My first book, The Word in the Wilderness: Popular Piety and the Manuscript Arts in Early Pennsylvania​, explores the spiritual uses of calligraphy and manuscript illumination among German-speaking mystics, Pietists, Anabaptists, and other Protestants in early Pennsylvania.

My new book project, Ships of Reason: The Enlightenment of Stephen Girard and the Mariners Who Built His Merchant Empire, examines the broad impact of the French Enlightenment by tracing the surviving libraries of French-speaking Enlightenment thinkers in the young United States.

My passion is using rare books, manuscripts, artworks, and other artifacts to catalyze transformative learning experiences. 

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Background image: James Gibbs, Bibliotheca Radcliviana, Or, A Short Description of the Radcliffe Library at Oxford (London: Printed for the author, 1747).  Courtesy of the Winterthur Library.