Michelle Craig McDonald
Historian, Author, Educator
About the Author
Michelle Craig McDonald is the Director of the Library & Museum at the American Philosophical Society. She has worked for nearly three decades as an educator and administrator in university settings as well as museums and historic sites.
Her research focuses on trade and consumer behavior in North America and the Caribbean during the 18th and 19th centuries—especially the history of coffee.
Featured Publications
McDonald’s most recent book is Coffee Nation: How One Commodity Transformed the early United States.
Coffee is among the most common goods traded and consumed worldwide, and so omnipresent its popularity is often taken for granted. But even everyday habits have a history. When and why coffee become part of North American daily life is at the center of Coffee Nation. This book follows coffee from the slavery-based plantations of the Caribbean and South America, through the balance sheets of Atlantic world merchants, into the coffeehouses, stores, and homes of colonial North Americans, and ultimately to the growing import/export businesses of the early nineteenth-century United States that rebranded this exotic good as an American staple. The result is a sweeping history that explores how coffee shaped the lives of enslaved laborers and farmers, merchants and retailers, consumers and advertisers. Click here for an advanced purchase discount.
Additional books and book chapters McDonald has published appear in the links below.
Praise for Coffee Nation.
Upcoming Events
April 29, 2025: “Brewing a Revolution: Coffee in Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia,” Kislak Center, University of Pennsylvania, 3420 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA. Click here for more details.
June 5, 2025: “Coffee Nation: How One Commodity Transformed the Early United States,” book talk, American Philosophical Society, 105 South 5th Street, Philadelphia, PA. Click here for more details.
June 9, 2025: “Coffee Nation: How One Commodity Transformed the Early United States,” book talk, Athenaeum, 219 South 6th Street, Philadelphia, PA. Click here for more details.
October 3, 2025: “Coffee Nation: How One Commodity Transformed the Early United States,” book talk, Philadelphia Club, 1301 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA. (details coming soon)
January 28, 2026: “Brewing a Revolution: Coffeehouses as Sites of Colonial Protest,” Society of Colonial Wars Fellowship in Memory of Kenneth R. LaVoy, Jr. Presentation (details coming soon).
April 4, 2025: “The State of Material Culture in Early American History,” Organization of American Historians Conference, Chicago, IL. Click here for more details.
February 8, 2025: “Dependence,” PEAES@25 Conference, Library Company of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA. Click here for more details.
April 24 2024: “Coffee: The Other Complicated Colonial Beverage,” American Philosophical Society Spring Meeting, Philadelphia, PA. Click here for the video.
Past Events
Harvard-Newcomen Postdoctoral Fellow in Business History, Harvard Business School, 2005-06
Ph.D., History, University of Michigan, 2004
M.A., Liberal Arts, St. John’s College, Annapolis, 1997
M.A., Museum Studies, The George Washington University, 1994
B.A. in History, University of California, Los Angeles, 1990
Education
2025: Society of Colonial Wars Fellowship in Memory of Kenneth R. LaVoy, Jr. for Coffee Nation: How One Commodity Transformed the Early United States
2012: NEH Summer Research Stipend
2008: NEH Postdoctoral Fellowship, Winterthur Museum and Library
2008: Program in Early American Economy and Society (PEAES), Library Company of Philadelphia Postdoctoral Fellowship
2003: Atlantic World Seminar Research Grant, Harvard University
2003: Program in Early American Economy and Society (PEAES), Library Company of Philadelphia Dissertation Fellowship
2002: Fulbright Fellowship (Jamaica), U.S. Department of State
2001-02: Barra Foundation Dissertation Fellowship, McNeil Center for Early American Studies (MCEAS), University of Pennsylvania
2000-01: Colonial Dames, Early America Research Fellowship
1998-2001: Mellon Candidacy Fellowship, University of Michigan (2000-01), and Regent’s Fellowship, University of Michigan (1998-2000)
Fellowships & Awards
Prior Positions
2024-present: Director of the Library & Museum, American Philosophical Society
2015-2023: Office of the Provost, Stockton University
2006-2023: Professor of Atlantic History, Stockton University (tenured in 2011; promoted to Full Professor in 2023)
1996-1998: Education Director, American Psychological Association Traveling Exhibition Division
1993-1996: Director of Education, Decatur House, National Trust for Historic Preservation
Public History Work
I am deeply committed to public history and have previously worked at Colonial Williamsburg, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, as well as on exhibition and education projects for the American Psychological Association, the University of Michigan, the New Jersey Historical Commission, and the African American Heritage Museum of Southern New Jersey.
I have also appeared in television and documentary segments about the nineteenth-century industrial site Batsto Village, produced by “Drive by History,” and about North American reactions to the Haitian Revolution for Bearhouse Productions, as well as on the “Drive by History” podcast.
Look below for some of my favorite projects!
Public History Projects
Click on the icons below to learn more about each project.
The last project, MudGirls Studios based in Atlantic City, is my passion project—visit their website to learn more about the work of women helping women recover through the transformative power of art.
Contact
Interested in learning more or booking a speaking event? Please contact me at:
mcdonald@amphilsoc.org or (215) 440-3400
You can also contact Clint Kimberling, Director of Marketing at the University of Pennsylvania Press, at clintk@upenn.edu.