Jane E. Calvert | University of Kentucky College of Arts & Sciences

Jane E. Calvert

Director/Editor, The John Dickinson Writings Project

After seventeen years at the University of Kentucky, Dr. Calvert could no longer endure pressure and harassment from the administration to "just pass" students who could not do college-level work. She resigned her faculty position effective January 1, 2024. Her resignation letter is here. She now works full time directing the John Dickinson Writings Project, which she founded in 2010. Please also visit Dr. Calvert's professional website.

Contact Information

dr.janeecalvert@gmail.com

(301) 904-5426

Research Interests

Early modern Anglo-American theology and political theory
John Dickinson

Awards, Fellowships, Grants, and Honors

President, Friends Historical Society, United Kingdom, 2023.
American Library Association, the division of Reference and User Services Association, “Best Historical Materials for 2020–2021” for The Complete Writings and Selected Correspondence of John Dickinson.
Public Scholars Program Grant, National Endowment for the Humanities ($60,000), for a John Dickinson biography, 2020.
Hallam Award for Best Article, (“An Expansive Conception of Rights: The Abolitionism of John Dickinson”) ($250), History Department, University of Kentucky, 2019.
State of Delaware grant ($131,689) for John Dickinson biography, 2019–21.
Hallam Award for Best Article (“Thomas Paine, Quakerism, and the Limits of Religious Liberty during the American Revolution”) ($250), History Department, University of Kentucky, 2016.
Library Fellowship ($2,000), The David Library of the American Revolution, 2007.
Robert L. Middlekauff Fellowship ($4,000), The Huntington Library, 2006.
Library Residence Research Fellowship ($2,000), American Philosophical Society, 2006.
Monticello College Foundation Fellowship ($15,000), The Newberry Library, 2005.
Peterson Fellowship ($1,500), American Antiquarian Society, 2005 (declined).
NEH “We, the People” Summer Stipend ($5,000), 2005.
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship ($2,000), Library Company of Philadelphia/Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 2002.
Gest Fellowship ($500), The Quaker Collection at Haverford College, 2000.

Support for the John Dickinson Writings Project
The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation ($20,000), 2023.
Publishing Historic Documents Grant, National Historical Publications and Records Commission ($215,085), 2023–24.
Scholarly Editions Grant ($449,998 + $150,000 match), National Endowment for the Humanities, 2022–24.
Publishing Historic Documents Grant, National Historical Publications and Records Commission ($103,575), 2021–22.
The William Nelson Cromwell Foundation ($105,000), 2016–23.
American Philosophical Society, grant ($5,000), 2020.
Library Company of Philadelphia, grant ($5,000), 2020.
Historical Society of Pennsylvania, grant ($5,000), 2020.
McNeil Center for Early American Studies, grant ($5,000), 2020.
University of Kentucky, History Department grant ($1,000), 2020.
Publishing Historic Documents Grant, National Historical Publications and Records Commission ($74,751), 2020–21.
State of Delaware grant ($168,311), 2019–21.
University of Kentucky, College of Arts & Sciences Research Grant ($2,000), 2018.
Publishing Historic Documents Grant, National Historical Publications and Records Commission ($74,601), 2017.
General Society for Colonial Wars ($9,631), 2013, 2016.
The Earhart Foundation ($40,000), 2013–15.
The Bradly Foundation ($45,000), 2013–15.
Private Donors ($8,100), 2013–14.
Society for Colonial Wars in the Commonwealth of Kentucky Grant ($10,464), 2013–14.
Mutual Mt. Airy ($1,000), 2013.
Friends of the John Dickinson Mansion Grants ($11,000), 2010–13, 2015, 2016.
Scholarly Editions Grant ($200,000), National Endowment for the Humanities, 2010–12.
Franklin Research Grant ($5,000), American Philosophical Society, 2010.
Society for Historians of the Early American Republic/Library Company of Philadelphia Fellowship ($2,000), 2009.
Association for Documentary Editing Travel Award ($500), 2006.

