Lynda K. Yankaskas 
Associate Professor of History, Department Chair
Ettinger 300F
484-664-3326
Education:
B. A., with High Honors, Swarthmore College
Ph.D., Brandeis University
Teaching and Research Fields:
I am a social and cultural historian of early America, with particular interests in the history of print culture, nation-formation, public space, and gender. My current research project examines social (or subscription) libraries to explore the meanings of reading as a public activity, and the ways that national and local identity and questions of class were mediated through trans-Atlantic print culture in the late colonial period and the early American republic. In particular, my work argues that print culture could be as much an anti-democratic force as a democratic one in the young American nation.
My teaching, like my research, is heavily concerned with questions of community and identity. I teach courses in colonial and Revolutionary-era America as well as topical courses on gender, the family, immigration, legal history, social protest, and book history. My topical courses cover the full chronological range of U.S. history from the colonial period to the modern era. Many of my courses serve the programs in Women's & Gender Studies and American Studies. All of my classes are discussion-based and ask students to engage with a wide range of primary sources.
Courses Taught:
First-Year Seminars:
American Utopias
Salem Witchcraft
Introductory courses:
Reformers and Radicals in U. S. History
Remembering the American Revolution
Coming to America
Advanced courses:
Colonial America
Revolutionary America
Women's America
American Families
Constitutional History of the U.S.
Popular Protests: Parades, Riots, and Mass Movements in U. S. History
Books & Their Readers
Reading & Research Seminar:
Inventing Americans: Community & Identity in Early America
