Professor Craig Friend Elected President of Society for Historians of the Early American Republic

Craig Thompson Friend, Director of Public History and H&SS Distinguished Graduate Professor, has become the 37th President of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic (SHEAR), the foremost professional association for the study of the founding and early republican eras of United States history. Founded in 1977, the society has about nine hundred members, many of them award-winning historians and public intellectuals.

Professor Friend, who served as SHEAR’s national conference coordinator from 2004 to 2015, and also served on the organization’s nominating committee, journal editorial board, and local arrangements committee, became president in July during the society’s annual conference in Philadelphia. He has written and published on early American frontiers, the social and cultural history of the Old South, and American masculinity. He succeeds Professor Emerita Carol Lasser of Oberlin College, a long-time member of SHEAR. His term expires with the society’s 40^th anniversary meeting in Cleveland in July 2018.

About SHEAR

The Society for Historians of the Early American Republic is an association of scholars dedicated to exploring the events and the meaning of United States history between 1776 and 1861. SHEAR’s mission is to foster the study of the early republican period among professional historians, students, and the general public. It upholds the highest intellectual standards of the historical profession and encourages the broad diffusion of historical insights through all appropriate channels, including schools, museums, libraries, electronic media, public programming, archives, and publications. SHEAR cherishes a democratic ethos in scholarship and cultivates close, respectful, and productive exchanges between serious scholars at every level of experience and recognition. SHEAR membership is open to all; most members are professional historians employed in colleges, universities, museums, and historical parks and agencies, as well as independent scholars and graduate students.

For more information on SHEAR, please visit www.shear.org.