolina, February 2015
"The Arc of Injustice: Class and Race in the Nineteenth-Century South," Organization of American Historians, St. Lous, April 2015
“Charles Dickens, Race, and the American South,” Southern Intellectual History Circle, 2013
“Class and the Coming of the Civil War,” British American Nineteenth-Century Association,” 2013
Commentator, “Edward Pessen’s Riches, Class, and Power: A Retrospective,” Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, 2013
Chair, “Abolition and the Civil War,” Pennsylvania Historical Association Meeting, 2013
Commentator, “Entrepreneurial and Business Networks Between South and North,” Southern Historical Association, 2012
Commentator, “Compromise and Crisis in the Politics of the 1850s,” Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, 2012
Commentator, “Sectional Identity in the Civil War,” Society of Civil War Historians, 2012
Commentator, “The American Civil War in Global Perspective,” Business History Conference, 2012
Program Chair, Southern Industrialization Project Annual Meeting, 2011
“’Our Dearest Rights and Liberties:’ The Fugitive Slave Law and the Coming of the Civil War,” SHEAR, 2011|
Commentator, “Race and Immigration in the New South,” After Slavery Conference, 2010
Chair and Commentator, “Gender and Sectional Identity,” Southern Association for Women Historians, 2009
“Gender and Journalism in the Nineteenth-Century South,” Symposium of the 19th-century Press, the Civil War, and Free Expression, 2008
“Reconstructing the Southern Middle Class: Commercial and Professional Southerners after the Civil War,” American Historical Association, 2007
Chair, “The Politics of Domestic Spaces: Gender, Class, and Race in the 19th-century South,” Southern Association for Women Historians, 2006
“The Southern Middle Class in the Nineteenth Century,” invited lecture, St. George Tucker Society, 2006
“The Transformation of the South, 1800-1865,” Southern Historical Association, 2005
Commentator, “Women and Class in the Old South,” Southern Association of Women Historians Meeting, Richmond, VA, 2000
“The Cultural Origins of the Southern Middle Class,” invited lecture, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 1998
“Reason and Passion: The Intellectual Culture of the Old South,” Southern Historical Association Conference, 1997
“The Belle as Breadwinner: Women Editors in the Old South” Southern Association of Women Historians Meeting, 1997
“Rethinking Gender in the Old South: Women and Southern Literary Magazines,” SHEAR, 1996
Professional Service
Co-editor, Journal of the Early Republic, 2012-2014
Co-editor, Book Review Section, Journal of the Early Republic, 2010-2011
Avery O. Craven Award Committee, Organization of American Historians, 2014-5
Board of Editors, Southern Historian, 2013-
Prize Committee, Bennett H. Wall Prize, SHA, 2013-4
Program Chair, Meeting of the Southern Industrial Project, Summer 2011
Best Article Prize Committee, SAWH, 2009
Founder and Director, Center for the Study of the New South, UNC Charlotte
Academic Appointments
University of Michigan, Professor, 2014-
Temple University, Professor, 2012-2014
Temple University, Associate Professor, 2009-2012
University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Associate Professor and Director of the Center for the Study of the New South, 2007-2009
Teaching Experience (Selected Courses Taught)
American History 1600-1865
American History 1865-Present
World Civilization I
World Civilization II
Antebellum Culture and History
American History through Fiction
The Novel in American History
The Old South
The American Civil War
North Carolina History
Jacksonian America
English Composition
Freshmen Seminar
College Academic Skills
Radicals and Dissenters in the South
Race and the Law in the New South
US History Colloquium (graduate level)
US History Seminar (graduate level)
Social and Cultural History of Nineteenth-Century America (graduate level)
Professional Affiliations
American Historical Association
Organization of American Historians
Southern Historical Association
Society for Historians of the Early American Republic
British Association for American Nineteenth-Century History
Affiliation(s)
- Department of Afroamerican and African Studies
- Residential College
About
Education
University of Michigan, Ph.D., American History, 1998
University of Michigan, M.A., American History, 1995
University of Florida, M.A., American History, 1993
Publications and Related Activities
Books (published):
(author) Women Writers and Journalists in the Nineteenth-Century South Cambridge University Press (2011) [Honorable Mention, Spruill Prize, Southern Association of Women Historians, 2012]
(author) A House Divided: The Civil War and Nineteenth-Century America Routledge (2011) (second edition forthcoming in Fall 2016)
(co-editor) The Southern Middle Class in the Long Nineteenth Century LSU Press (2011)
(co-editor) Entering the Fray: Gender, Culture, and Politics in the New South University of Missouri Press (2010)
(editor) Slavery and the New World Pickering & Chatto Publishers, London (2009)
(editor) The Southern Literary Messenger, University of South Carolina Press (2007)
(author) The Origins of the Southern Middle Class, 1800-1861, University of North Carolina Press (2004)
(co-editor) The Literary and Historical Index to American Magazines, Praeger (2004)
Books (in progress):
(author) The New York Kidnapping Club: Slavery and Freedom in America’s Metropolis
(editor) The Routledge Handbook on Nineteenth-Century America
Selected Essays, Articles, and Reviews:
“Charles Dickens, the American South, and the Transatlantic Debate over Slavery,” Slavery & Abolition 35 (May 2014)
“Writers, Editors, and Intellectual Exchange between the Antebellum North and South,” Alabama Review 67 (January 2014)
Professionalization and the Southern Middle Class,” essay/chapter in, Louis M. Kyriakoudes, ed., The Transformation of Southern Society (University of Missouri Press, 2011)
“Class and Slavery,” 35-page essay in Mark M. Smith, ed., The Oxford Handbook on Slavery (Oxford University Press, 2010)
“A Voice in the Nation: Women and Journalism in the Antebellum South,” American Nineteenth-Century History (June 2008)
“The Southern Middle Class,” invitation-only, state-of-the-field essay for the 75th anniversary issue of the Journal of Southern History (August 2009)
“The Transformation of John Pendleton Kennedy: Maryland, the Republican Party, and the Civil War,” Maryland Historical Magazine, 95 (Fall 2000): 290-307
Book manuscripts reviewed for Cambridge University Press, LSU Press, University of Kentucky Press, University of Illinois Press, University of Georgia Press, University of South Carolina Press, and others. Article manuscripts reviewed for The Journal of the Early Republic, Civil War History, Journal of Southern History, and The Journal of the Civil War Era.
