John Smail

Professor of History

Education:

Ph.D., Stanford University, 1988.

Research Interests:

Early modern England: social, economic, cultural, Class formation and industrialization, Eighteenth-century English wool textile industry, Restoration religion, society, and local politics.

Recent Publications:

  • The Tolsons of Leeds, Letters of an Eighteenth-Century Merchant Family. Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series, forthcoming. 
  • "The Culture of Credit in Eighteenth Century Commerce: The English Textile Industry," Enterprise and Society 4 (2003): 299-325. 
  • Woollen Manufacturing in Yorkshire: John Brearley, Cloth Frizzer, 1758-1762. Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series, vol CLV, 2001.

Current Projects:

John Smail is currently working on an article on the relationship between credit, risk, and honor in eighteenth century commerce. This piece is part of a larger project on the economic, social, and cultural significance of commercial credit in eighteenth-century Britain.

Courses Taught:

Previous semesters:

  • HIST 2100, Crime in 18th Century England 
  • HIST 2100, Riots in Britain 
  • HIST 2260, Britain to 1688 
  • HIST 3109, Renaissance & Reformation Europe  
  • HIST 6693, Historiography & Methodology 
  • LBST 2101, Western History & Culture