Benjamin H. Irvin

Benjamin H. Irvin is an associate professor of history at Indiana University and past executive editor of the Journal of American History. A social and cultural historian of British North America and the early United States, he researches primarily in the era of the American Revolution. He is particularly interested in questions of national identity, popular protest, disability, gender, federalism, and law. Irvin’s first book, Clothed in Robes of Sovereignty: The Continental Congress and the People Out of Doors (Oxford 2011), examines the material culture, political festivals, and ceremonies of state by which that revolutionary assembly promoted armed resistance and independence. His current project, tentatively entitled, I Still Have an Independent Spirit, explores disability, masculinity, class, and citizenship among veterans of the Revolutionary War. Irvin is currently serving as a scholarly advisor to The Long Struggle for Equality: The Declaration of Independence at 250, a traveling exhibit sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and the American Library Association. His research has garnered financial support from the American Antiquarian Society, the Newberry Library, the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies, and the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, among other institutions.