Jordan B Smith

Jordan B. Smith, PhD

  • Associate Professor of History
  • Pre-Law Advisor
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Affiliated Programs

Education

  • PhD, Early American and Atlantic History (2018)
    Georgetown University (DC)
  • MA, History (2013)
    Georgetown University (DC)
  • BA, Atlantic History (2010)
    Carleton College (MN)

About Me

I teach courses at Widener that situate the history of early America in global and Atlantic contexts. We cannot begin to understand the Boston Tea party without understanding the global routes that brought tea and sugar to North America; the history of slavery in the United States without considering global dimensions of the trade in humans; or westward expansion and Indian removal without tracking centuries of interactions between Native peoples and European colonizers. Tracking the "vastness" of early American history illuminates how ordinary people sometimes overlooked in traditional narratives “made” history.

I also have expertise and teaching interests in public history. As the Public History Liaison for the College of Arts and Sciences, I link students with internship opportunities at local historical sites and support public history programming at Widener. In the leadup to the semiquincentennial, I have been working with representatives of the Delaware County Libraries and Radnor Historical Society to connect our communities to top-notch historical research on America’s founding era through Revolutionary Reads. 

Research Interests

I am primarily interested in how people from Africa, the Americas, and Europe created a new world for all in the centuries following Columbus’s arrival in the Americas. 

My first book, The Invention of Rum: Creating the Quintessential Atlantic Commodity, will be published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in September 2025. I am now studying how familial, financial, and political considerations intersected in the eighteenth-century Atlantic world. By studying the lives of several generations of the influential Martin family, “Antigua at the Center of the World: The Martin Family and a Violent Atlantic,” will offer new insights into the very personal decisions that shaped the culture and politics of Britain’s empire.

Since coming to Widener, I have also engaged in conversations with Chester community members regarding the city’s history. I research and present on topics ranging from William Penn’s landing to civil rights protests that engulfed the city (and Widener campus) in the early 1960s. 

Publications

Awards

  • Bright Institute Fellow, Knox College (2022-2024)
  • Wayne D. Rasmussen Award for best article on agricultural history not published in Agricultural History, Agricultural History Society (2023)
  • National Endowment for the Humanities Post-Doctoral Fellowship, Library Company of Philadelphia (2021)
  • SHEAR Dissertation Prize, Society for Historians of the Early American Republic and the University of Pennsylvania Press (2019)
  • Barra Dissertation Fellow in Art and Material Culture, McNeil Center for Early American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania (2017-2018)

News

In the Media

Noteworthy

  • Faculty honored at 2026 awards event

    Widener University recently honored faculty members for distinction in areas of civic engagement, institutional leadership, research, as well as innovative and distinguished teaching. Various faculty received awards at the ceremony, held Oct. 28 in the University Center on the Chester campus.

    “The honorees we recognized this year reflect a standard of excellence that sets our Widener academic community apart,” said Provost Mark Nicosia. “Through devoted teaching, scholarship that makes a difference, community engagement and visionary leadership, they enhance the student experience and motivate those who work alongside them.”

    The awards included:
     

    • The Lindback distinguished teaching award, given to a faculty member who has exemplified a history of teaching at the highest level of distinction. It is endowed by the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation, a Philadelphia-based foundation that provides grants to institutions of higher education for the promotion of excellence in teaching. The recipient was Associate Professor of Social Work Margo Campbell.
    • The faculty award for civic engagement celebrates faculty members who have built meaningful, sustained partnerships with community organizations over multiple years, weaving real- world collaboration into their teaching, their research, or both. The award was shared this year by Erika M. Dawkins, assistant professor in the Institute for Graduate Clinical Psychology and Rebecca Vlam, assistant clinical professor in the Center for Social Work Education. 
    • The outstanding researcher award recognizes a faculty member who has participated in research and scholarship nationally or internationally, and made a significant contribution through their research, while advancing their profession or discipline as well as the university’s mission and vision. The recipient was Associate Professor of History Jordan B. Smith.
    • The Fitz Dixon innovation in teaching award highlights an individual who has designed and assessed novel, transformative teaching practices and high-impact learning experiences that significantly elevate student outcomes. This award was presented to Assistant Professor of Economics Afrouz Jahromi.
    • The faculty institutional leadership award recognizes faculty leaders who have championed major institutional initiatives, governance reforms or co-curricular programs that advance student success and strategic vision. This year’s award was shared by Associate Teaching Professor of Biomedical Engineering Ria Mazumder and Professor of Communication Studies and Digital Media Informatics Amy Franzini.
    • The distinguished university professor designation is given for a three-year term to the rare faculty members who have achieved distinction across teaching, research, civic engagement, and institutional leadership simultaneously. The designation was awarded to Professor of Criminal Justice Shana Maier and Professor of Social Work Brent A. Satterly. 

