Jon Grinspan

PhD Candidate (ABD)

Email: jcg8j (at) virginia.edu

Fields & Specialties

19th Century American Political Culture, Youth Culture, Humor, and Food History.

Current Project: I’m working on my dissertation, The Virgin Vote: Young Americans in the Age of Popular Politics. It tells the story of the crucial role young men and women played in nineteenth-century American politics. It chronicles young Americans’ use of partisan politics to announce their identities, achieve their ambitions, and enjoy the “fun and frolic” of the era’s very public politics. It also examines the efforts of party leaders to woo these young voters. 

Education

Ph.D. Candidate, University of Virginia (2010 – Present).

M.A. in American History, University of Virginia, 2008.

B.A., Sarah Lawrence College, 2002-2006. 

Academic Publications

“Sorrowfully Amusing: The Popular Comedy of the Civil War,” Journal of the Civil War Era, (September, 2011). Project MUSE - The Journal of the Civil War Era - “Sorrowfully Amusing”: The Popular Comedy of the Civil War

“‘Young Men for War’: The Wide Awakes and Lincoln’s 1860 Presidential Campaign,”                    Journal of American History, Lincoln Bicentennial Issue, Vol. 96, No.  2 (Sept, 2009), 357 – 378. http://www.journalofamericanhistory.org/projects/lincoln/contents/grinspan.html

Other Publications

"Laugh During Wartime," New York Times, January 10, 2012. Humor and Comedy During Wartime - NYTimes.com

“Miscellaneous Foods in a Feverish Haste,” Gastronomica (August, 2011). http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/10.1525/gfc.2011.11.3.84.pdf?acceptTC=true

 “The Inebriated Election of 1840: Booze and Ballots in a Popular Democracy,” The American Spectator, October, 2008. http://spectator.org/archives/2008/11/04/the-inebriated-election-of-184

“The Jeep, the Humvee, and How War Has Changed.” American Heritage Magazine. 1 August 2007.

 “Trying to Assassinate President Jackson.” American Heritage Magazine. 30 January 2007.

“The Humiliation of Joseph McCarthy.” American Heritage Magazine. 2 December 2006.

 “America’s Worst Immigration War.” American Heritage Magazine. 4 November 2006.

“Fast-Food Nation or Gourmet Nation?” American Heritage Magazine. 12 September 2006. “The Bomb: First Impressions.” American Heritage Magazine. 7 August 2006.

“The Fourth of July versus Bastille Day.” American Heritage Magazine. 4 July 2006.  

Teaching

Instructor, “Barbecue, Beer, and Ballots: The Political Culture of Nineteenth-Century American Campaigns,” University of Virginia Major Seminar (Fall, 2010). 

Teaching Assistant, “History of the United States 1865 to the Present,” Professor Olivier Zunz, University of Virginia, (Spring, 2010). 

Teaching Assistant, “American Military History to 1900,” Professor Gary Gallagher, University of Virginia, (Fall, 2009). 

Teaching Assistant, “Middle Eastern History,” Professor Fawaz Gerges, Sarah Lawrence College. (2004)

Other Research Work

Research Associate, Miller Center of Public Affairs, Presidential Oral History Program, (2009). 

Research Associate, Institute for Defense Analyses, (2008 - Present). 

Assistant Editor, The Saddam Tapes: The Inner Workings of a Tyrant’s Regime, 1978-2001, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).