Dr Angel-Luke O'Donnell

Research interests

• Early American Print Culture
• American Revolution
• Pennsylvania
• Book History
• Native Americans

My main research interest is early American Print Culture in Pennsylvania from the late colonial period (1760s) through to the early Republican period (c. 1815). I am particularly interested in texts that were readily accessible, so I focus on ephemeral works and cheap serial publications.

I am currently writing my first book on the 1776 Pennsylvanian State Constitution analysing how cheap print cultivated popular politics in Pennsylvania in the twelve years before the declaration of independence. My second project will look at the history of mortgages for Pennsylvania paper mills to assess how property ownership provided capital for early modern industrialisation.

I am also interested in the history of Native Americans, particularly the imagined futures of white and Indian relations.

Since 2016, I have been the fellows liaison for the Georgian Papers Programme (GPP). The GPP is a partnership between King’s College London and the Royal Collections Trust to digitise 350,000 pages of material in the Royal Archives and Royal Library, only 15% of which has been previously published. The GPP was opened by Her Majesty the Queen on 1 April 2015 and will last until 2020. GPP has partners with many institutions, including: William and Mary College, Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Library of Congress, Mount Vernon, and the Sons of the American Revolution.

Elsewhere, I have discussed the role print ephemera in the development of the American Revolution as well as the emergence of the American demonym.