    The photo shows, from left, Ria Mazumder, Shana Maier, Afrouz Jahromi, Amy Franzini, Jordan Smith, Brent Satterly, Rebecca Vlam, Erica Dawkins, Margo Campbell.

    Share link: https://www.widener.edu/news/noteworthy/faculty-honored-2026-awards-event

  • History Faculty Selected as PA Humanities Window Keeper

    Associate Professor of history Jordan Smith has been selected as a PA Humanities Window Keeper, an honor which recognizes Pennsylvanians who use the humanities to build community in their everyday actions through history, culture, education, civic engagement, art and more. 

    Honorees were nominated by people in their communities and Smith joins the newest cohort of educators, scholars, journalists, volunteers and other community leaders as part of a group that now represents 64 counties across Pennsylvania. The Window Keeper: Civic Honors was created in celebration of the 250th anniversary of the United States and was inspired by poet Yolanda Wisher’s “The Window Keeper.”

    Share link: https://www.widener.edu/news/noteworthy/history-faculty-selected-pa-humanities-window-keeper
     

  • Widener Hosts Author Patrick Spero for Second Annual Revolutionary Reads Event

    Widener University, in partnership with America 250 PA Delco and Delaware County Libraries, hosted Patrick Spero, author and director of the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon, on campus as part of the ongoing Revolutionary Reads initiative. 

    Spero poke about his book, “Frontier Rebels: The Fight for Independence in the American West,1765-1776,” which shares the untold story of rebellion on the American frontier which helped to spark the American Revolution. Provost Andrew Workman facilitated the discussion.

    Happening through 2026, Revolutionary Reads is a multi-year initiative leading up to the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Assistant Professor of History Jordan Smith represents Widener in this initiative and helps to bring these author events to campus.

    Share link: https://www.widener.edu/news/noteworthy/widener-hosts-author-patrick-spero-second-annual-revolutionary-reads-event

  • History Faculty Recognized by Agricultural History Society

    Assistant Professor of history Jordan Smith has received the Wayne D. Rasmussen Award from the Agricultural History Society for his article “The Native of this Island: Processes of Invention in Early Barbados.” This award recognizes an outstanding article on agricultural history that is published in a journal other than Agricultural History.

    In the article, which was published in the Fall 2022 “Sugar and Slaves at Fifty” special issue of Early American Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Smith explores the contributions of indigenous people and enslaved Africans in the production of rum in the seventeenth century. The article demonstrates that, while officials of the time claimed that rum was native to the island of Barbados, those contributing to the production used their own cultural assumptions to adapt new ingredients and methods to create something new.  

    Share link: https://www.widener.edu/news/noteworthy/history-faculty-recognized-agricultural-history-society

  • History Professor to Attend Summer Seminar on Legacies of American Slavery

    Assistant Professor of History Jordan Smith has been chosen to attend the 2023 Legacies of American Slavery Faculty Seminar hosted by the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) in New Haven, Connecticut. 

    Smith’s field of research covers a variety of topics stemming from the enslavement of individuals of African descent. From seventeenth- and eighteenth-century rum production through to the historical impact of slavery on the area now known as Chester. He brings this work and much more into his classes as well as into the community to educate others on this deep history.

    The seminar is part of the larger “Legacies of American Slavery” project spearheaded by the CIC, which aims to address the history of slavery with faculty and students from CIC member institutions in various ways. 

    Share link: https://www.widener.edu/news/noteworthy/history-professor-attend-summer-seminar-legacies-american-slavery