A Brief History
Founded in the mid-1970s by Cynthia Taft Morris, the Washington Area Economic History Seminar (WAEHS) holds monthly meetings throughout the academic year. The seminar traditionally meets on the first Friday of the month and invites prominent economic historians to present their current work. Past speakers include Nobel laureates Douglass North and Robert Fogel.
Cynthia Taft Morris, a retired Distinguished Economist in Residence at American University and a past president of the Economic History Association, hosted the seminars at AU for many years before it expanded to include other sites such as the University of Maryland, College Park, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Johns Hopkins University, and George Mason University.
The current organizers of the WAEHS are John Wallis, University of Maryland, College Park, and David Mitch, University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
Spring 2013 Speakers
February 1, 2013: Karen Clay (Carnegie Mellon University)
Location: University of Maryland College Park
March 8, 2013: Martha Olney & Aaron Pacitti
(University of California, Berkeley & Siena College)
Location: American University
April 5, 2013: Oded Galor (Brown University)
Location: Mercatus Center, George Mason University
April 26, 2013: Dan Bogart (University of California, Irvine)
Location: University of Maryland College Park
Fall 2012 Speakers
October 5, 2012: Jared Rubin (Chapman University)
Location: George Mason University
November 9, 2012: Noam Yuchtman (University of California Berkeley)
Location: American University
December 7, 2012: Katharine Shester (Washington and Lee University)
Location: American University
Spring 2012 Speakers
February 10, 2012: Timur Kuran (Duke University)
Location: George Mason University
March 2, 2012: John Parman (College of William and Mary)
Location: American University
April 6, 2012: James Bessen (Boston University School of Law)
Location: University of Maryland Baltimore County
May 4, 2012: Dan Fetter (Wellesley College)
Location: University of Maryland College Park
Fall 2011 Speakers
October 14, 2011: Nicola Tynan (Dickinson College)
Location: University of Maryland Baltimore County
November 4, 2011: Gavin Wright (Stanford)
Location: University of Maryland College Park
December 2, 2011: Philip Hoffman (Cal Tech)
Location: Mercatus Center, George Mason University
Spring 2011 Speakers
Marianne Wanamaker, University of Tennessee
Claudia Rei, Vanderbilt University
Nathan Nunn, Harvard University
Joyce Burnette, Wabash College
Fall 2010 Speakers
Steven Nafziger, Williams College
Carola Frydman, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Sam Allen, Virginia Military Institute
Spring 2010 Speakers
John Wallis, University of Maryland College Park
Charles Calomiris, Columbia University
Robert Margo, Boston University
Fall 2009 Speakers
Martha Bailey, University of Michigan
Jean-Laurent Rosenthal, California Institute of Technology
Alexander Engel, University of Gottingen, Germany
Visit the archive to view past speakers and presentation topics.
