Michael Crowder

Michael Crowder, Ph.D., is a  Public Historian at the Institute for Thomas Paine Studies at Iona University in New Rochelle, New York. Dr. Crowder earned a Ph.D. in the History Department at the Graduate Center, City University of New York in 2019. He is currently at work on a new history of Thomas Paine and the American Revolution, and in August 2020 published “Remembering Revolution: Commemorating Thomas Paine and the Progressive Afterlives of the American Revolution,” in New York History. He is an active public speaker on topics pertaining to the Revolutionary Era writ large, in particular revolutionary commemoration and the ongoing state and local organizing campaigns for America 250, the semiquincentennial commemorations of the American Revolution. His research interests also include the relationships between slavery, abolitionism, and capitalism in the Revolutionary Era. Follow him on twitter @manthonycrowder. He can be reached at mcrowder@iona.edu.

STATEMENT: “As a scholar of the politics of the American Revolution and Thomas Paine’s role in the broader transatlantic Age of Revolutions, as well as a practicing Public Historian interested in Revolution commemoration, I can think of no better way to contribute to the necessary revival of Thomas Paine as crucial figure of the American Revolution than serving the TPMA. As far back as the 1880s — indeed, even before the American Civil War — efforts to recognize and commemorate Paine have succeeded in fits and starts, culminating with the foundation of the Thomas Paine National Historical Association in New Rochelle, among other national efforts over the course of the past century. But efforts to commemorate Paine and his significance to the American founding generation, even with the welcome news of the passage of congressional legislation proposing a Paine statue on the National Mall, must continue, especially as preparations for America 250 commemorations are currently underway nationwide. I look forward to continuing the work of making Thomas Paine relevant and meaningful for future generations.”