Rachel A. Shelden

Rachel A. Shelden is a historian of nineteenth-century America and Associate Professor of History at Penn State University, where she also directs the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center. Her research explores the intersections of politics, constitutionalism, law, and slavery, with a particular focus on the role of personal relationships and political networks. She is the author of Washington Brotherhood: Politics, Social Life, and the Coming of the Civil War and the forthcoming The Political Supreme Court: A Forgotten History, which examines the political world of Supreme Court justices in the nineteenth century. A frequent public speaker on constitutional history and American political culture, Shelden received her B.A. from Stanford University and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Virginia.