Russell Menard

Who is Russell Menard?

Professor Russell Menard of the University of Minnesota specializes in the economic and social history of the British colonies in North America. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Iowa in 1975. Most of his work has been on the economic, demographic, and social history of the Chesapeake region during the early colonial period, but his research interests include the origins of plantation slavery in British America, the economic development of the Lower South in the 18th century, and late 19th-century U.S. social history. Most recently he has been doing work on the West Indies.

Prof. Menard teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on early American history, economic history, and the history of slavery.

He presented with a panel of other scholars at the 100th OAH Annual Meeting in Minneapolis MN. He and the other scholars presented papers on the "State of the Field: Early American Economic History"

For years he has been a key member in the University of Minnesota's Early American History Workshop. Workshop participants represent many disciplines: History, American Studies, Economics, Demography, Literature, Religious Studies, Public Policy, and Women's Studies. Past papers have covered a wide temporal sweep from the colonial period to the American Civil War, and a broad geographical and spatial scope encompassing the histories of Canada, New England, the Middle Atlantic, the Lower South, the West Indies, Latin America, slavery, and native people.