David Beck Ryden EDUCATION Dec. 1999 May 1993 May 1990 Ph.D. in History University of Minnesota, Minneapolis Major Field: United States and Eighteenth-Century British America Minor Field: Latin American History Dissertation Title: Producing a Peculiar Commodity: Jamaican Sugar Production, Slave Life, and Planter Profits on the Eve of Abolition, 1750-1807 (Finalist for the Economic History Association s Alexander Gerschenkron Prize) M.A. in Economics University of Delaware, Newark Full tuition scholarship Thesis Title: The Charleston Slave Trade: A Formal Analysis of Supply and Demand B.A. in Economics and History Connecticut College, New London WORK EXPERIENCE August 2001-Present Associate Dean of CHSS & Professor of History (both since Sept. 2013); Associate Professor with tenure (2007-2013); Assistant Professor (2001-2007), University of Houston-Downtown: As Associate Dean, I coordinate curriculum changes (including new graduate programs), monitor enrollment and class schedules (match supply to demand), design retention and student success strategies, coordinate faculty and administrators in completing various university initiatives. I also lead university academic policy reforms and revisions, coordinate college and program-level SACS assessment, and produce miscellaneous reports for the college. Courses taught include: HIST 1305 American History to 1877 HIST 1306 American History since 1877 HIST 3330 British Colonial America HIST 3333 Antislavery Movements HIST 3334 Britain and its Empire HIST 4320 Slavery in the Americas HIST 4390 Applied Quantitative History HIST 4390 The American Revolution September 2000- July 2001 Lecturer (equivalent to visiting assistant): Department of American Studies and History, Brunel University, London HY1010 Historical Skills (with N. Kingwell) HY1014 Stuart and Hanoverian Britain, HY1011 Historiography (team taught) 1642-1783 HY2011 The First Industrial HY1015 Britain, 1815-1914 Revolution, 1750-1850 April 1998-August 2000 Post Doctoral Fellow: Department of American Studies and History, Brunel University, London Research focus on the slave trade and slavery in the West Indies. I published two peer reviewed articles and defended dissertation at the University of Minnesota in 1999. 1
April 1997- March 1998 Research Assistant: Integrated Public Use Microdata Series Project, University of Minnesota: Produced codebook for the U.S. historical census data in an HTML format. Steven Ruggles and Mathew Sobek, authors. Jan. 1997- March 1997 Teaching Assistant: Department of History, University of Minnesota: HY1302 Civil War to the Present. David Roediger, instructor of record. Sept. 1993- Dec. 1996 Research Assistant: 1920 Public Use Microdata Sample and the Hispanic Oversample, Univ. of Minnesota: Led occupational coding team (seven members), managed multi-million dollar budget, and supervised data consistency checking. Steven Ruggles and Russell Menard, co PIs. SCHOLARSHIP Book West Indian Slavery and British Abolition, 1783-1807 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009) (ISBN-13: 9780521486590 & 9780521148047), 332 pp. "Outstanding Academic Title," ALA's Choice magazine. Edited Book The Abolitionists Struggle: Promoters of the Slave Trade, volume 4 of The British Transatlantic Slave Trade series, series ed. Kenneth Morgan (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2003). Articles "'One of the finest and most fruitful spots in America:' An Analysis of Cotton Monoculture in Late- Eighteenth Century Carriacou," Journal of Interdisciplinary History 43:4 (2013): 539-570. Spokesmen for Oppression: Stephen Fuller, the Jamaica Assembly, and the London West India Interest during Popular Abolitionism, 1788-1795, Jamaican Historical Review 26 (2013): 5-28. "Sugar, Land Markets, and the Williams Thesis: Evidence from Jamaica s Property Sales, 1750-1810," co-authored with Ahmed Reid, Slavery and Abolition 34:3 (2013): 401-24. "Sugar, Spirits, and Fodder: The London West India Interest and the Glut of 1807-15," Atlantic Studies 9:1 (2012): 41-64. "South Carolina's Colonial Land Market: an Analysis of Rural Property Sales, 1720-1775," co-authored with Russell R. Menard, Social Science History 29:4 (2005): 599-623. "Does Decline Make Sense? The West Indian Economy and the Abolition of the British Slave Trade," Journal of Interdisciplinary History 31:3 (2001): 347-74. "'One of the fertilest pleasentest Spotts': An Analysis of the Slave Economy in Jamaica's St Andrew Parish, 1753," Slavery and Abolition 21:1 (2000): 32-55. "Data Consistency Checking," co-authored with Daniel C. Kallgren, Historical Methods 28:1 (1995): 66-9. 2
