Michelle Craig McDonald

Historian, Author, Educator

About the Author

Michelle Craig McDonald is the Director of the Library & Museum at the American Philosophical Society. She has worked for nearly three decades as an educator and administrator in university settings as well as museums and historic sites.

Her research focuses on trade and consumer behavior in North America and the Caribbean during the 18th and 19th centuries—especially the history of coffee.

Learn more

Upcoming Events

October 3, 2025: “Coffee Nation: How One Commodity Transformed the Early United States,” book talk, Philadelphia Club, 1301 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA.

October 12, 2025: “Benjamin Franklin’s Revolutions,” Cape May MAC, Cape May Convention Center, 714 Beach Ave, Cape May, NJ 08204 (for more details, click here; for an interview about this event, click here).

November 5, 2025: “Coffee and Rum” with Jordan Smith, Associate Professor of History, Widener University, Library Company of Philadelphia, 1314 Locust Street, Philadelphia, PA (for more details, click here).

November 6, 2025: “The Material Culture of Revolution,” with Zara Anishanslin, Associate Professor of History and Art History,” University of Delaware, Grolier Club, 47 E. 60th Street, New York, NY (details coming soon).

November 19, 2025: “Coffee Nation: How One Commodity Transformed the Early United States,” book talk with Sarah Pearsall and Francois Furstenburg, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD.

November 20, 2025: “Coffee Nation: How One Commodity Transformed the Early United States,” book talk with Jordan Smith, Widener University, One University Pl, Chester, PA 19013 .

January 6, 2026: “Coffee Nation: How One Commodity Transformed the Early United States,” book talk, Connecticut Museum of Culture and History, 1 Elizabeth Street, Hartford, CT (details coming soon).

January 28, 2026: “Brewing a Revolution: Coffeehouses as Sites of Colonial Protest,” Society of Colonial Wars Fellowship in Memory of Kenneth R. LaVoy, Jr. Presentation (details coming soon).

February 12, 2026: “Coffee Nation: How One Commodity Transformed the Early United States,” book talk, John Carter Brown Library, 94 George St, Providence, RI 02906 (details coming soon).

March 24, 2026: “Coffee Nation: How One Commodity Transformed the Early United States,” book talk, American Antiquarian Society, 185 Salisbury St, Worcester, MA 01609 (details coming soon).

March 29, 2026: “Coffee Nation: How One Commodity Transformed the Early United States,” book talk, Washington Crossing Historic Park, 1112 River Road, Washington Crossing, PA (details coming soon).

April 6, 2026: “Coffee Nation: How One Commodity Transformed the Early United States,” book talk, Cosmopolitan Club, 1616 Latimer Street, Philadelphia, PA. (details coming soon).

May 14, 2026: “Coffee Nation: How One Commodity Transformed the Early United States,” book talk, Hagley Museum & Library, 298 Buck Road, Wilmington, DE 19807 (details coming soon).

Podcast & Online Interviews

September 26, 2025: Rorotoko author interview, “Coffee Nation.”

September 25, 2025: George Washington University Alumni Newletter, “Coffee Nation.”

August 25, 2025: McNeil Center for Early American Studies, University of Pennsylvania, “Early American Conversations.”

August 8, 2025: The Author’s Corner interview, “Coffee Nation.”

December 2025 (TBD): “Ben Franklin’s World ”

August 8, 2025: “The Author’s Corner,” The Ways of Improvement Lead Home Blog Series, available online.

June 9, 2025: “Coffee Nation: How One Commodity Transformed the Early United States,” book talk, Athenaeum, 219 South 6th Street, Philadelphia, PA.

June 5, 2025: “Coffee Nation: How One Commodity Transformed the Early United States,” book talk, American Philosophical Society, 105 South 5th Street, Philadelphia, PA. Click here to watch online.

June 2, 2025: AskHistorians “Ask Me Anything,” 9am to 5pm.

April 29, 2025: “Brewing a Revolution: Coffee in Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia,” Kislak Center, University of Pennsylvania, 3420 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA.

April 4, 2025: “The State of Material Culture in Early American History,” Organization of American Historians Conference, Chicago, IL.

February 8, 2025: “Dependence,” PEAES@25 Conference, Library Company of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA.

April 24 2024: “Coffee: The Other Complicated Colonial Beverage,” American Philosophical Society Spring Meeting, Philadelphia, PA. Click here for the video.

Past Events

Featured Publications

McDonald’s most recent book is Coffee Nation: How One Commodity Transformed the early United States.

