Jack Dwiggins
Ph.D. Student
j.dwiggins@gmail.com
Education
B.A., Miami University (2006)
Research Interests
The nineteenth century, early American social and cultural history, American democracy and American political development
Advisor
Dissertation Topic
The Military Establishment and Democratic Politics in the United States, 1783-1848
Personal Statement
Unsure about whether to study history of science or early American history, I decided to simply combine the two, and have managed to uncover several unexplored corners of American culture. My first research project (as an undergraduate) explored voluntary scientific associations within the context of republican and liberal cultures throughout the nineteenth century. I next turned to questions about the role of scientists within American society during the Jacksonian period, focusing specifically on how the period's ideals of masculinity reshaped the American scientific community and re-defined the practice of modern science. My continuing curiosity about scientific and intellectual societies brought to my attention an oddly named Vermont school - the "Literary, Scientific, and Military Academy" - that launched a new movement in military education during the early nineteenth century. This research has broadened into a larger project on the development of the peacetime military establishment in the early United States, and how debates about the size and character of the military establishment contributed to collective understandings of the meaning of American democracy.