Book Chapters Maroon War, Peace, and Removal in the Eighteenth Century (Jamaica) in Sociétés marronnes des Amériques. Mémoires, Patrimoines, Identités et Histoire XVIIe au XXe siècles, ed. Jean Moomou (Matoury, Guyane: IBIS Rouge Editions, 2015), 153-166. "Planters, Slaves and Decline," in Capitalism and Slavery Fifty Years Later; Eric Eustace Williams - A Reassessment of the Man and His Work, eds. Heather Cateau and Selwyn H. H. Carrington (New York: Peter Lang, 2000), 154-169. Technical Publications "Running the Numbers [Review of Transatlantic Slave Trade Database]," Slavery and Abolition 22 (2001): 141-9. Public Use Microdata Sample of the 1850 United States Census of Population: User's Guide and Technical Documentation, multi-authored with Steven Ruggles, et. al. (Minneapolis: Social History Research Laboratory, 1995). Review Articles, Comments, and Encyclopedia Entries Manumission, Oxford Bibliographies in Atlantic History, ed. Trevor Burnard (Oxford University Press, 2013) < http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com> "Eric Williams Three Faces of West India Decline," [The Fernand Braudel Center's] Review 35:2 (2012):117-133. "Perhaps We Can Talk: Discussant Comments for 'Taking Stock and Moving Ahead: The Past, Present, and Future of Economics for History,'" Social Science History, special section, 35:2 (2011): 209-12. "Sugar," Encyclopedia of Early Modern World, ed. Jonathan Dewald (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2003). "Producing a Peculiar Commodity: Jamaican Sugar Production, Slave Life, and Planter Profits on the Eve of Abolition, 1750-1807," Journal of Economic History 61:2 (2001): 504-7 [dissertation summary published in the annual awards section of the JEH]. "Marxism and Slavery Historiography," Encyclopedia of World Slavery, eds. Paul Finkelman and Joseph C. Miller (New York: Macmillan Reference, 1999). Book Reviews Review of Claudius K. Fergus s Revolutionary Emancipation: Slavery and Abolitionism in the British West Indies (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2013) for the New West Indian Guide, 90:1-2 (2016): 86-88. Review of Philip J. Stern and Carl Wennerlind s (eds.) Mercantilism Reimagined: Political Economy in Early Modern Britain and Its Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013) for the Journal of Modern History 87:4 (2015): 951-3. 3
Review of Simon Newman s A New World of Labor: The Development of Plantation Slavery in the British Atlantic (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013) for Agricultural History 89:2 (2015): 329-31. Review of Robert L. Paquette and Mark M. Smith's (eds). Oxford Handbook on Slavery in the Americas for History: Reviews of New Books 39:4 (2011): 130-1. Review of Nicholas Draper's The Price of Emancipation: Slave-Ownership, Compensation and British Society at the End of Slavery for the Journal of British Studies 50 (2011): 218-20. Review of Natalie Zacek's Settler Society in the English Leeward Islands, 1670-1776 for H-Albion, H- Net Reviews (2011). Review of S.D. Smith's, Slavery, Family, and Gentry Capitalism in the British Atlantic: The World of the Lascelles, 1648-1834 for Business History Review 82 (2008): 422-4. Review of Deborah Valenze's The Social Life of Money in the English Past for Literature and History 17 (2008): 89-90. Review of Laura Croghan Kamoie's Irons in the Fire: The Business History of the Tayloe Family and Virginia's Gentry, 1700-1860 for the Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 105 (2007): 690-2. Review of B. W. Higman's Plantation Jamaica: Capital and Control in a Colonial Economy for Labor History 48 (2007): 543-6. Review of Cathy Matson's (ed.) The Economy of Early America: Historical Perspectives and New Directions for EH.Net Review (2007). Review of Frederick H. Smith's Caribbean Rum: A Social and Economic History for Business History Review 80 (2006): 595-7. Review of Trevor Burnard's Mastery, Tyranny, and Desire: Thomas Thistlewood