"The Enchanted Plantation: Literature, Speculation, and the Credit Economy in Virginia, 1688-1754" examines the beginnings of a regionally-based literary culture in colonial Virginia and focuses specifically on texts that either originate from, or have close ties to, the colony's political and administrative capital at Williamsburg. The dissertation argues that literary practices and literary production in Virginia at this time were crucial to the imagination and material construction of Virginia's unevenly-developed plantation landscape, specifically as this plantation landscape arose within the new speculative and financial markets of the early eighteenth century. Individual chapters demonstrate how reading, writing, and publishing--practices that enabled, and were enabled by, a transatlantic empire built upon speculation and credit--were increasingly tied to land speculation and a managerial ethos of plantation administration. While surveying and bringing to light the many genres and writers associated with Virginia and its capital during this period (including financial literature by government officials, public oratory and ballads in Williamsburg, quitrent poetry, the periodical culture of the Virginia Gazette, and William Byrd II's historical narratives), the dissertation analyzes how Virginia's early literary culture assisted in both creating and managing the Virginia plantation as a slave society, a colonial contact zone, and a scene of financial investment.

Master of Arts / This thesis suggests how studying material culture can yield important insight into the lives of 18th-century craftswomen in scholarship and at public history sites, where they have historically been minimally interpreted. Objects and their physical features reveal important insights that go beyond existing written records, especially for populations that have been excluded from or misrepresented in historical records. This research utilizes The Virginia Gazette, a newspaper produced by Clementina Rind before the Revolutionary War, to show her involvement in early American discussions and events. It also addresses how material culture can be used to teach visitors about the 18th-century women who labored in other non-domestic trades, including blacksmiths, bookbinders, silversmiths, and carpenters. Applying these methods can help scholars and public history audiences think more critically about diverse perspectives within and contributions to early American history.