University of Pittsburgh-Johnstown

Paul Douglas Newman, PhD

  • Professor of Early American History/Public History

Dr. Newman joined the History Department in 1995. He teaches classes in Early American History including:

0610 U.S. to 1877 1400 Colonial America
1410 The American Revolution 1409 The Early American Republic
1430 The American Civil War 1682 Native Americans and Early American History

He also teaches classes in Public History including:

0760 Introduction to Public History 0770 Historical Documentary Film/Filmmaking
0775 Digital History 0790 Introduction to Museum Science

Dr. Newman also coordinates the Certificate in Public and Applied History and serves as the department coordinator for internships.

Education & Training

  • BA History, York College of Pennsylvania, 1990
  • MA American and British History, University of Kentucky, 1992
  • PhD Early American History, University of Kentucky, 1996

Representative Publications

Dr. Newman has published two books on Pennsylvania History, and several articles and book chapters:

Fries Rebellion: The Enduring Struggle for the American Revolution (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004).

Pennsylvania History: Essays and Documents (Pearson Education, Inc, 2010), with Dr. Jeffrey A. Davis.

“Goodwill to All Men... from the King on the throne to the beggar on the dunghill: William Penn, Roman Catholics, and Religious Toleration,” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 61 (October 1994): 457-79.

“Fries’ Rebellion and American Political Culture, 1798-1800,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 119 (January/April 1995): 37-74.

“The Federalists’ Cold War: The Fries Rebellion, National Security, and the State, 1787-1800,” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 67 (Winter 2000): 63-104.

“Agrarian Founders: Three Rebellions as Legitimate Opposition, 1786-1799,” in Robert S. McDonald and Peter S. Onuf, eds. Revolutionary Prophecies: The Founders and America’s Future (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2021): 107-34.

He is also working on a book about Indigenous political identity in Pennsylvania prospectively titled "Declarations of Independence: The Native Mid-Atlantic Struggle for Sovereignty, 1681-1776."

He has published two pieces of this work:

"The 'Four Nations of Indians Upon the Susquehanna': Mid-Atlantic Murder, Diplomacy, and Political Identity, 1717-1723," Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 88 (Summer 2021); 287-318.

"Red Journalism: TheAllegheny Indians, Benjamin Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette, and the Ethnic Cleansing of Pennsylvania, 1747-1764," Journalism History 45 (September 2019): 227-49.

Dr. Newman has authored and edited works of Public History including:

Eighty Years at the Mountain Playhouse: Summer Stock Lives! (Somerset, Pennsylvania: Somerset Daily American, 2019), with Kelsey Chabal.

Making Do in World War II: A Child's Memory of the White House and the War (Amazon Books, 2016).

Directory of Kentucky Historical Organizations (Frankfort, KY: Historical Confederation of Kentucky and the Kentucky Historical Society,

1992).

Other titles:

“Beginning a Useful Life: James Madison to 1780,” in Stuart Leibiger, ed.,  A Companion to James Madison and James Monroe (New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012): 21-38.

“A Matter of Consequence to Us All: Seventy-Five Years of Pennsylvania History,” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 75 (Summer 2008): 307-45.

“Did the Shays’ Rebellion Influence the Inspiring and Ratification of the Constitution?” History in Dispute: The American Revolution (Columbia, SC: Manly Inc., 2003).

“Was There a Conspiracy to Implement a Military Coup d’Etat Against the Central Government in 1783?” History in Dispute: The American Revolution (Columbia, SC: Manly Inc., 2003).

 

Research Grants

2017 Research Fellow American Philosophical Society

2007 History Channel "Save Our History" grant, $10,000 for making of film, "We Never Got The Welcome Home"

2005 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow

1996 McNiel Center for Early American Studies Post-Doctoral Fellow

Division

Academic Programs