Joanne B. Freeman


Joanne B. Freeman is a U.S. historian and tenured Professor of History and American Studies at Yale University. Having researched Alexander Hamilton both independently and collaboratively with mentors and peers for more than forty years, she is regarded as "a leading expert" on his life and legacy. Freeman has published two books as well as articles and op-eds in newspapers including The New York Times, magazines such as The Atlantic and Slate and numerous academic journals referencing this notable U.S. founding father. In addition to her many public lectures on Hamilton, outside of her regular student curriculum at Yale, her talks on the topics of political partisanship and violence in the pre-Civil War Congress have appeared on CSPAN In 2005 she was rated one of the "Top Young Historians" in the U.S.

Early life and education

Freeman was born in the New York City borough of Queens in 1962 and is a 1984 graduate of Pomona College and received both her MA and PhD in American History from University of Virginia where her doctoral advisor was Jefferson scholar Peter S. Onuf. Prior to graduate school, Freeman was a public historian, delivering lectures at a range of US history-centric institutions including the Smithsonian, South Street Seaport, Museum of American Finance and the Library of Congress over a span of seven years. Her area of expertise is political culture of early America particularly the revolutionary and early national eras.

Career

In addition to editing Alexander Hamilton: Writings for the Library of America in 2001, Freeman is the author of Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic. Both books have been quoted in biographies about Hamilton or the Founding Fathers. Her first book, Affairs of Honor, received praise for being "analytically incisive" from Stanford University historian and Pulitzer Prize winner Jack Rakove and "enormously original" from Rutgers University history Professor and Thomas Jefferson scholar Jan Lewis. In this debut work, Freeman lays out the challenges that early patriots faced as they struggled to create a new and independent country. Freeman posits that office-holders and office-seekers were particularly immersed in conflict: "Regional distrust, personal animosity, accusation, suspicion, implication, and denouncement—this was the tenor of national politics from the outset.”
A prominent focus of her research has been the practice of dueling, including those rules governing one of the most famous encounters in history between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. In an interview with fellow historians Kenneth T. Jackson and Valerie Paley, Hamilton author Ron Chernow called attention to Freeman's work and her discovery that Hamilton had been involved in ten previous character challenges prior to the eleventh and fatal event: "Joanne Freeman's book explains that a duel is simply the final stage of 'an affair of honor'." In his book, the Founding Fathers and the Politics of Character, Andrew Trees further cites Freeman's observations that Hamilton saw honor "as the foundation of Hamilton's vision for himself, the polity, and the nation."
Freeman's series of lectures on the American Revolution is one of 42 courses offered online by Open Yale Courses.
Freeman has been interviewed for several documentaries about Hamilton. These have aired on American Experience and The Discovery Channel. In 2002, she appeared in Founding Brothers with fellow historians Ron Chernow, Richard Brookhiser, David McCullough, and Carol Berkin on The History Channel; the two-part program and overview of five founders - George Washington, Hamilton, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson - was based on the Pulitzer Prize winning book of the same title by Joseph Ellis.
Freeman's published findings about the history of dueling helped inspire the song "Ten Duel Commandments" in the Tony Award winning musical Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Though she agrees with fellow historians that the show has historical errors, she is a fan of the Broadway hit and its creator and believes it is engendering interest in the Founding Fathers, ‘‘People should think and evaluate and not necessarily instantly accept stories whether it’s on the stage or wherever they get it from,’’ she said. ‘‘The play is getting people to ask a lot of questions about Hamilton and history. would be very happy.’’ Freeman has also appeared in the PBS documentary Hamilton's America that traced the making of the musical.

Newer Projects

Freeman worked for two years as a historical consultant for the National Park Service in the reconstruction of the Hamilton Grange National Memorial.
In 2017, she edited and published The Essential Hamilton: Letters & Other Writings, with the Library of America. Her latest book, The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War, documents and analyzes episodes of physical violence between antagonistic members of U.S. Congress in the decades before the Civil War; it was published on 11 September 2018 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. She has drawn parallels between American parties polarized in the mid-19th century with 21st-century bombast. "Then as now, raising hackles before the eyes of the press was a play for power; politicians who displayed their fighting-man spunk were strutting their suitability as leaders."
Starting February 3, 2017, Freeman joined the crew of the popular weekly American History radio show BackStory as a co-host; the 8 year old show based out of University of Virginia is also a popular podcast. The premise of the 1 hour program is to examine contemporary happenings through the lens of the past.

Awards

Books