Patricia Cleary

Patricia Cleary

Patricia Cleary, Ph.D.

Professor of History
California State University, Long Beach
1250 Bellflower Blvd.
Long Beach, CA 90840
562 985-4419 | Fax: 562 985-5431
patricia.cleary@csulb.edu | Office: FO2-212

Research Interests

Patricia Cleary’s research interests lie in the area of early American history. In addition to working on the intersections of gender and commerce in British America, both for her biography of Elizabeth Murray and NEH-funded website based on Murray’s life, she has turned more recently to the study of early St. Louis. A St. Louis native, she explored the complex social, economic, and political dynamics of this French-speaking outpost of the Spanish empire in her new book, The World, the Flesh, and the Devil: A History of Colonial St. Louis. Currently, she is researching the history of Indian mounds in the region and the roles of Indian peoples in shaping the area’s society, culture, and economy in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Education

B.A., Rice University
Ph.D., Northwestern University

Selected Publications

The World, the Flesh, and the Devil: A History of Colonial St. Louis. University of Missouri Press, 2011.

Elizabeth Murray: A Woman’s Pursuit of Independence in Eighteenth-Century America. University of Massachusetts Press, 2000.

The Elizabeth Murray Project: A Resource Site for Early American History, CSULB, 2004-2007. http://www.csulb.edu/elizabethmurray

“Women’s roles in eighteenth-century St. Louis: A document project on sex, law, and empire,” Women and Social Movements, vol. 12, no. 2 (March 2008).

”Drinking, Dying, and Lying to Priests: Community Bonds and Conflict over Authority in Colonial St. Louis,” Missouri Historical Review vol. 102, no. 4 (July 2008).

Honors and Awards

Mellon Research Fellowship, Huntington Library, San Marino, California, summer 2011.

Butcher Scholar Fellowship, Institute for the Study of the American West at the Autry National Center, 2005-2006.

National Endowment for the Humanities, “We, the People” award, Grants for Teaching and Learning Resources and Curriculum Development, 2004-2007.