and his Slaves in the Anglo-Jamican World for Eighteenth-Century Book Reviews Online (2006). Review of Jack P. Greene, Rosemary Brana-Shute, and Randy J. Sparks' (eds.) Money, Trade, and Power: The Evolution of Colonial South Carolina's Plantation Society for EH.Net Review (2003, http://www.eh.net/bookreviews/). Review of Herbert S. Klein's The Atlantic Slave Trade for the Journal of American Studies (2002). Review of Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy's An Empire Divided: The American Revolution and the British Caribbean for International History Review 23:4 (2001). Review of Jenny Bourne Wahl's Bondsmen's Burden for the Journal of American Studies 34 (2000): 346-7. Conference Presentations Winning and Preserving Freedom through Manumission in Eighteenth Century Jamaica, Yale University s Economic Growth Center Conference: Institutions and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean: Historical and Contemporary Issues, October 14-15, 2016. "Galveston's Maritime Workers in 1880," East Texas Historical Association Fall 2015 Meeting, Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches, TX, October 9, 2015. 4
The Society of West India Planters and Merchants in the Age of Emancipation, c. 1816-1835, Economic History Society s Annual Conference, University of Wolverhampton, Telford Campus, U.K., March 29, 2015. Eric Williams and His Three Faces of Decline, Rediscovering Eric Williams: The Intellectual History of Capitalism and Slavery, SUNY Binghamton, March 14, 2014. Maroon War, Peace, and Removal in the Eighteenth Century Jamaica, Marronages and their social and cultural productions in the Guiana Shield and the Caribbean from the 17th century to the 20th century: assessments and future prospects of comparative research, APFOM Saint Laurent du Maroni, French Guiana November 18, 2013. Spokesmen for Oppression: Stephen Fuller, the Jamaican Assembly, and the London West India Interest in the Late Eighteenth Century, History at Fifty: A Conference to Commemorate Jamaica s Fiftieth Year of Independence, University of the West Indies, Mona, November 2012 "British West Indian Cotton Farming in the Late Eighteenth Century," Symposium in Honor of Russel Menard, University of Minnesota, May 2012. "Abolition and the Decline of the Old Colonial System: Jamaica, the West India Interest, and the Dismantling of the British Slave Trade, 1783-1807," "New Perspectives on the Life and Work of Eric Williams: Capitalism, Slavery and Statesmanship, St. Catherine's College, Oxford (co-sponsored by the W.E.B. DuBois Institute, Harvard University), September 2011. " The Society of Planters and Merchants after Abolition, 1807-1815," Rethinking the Fall of the British Caribbean Planter Class, Chawton House, Alton, England (co-sponsored with the University of Southampton), September 2010. "Rising Productivity and Falling Profitability: the Paradox of West India Sugar Planting in the Era of Abolition, 1783-1807," 39th Annual Association of Caribbean Historians Meeting, Kingston, Jamaica, May 2007. "Rising Productivity and Falling Profitability: the Paradox of West India Sugar Planting in the Era of Abolition, 1783-1807,"Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation Conference (Slavery: Unfinished Business), Hull, England, May 2007. "The Uncommitted Mercantilists: The Defenders of the Sugar Industry, 1785-1807," Social Science History Association, November 2006. "The West India Interest in the Age of Abolition, 1785-1807," Social Science History Association Annual Meeting, November 2005. "'Nothing can be more wretched': Slave Work and Life Course on Jamaica's Sugar Estates," Social Science History Association Annual Meeting, October 2002. "A Study of Atlantic Labor Markets and the Lowcountry Economy," Southwestern Society of Economists, St. Louis, Missouri, April 2002. "Manumission in Jamaica," From Slavery to Freedom: Manumission in the Atlantic World (funded by the NEH), College of Charleston, Charleston, South Carolina, October 2000. 5