Courses Taught

HIS 108: United States to 1876
HON 251: The Origins of Activism: Political and Social Dissent in the Early Modern Anglo-American World
HIS 301: History Workshop
HON 301: Lives of the U.S. Founders
HIS 350: United States Founders
EXP 379: Internship Supervisions (for work at Disney World, FL and Catalina Island, CA)
HIS 395: Independent Study on Henry Clay
HIS 395: Independent Study on American Founding Principles
EXP 396: Internship Supervision (with the John Dickinson Writings Project)
EXP 396: Internship Supervision (at Ashland: The Henry Clay Estate)
HIS 460: Colonial American Religious History
HIS 461: The American Revolution, 1763–1789
HIS 499: Early American Political History
HIS 499: Early American Religious History
HIS 630: Graduate Reading Seminar: Colonial America
HIS 650: Graduate Reading Seminar: Early American Political Thought
HIS 650: Graduate Reading Seminar: Early American Religion
HIS 650: Introduction to Documentary Editing
HIS 695: Graduate Independent Study on George Logan
HIS 695: Graduate Independent Study on Loyalists in American Revolution (Fall 2010)
HIS 710: Research Seminar in American History, 1607–1815
Gaines Center Fellow Senior Honors Thesis Supervision, 2011–2012.

She is also a former member of the faculty of Lewis Honors College.

Selected Publications

Selected Publications:

Penman of the Founding: A Biography of John Dickinson. New York: Oxford University Press, 2024.
The Complete Writings and Selected Correspondence of John Dickinson. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2020- .
Brief of Amici Curiae Scholars of the Founding Era in Support of Respondent United States v. Trump with Holly Brewer, Rosemarie Zagarri, Jack N. Rakove, Jonathan Gienapp, Jane Manners, Gautham Rao, Saul Cornell, Alexander Keysar, Joanne Freeman, David Konig, Jill Lapore, Peter S. Onuf, Michael A. Ross, Alan Taylor, submitted to the United States Supreme Court, April 2024.
Brief of Amici Curiae Scholars of the Founding Era in Support of Respondents Rebecca Harper, et al. with Jack N. Rakove, Mary Sarah Bilder, Saul Cornell, William Ewald, Joanne Freeman, Jonathan Gienapp, Alexander Keyssar, Peter S. Onuf, Rosemarie Zagarri, submitted to the United States Supreme Court, October 2022.
“The Friendly Jurisprudence and Early Feminism of John Dickinson,” in Great Christian Jurists in American History ed. Daniel L. Dreisbach and Mark David Hall. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.
“An Expansive Conception of Rights: The Abolitionism of John Dickinson,” in When in the Course of Human Events: 1776 in America and Beyond ed. William R. Jordan (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2018), 21–54.
“Myth-Making and Myth-Breaking in the Historiography on John Dickinson,” The Journal of the Early Republic vol. 34, no. 3 (2014): 467–80.
“Thomas Paine, Quakerism, and the Limits of Religious Liberty during the American Revolution,” in Selected Writings of Thomas Paine. ed. Shapiro and Calvert. Rethinking the Western Tradition Series (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014), 602–29.
Selected Writings of Thomas Paine. Co-editor with Ian Shapiro. Rethinking the Western Tradition Series. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014.
“John Dickinson’s Quaker Contributions to the Creation of the American Republic,” in Faith and the Founders of the American Republic, ed. Mark David Hall and Daniel L. Dreisbach (Oxford University Press, 2014), 277–304.
“Letter to Farmers in Pennsylvania: John Dickinson Writes to the Paxton Boys,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography vol. 136, no. 4 (2012): 475–77.
“‘The Character of an Author’: Attribution and Misattribution of the Writings of John Dickinson,” The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America vol. 104, no. 3 (2010): 341–46.
Brief of Historians of Early American Constitutional, Legal, and Pennsylvania History as Amici Curiæ in Support of Respondent City of Chicago, with Nathan Kozuskanich, Paul Finkelman, and Thomas D. Hamm, submitted to the United States Supreme Court, January 2010.
Quaker Constitutionalism and the Political Thought of John Dickinson (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
"Liberty Without Tumult: Understanding the Politics of John Dickinson," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 132, no. 3 (2007): 233-62.
"America's Forgotten Founder: John Dickinson and the the American Revolution," History Compass, 5/3 (2007): 1001-11.
“The Quaker Theory of Civil Constitution,” History of Political Thought vol. 27, no. 4 (2006): 586-619.
“Political Obligation and Civil Dissent in Quaker Political Thought,” Quaker Religious Thought nos. 106/107 (2006): 68-7.