Coffee is among the most common goods traded and consumed worldwide, and so omnipresent its popularity is often taken for granted. But even everyday habits have a history. When and why coffee become part of North American daily life is at the center of Coffee Nation. This book follows coffee from the slavery-based plantations of the Caribbean and South America, through the balance sheets of Atlantic world merchants, into the coffeehouses, stores, and homes of colonial North Americans, and ultimately to the growing import/export businesses of the early nineteenth-century United States that rebranded this exotic good as an American staple. The result is a sweeping history that explores how coffee shaped the lives of enslaved laborers and farmers, merchants and retailers, consumers and advertisers. Click here for an advanced purchase discount.

Additional books and book chapters McDonald has published appear in the links below.

Praise for Coffee Nation.

"Michelle Craig McDonald tells the much neglected story of the early history of coffee before the rise of the great producers in Central and South America. Coffee Nation extends Atlantic history beyond the American Revolutionary War. It is a major contribution to the history of commodities and to the economic history of the United States."
Dr. Andrew Jackson
O’Shaughnessy
Author of The Men Who Lost
America: British Leadership, the
American Revolution, and the
Fate of the Empire
"In an accessible, often witty narrative, Michelle Craig McDonald deftly traces the history of the production, distribution, and consumption of this popular, profitable commodity that Americans decided early on they could not live without—even if they had to depend on other nations to get it. Coffee Nation will be a must read in commodities history."
Dr. Zara Anishanslin
Author of Portrait of a Woman
in Silk: Hidden Histories of the
British Atlantic World
"Based on a remarkable grasp of archival and printed materials, and written with engaging verve, Coffee Nation explains how coffee became an inescapable feature of North American private and social life by the years of the early Republic. But it also provides a fuller understanding of the emergence of North American identity...an invaluable addition to our understanding of the rise of global commodities and an example of cultural history at its very best."
Dr. James Walvin
Author of A World Transformed:
Slavery in the Americas and the
Origins of Global Power
Harvard Review of Latin America

“As something of an old hand in the history of coffee enterprise, I don’t very often discover a new work that so effectively answers questions I’ve had for decades. Michelle Craig McDonald accomplishes this and much more in her multifaceted study of the coffee trade and consumption from the early 18th to late 19th centuries in what became the United States. Beyond this, however, she managed to produce an accessible, engaging text based on deep archival research, a gem for both general readers and scholars in her own field.”
Full review here.
Dr. Lowell Gudmundson, Professor Emeritus of Latin American Studies and History, Mount Holyoke University

Harvard-Newcomen Postdoctoral Fellow in Business History, Harvard Business School, 2005-06

Ph.D., History, University of Michigan, 2004

M.A., Liberal Arts, St. John’s College, Annapolis, 1997

M.A., Museum Studies, The George Washington University, 1994

B.A. in History, University of California, Los Angeles, 1990

Education

2025: Society of Colonial Wars Fellowship in Memory of Kenneth R. LaVoy, Jr. for Coffee Nation: How One Commodity Transformed the Early United States

2012: NEH Summer Research Stipend

2008: NEH Postdoctoral Fellowship, Winterthur Museum and Library

2008: Program in Early American Economy and Society (PEAES), Library Company of Philadelphia Postdoctoral Fellowship

2003: Atlantic World Seminar Research Grant, Harvard University

2003: Program in Early American Economy and Society (PEAES), Library Company of Philadelphia Dissertation Fellowship

2002: Fulbright Fellowship (Jamaica), U.S. Department of State

2001-02: Barra Foundation Dissertation Fellowship, McNeil Center for Early American Studies (MCEAS), University of Pennsylvania

2000-01: Colonial Dames, Early America Research Fellowship

1998-2001: Mellon Candidacy Fellowship, University of Michigan (2000-01), and Regent’s Fellowship, University of Michigan (1998-2000)

Fellowships & Awards

Prior Positions

2024-present: Director of the Library & Museum, American Philosophical Society

2015-2023: Office of the Provost, Stockton University

2006-2023: Professor of Atlantic History, Stockton University (tenured in 2011; promoted to Full Professor in 2023)

1996-1998: Education Director, American Psychological Association Traveling Exhibition Division

1993-1996: Director of Education, Decatur House, National Trust for Historic Preservation

Public History Work

I am deeply committed to public history and have previously worked at Colonial Williamsburg, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, as well as on exhibition and education projects for the American Psychological Association, the University of Michigan, the New Jersey Historical Commission, and the African American Heritage Museum of Southern New Jersey.

I have also appeared in television and documentary segments about the nineteenth-century industrial site Batsto Village, produced by “Drive by History,” and about North American reactions to the Haitian Revolution for Bearhouse Productions, as well as on the “Drive by History” podcast.

Look below for some of my favorite projects!

Public History Projects

Click on the icons below to learn more about each project.

The last project, MudGirls Studios based in Atlantic City, is my passion project—visit their website to learn more about the work of women helping women recover through the transformative power of art.