"Dissertation Summary," Economic History Association Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, California, September 2000. "Productivity Change in the Jamaican Sugar Industry," Economic History Society Annual Conference, Bristol, England, April 2000. "Slave Sales in the British Caribbean, 1750-1807," co-authored with Kenneth Morgan, Social Science History Association meeting, Fort Worth, Texas, November 1999. "'Nothing can be more wretched': Slave Work and Life Course on Jamaica's Sugar Estates," Presented at the Faculty of Arts Mini-Conference, Brunel University, April 1999. "'One of the fertilest pleasentest Spotts:' An Analysis of the Slave Economy in Jamaica's St. Andrew Parish, 1753," Social Science History Association meeting, Chicago, Illinois, November 1998. "The Transition of Jamaican Slavery, 1750-1800," The Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Worcester, Massachusetts, June 1998. "Planter and Slave Strategies during the Final Years of the British Slave Trade: Evidence from Jamaica, 1740-1807," European Social Science History Conference, Amsterdam, March 1998. "Does Decline Makes Sense? The British Sugar Economy of the Late-Eighteenth Century," Social Science History Association meeting, Washington, DC, October 1997. "Why Did South Carolina Embrace Slavery?" Social Science History Association meeting, New Orleans, Louisiana, October 1996. "Planters, Slaves, and Decline," Capitalism and Slavery Fifty Years Later, Port of Spain, Republic of Trinidad, September 1996. "From Neighborhood to Colony: The Transformation of the Colonial South Carolina Land Market," coauthored with Russell Menard, Social Science History Association meeting, Chicago, November 1995. "A Century of Home Ownership: Black and White Differentials, 1900-1990," Social Science History Association meeting, Atlanta, October 1994. Seminar Presentations/Invited Lectures "Eric Williams and Capitalism and Slavery," World History Seminar, Lafayette College, September 2008. "The West Indian Economy and the Abolition of the British Slave Trade," History Department/Economics Department Seminar, University of Binghamton, February, 2008. "The Political Economy of British Abolition," John Carter Brown Library Fellows Luncheon Chat, Brown University Faculty Club, July 2006. "Productivity Change in the Jamaican Sugar Industry," Caribbean Seminar Series, Institute for Commonwealth Studies, University of London, November 2000. 6
SERVICE Select University Service Chair of Academic Policy Committee: coordinate the agenda with provost office and various university constituents, chair bimonthly meetings, and present final drafts before the Academic Affairs Committee. Appointed to committee in 2013, serve as chair 2015-present. Coordinator of History Program: Coordinate program ambitions (laid out in annual reporting to SACS) and responsible for scheduling 50-60 courses, nine full-time faculty members, and ca. 15 adjuncts per semester. Summer 2011- August 2013. Organizer of Student Mini Conference on Slavery in the Americas, University of Houston, Downtown: Five students and one alumni presented original research on slavery in the Americas. December 2012. UHD's provost search committee member, 2010-11. Departmental Academic Assessment Coordinator and university assessment committee member, 2009-2010. UHD's president search committee member, 2009. Faculty senator, University of Houston-Downtown, April 2008-2010. UHD Library Committee Chairperson, 2006-2007. Called regular meetings and coordinated the compilation of 50+ paged bibliography of "classic works" (for acquisition purposes) in relevant disciplines. Humanities and Social Sciences dean search committee member, 2004. Interim Director of the Learners' Community (DOE- Title V program) while Director was on temporary leave, University of Houston-Downtown September 2003- June 2004. Faculty senator, University of Houston-Downtown, April 2002- January 2005. Representative in the inter-university Partners in Quality Education program for public school teachers, 2002-3. Service to Discipline Manuscript Reviewer: English Historical Review, 2016. Invited Discussant: Columbia University's Center for International History, Society of Fellows in the Humanities, Department of Anthropology; "Compensating for Slavery: Legacies of British Slave- Ownership" seminar, New York, April 8, 2012. Manuscript Reviewer: Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 2011. Panel Discussant/Panel Chair, "Remembering 1808: Politics and Economics of Ending the US Foreign Slave Trade," Social Science History Association Meeting, Miami, October 2008. Manuscript Reviewer: William and Mary Quarterly, 2008. Panel Discussant, "Taking Stock and Moving Ahead: The Past, Present, and Future of Economics for History" (Presidential Panel), Social Science History Association Meeting, Chicago, November 16, 2007. 7
