Jessica Choppin Roney, Governed By A Spirit Of Opposition: The Origins of C

This title is part of the Studies in Early American Economy and Society from the Library Company. It explores the political dynamics of Philadelphia in the colonial period when civic organizations held considerable political power in the city and encouraged individuals, regardless of income, to take responsibility for education, poverty relief, church governance, fire protection, and even taxation and military defense. Men representing many business levels, including merchants and shoemakers, served as churchwardens, street commissioners, constables, and Overseers of the Poor. Dr. Roney's research supports the argument that the origins of political volunteerism and civic engagement came before the American Revolution.

Jessica Choppin Roney received her BA at Swarthmore College, her MA at the College of William and Mary, and her Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. She is an assistant professor of early American history at Temple University and is working on a second book, tentatively titled, A Revolutionary Inheritance, about settler societies on the U.S. frontier and in Canada in the first decades after the American Revolution. Reception and book signing to follow.

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