Book reviews published in Journal of American History, American Historical Review, Civil War History, Journal of Southern History, Georgia Historical Quarterly, American Nineteenth-Century History, Southern Spaces, New Left History, Journal of the Civil War Era, H-SOUTH, H-SAWH, North Carolina Historical Review, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, and others
Grants, Fellowships, and Awards
Julia Spruill Book Prize, Honorable Mention, Southern Association for Women Historians 2012, for Women Writers and Journalists
American Antiquarian Society, Visiting Scholar, 2011
The Virginia Historical Society, Research Grant. 2008-2009
Franklin Research Grant, American Philosophical Society 2008
Gilder Lehrman Institute Fellowship 2003
Albert J. Beveridge Research Grant, American Historical Association
Archie K. Davis Research Grant, North Caroliniana Society
Mellon Dissertation Fellowship, University of Michigan 1996-1998
Mellon Dissertation Research Fellowship, University of Michigan 1996
Selected Conferences and Invited Lectures
"Blind No More: Self-Emancipation, Northern Politics, and the Sectional Crisis," University of Hawaii, February 2015
"The Literary Culture of the Nineteenth-Century South," Southern Intellectual History Circle, South Carolina, February 2015
"The Arc of Injustice: Class and Race in the Nineteenth-Century South," Organization of American Historians, St. Lous, April 2015
“Charles Dickens, Race, and the American South,” Southern Intellectual History Circle, 2013
“Class and the Coming of the Civil War,” British American Nineteenth-Century Association,” 2013
Commentator, “Edward Pessen’s Riches, Class, and Power: A Retrospective,” Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, 2013
Chair, “Abolition and the Civil War,” Pennsylvania Historical Association Meeting, 2013
Commentator, “Entrepreneurial and Business Networks Between South and North,” Southern Historical Association, 2012
Commentator, “Compromise and Crisis in the Politics of the 1850s,” Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, 2012
Commentator, “Sectional Identity in the Civil War,” Society of Civil War Historians, 2012
Commentator, “The American Civil War in Global Perspective,” Business History Conference, 2012
Program Chair, Southern Industrialization Project Annual Meeting, 2011
“’Our Dearest Rights and Liberties:’ The Fugitive Slave Law and the Coming of the Civil War,” SHEAR, 2011|
Commentator, “Race and Immigration in the New South,” After Slavery Conference, 2010
Chair and Commentator, “Gender and Sectional Identity,” Southern Association for Women Historians, 2009
“Gender and Journalism in the Nineteenth-Century South,” Symposium of the 19th-century Press, the Civil War, and Free Expression, 2008
“Reconstructing the Southern Middle Class: Commercial and Professional Southerners after the Civil War,” American Historical Association, 2007
Chair, “The Politics of Domestic Spaces: Gender, Class, and Race in the 19th-century South,” Southern Association for Women Historians, 2006
“The Southern Middle Class in the Nineteenth Century,” invited lecture, St. George Tucker Society, 2006
“The Transformation of the South, 1800-1865,” Southern Historical Association, 2005
Commentator, “Women and Class in the Old South,” Southern Association of Women Historians Meeting, Richmond, VA, 2000
“The Cultural Origins of the Southern Middle Class,” invited lecture, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 1998
“Reason and Passion: The Intellectual Culture of the Old South,” Southern Historical Association Conference, 1997
“The Belle as Breadwinner: Women Editors in the Old South” Southern Association of Women Historians Meeting, 1997
“Rethinking Gender in the Old South: Women and Southern Literary Magazines,” SHEAR, 1996
Professional Service
Co-editor, Journal of the Early Republic, 2012-2014
Co-editor, Book Review Section, Journal of the Early Republic, 2010-2011
Avery O. Craven Award Committee, Organization of American Historians, 2014-5
Board of Editors, Southern Historian, 2013-
Prize Committee, Bennett H. Wall Prize, SHA, 2013-4
Program Chair, Meeting of the Southern Industrial Project, Summer 2011
Best Article Prize Committee, SAWH, 2009
Founder and Director, Center for the Study of the New South, UNC Charlotte
Academic Appointments
University of Michigan, Professor, 2014-
Temple University, Professor, 2012-2014
Temple University, Associate Professor, 2009-2012
University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Associate Professor and Director of the Center for the Study of the New South, 2007-2009
Teaching Experience (Selected Courses Taught)
American History 1600-1865
American History 1865-Present
World Civilization I
World Civilization II
Antebellum Culture and History
American History through Fiction
The Novel in American History
The Old South
The American Civil War
North Carolina History
Jacksonian America
English Composition
Freshmen Seminar
College Academic Skills
Radicals and Dissenters in the South
Race and the Law in the New South
US History Colloquium (graduate level)
US History Seminar (graduate level)
Social and Cultural History of Nineteenth-Century America (graduate level)
Professional Affiliations
American Historical Association
Organization of American Historians
Southern Historical Association
Society for Historians of the Early American Republic
British Association for American Nineteenth-Century History
Affiliation(s)
- Department of Afroamerican and African Studies
- Residential College