Manuscript Reviewer: Social Science History, 2006. Manuscript Reviewer: Wadabagei: A Journal of the Caribbean and its Diaspora, 2005. Manuscript Reviewer: Journal of Early Modern History, 2005. Economics Network Representative: Recruited papers and organized economic history sessions for the Social Science History Association meetings, 1998, 1999, and 2000. Early American History Workshop Organizer: Recruited papers and coordinated schedules, University of Minnesota Early American Workshop, 1997. Manuscript Reviewer: Social Science History Journal, 1995. Editorial Assistant: Historical Methods, "The Minnesota Historical Census Projects," (vol. 28,:2 1995). Awards/Honors ORC Grant, 2010-2011: "The West India Interest and British Antislavery, 1807-1834." Funded course release and travel expenses to continue research on the London sugar lobby. Resulted, thus far, in 2012 Atlantic Studies article publication. Scholarship/Creativity Faculty Award, University of Houston-Downtown, 2010. ORC Grant, 2008-2009: "Slaves without Sugar: a Quantitative Analysis of Carriacou's 1791 Census." Funded travel to consult records in Aberdeen, Scotland, related to Carriacou cotton farming. Resulted in 2013 Journal of Interdisciplinary History article publication. West Indian Slavery and British Abolition designated an "Outstanding Academic Title" by the American Library Association's Choice magazine, 2009. Marie L. and William R. Harland Memorial Fellowship, John Carter Brown Library, Brown University 2006. Travel Grant from Duke University's John Hope Franklin Collection for African and African American Documentation to consult the Stephen Fuller Papers, 2006. University of Houston-Downtown's ORC Research Grant funded archival research in England, Scotland, and Wales, 2006. Professional Service Award Finalist, University of Houston-Downtown Faculty Award, 2006. University Funded Faculty Development Leave to conduct research for forthcoming book during the spring 2006 semester, Awarded in 2005. University of Houston-Downtown's ORC Research Grant funded course release and reproduction expenses related to research on West Indian slavery and abolition, 2004. Jacob Price Visiting Research Fellowship, William L. Clements Library of Early Americana, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2003. Economic History Association's Arthur H. Cole Grant-in-Aid funded research in London, England, 2002. University of Houston-Downtown's ORC Research Grant funded course release and reproduction expenses related to research on West Indian slavery and abolition, 2002. 8
Finalist for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture /NEH Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2001. Finalist for the Alexander Gerschenkron Prize given by the Economic History Association for the best dissertation in economic history, 2000. MacMillan Overseas Travel Fellowship to conduct research at the Institute of Jamaica and the Jamaica Archive, 1998. Gilder-Lerham Institute Travel Fellowship to attend the African Diaspora Conference in Williamsburg, Virginia., 1998. University of Minnesota's Center for Early Modern History Microfilm Grant funded the filming of manumission records at the Jamaica Archive, 1998. University of Minnesota's Early American History Workshop Dissertation Grant to conduct research at the Jamaica Archive, 1998. MacMillan Overseas Travel Scholarship to conduct research at the British Public Record Office, the British Library, and the British Museum, 1997. Union Pacific Travel Scholarship to conduct research at the Institute of Jamaica and the Jamaica Archive, 1996. People's Choice Award, Annual Quantitative History Poster Session, Department of History, University of Minnesota, 1995. Member of Omicron Delta Epsilon: an international honor society in economics, 1992. Full tuition scholarship to attend the University of Delaware, College of Business and Economics, 1991-2. Graduated from Connecticut College with honors and with distinction in economics, 1990. 9