Russell Menard

Russell Menard (1942-2022), was Emeritus Professor

Menard, with his collaborator John McCusker, co-authored The Economy of British America, a landmark volume that emphasized the importance of the "staple thesis" for understanding the development and evolution of colonial societies from New England down to the West Indies. Menard published dozens of articles and book chapters, but his most well known piece, “From Servants to Slaves: The Transformation of the Chesapeake Labor System” (1977). Menard saw the connection on how larger economic forces had a bearing on regions, communities, and individual choice. His interest in labor, commodity, and land markets shaped not only the thinking of historians, but also that of economists. Menard presented with a panel of other scholars at the 100th OAH Annual Meeting in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He and the other scholars presented papers on the "State of the Field: Early American Economic History"^[3]

For years Menard was a key member in the University of Minnesota's Early American History Workshop. Workshop participants represented many disciplines: history, American Studies,

• Robert Cole's World: Agriculture and Society in Early Maryland [1]
• Migrants, Servants and Slaves: Unfree Labor in Colonial British America [2]
• With John J. McCusker, The Economy of British America, 1607-1789[3]
• Sweet Negotiations: Sugar, Slavery, And Plantation Agriculture in Early Barbados [4]

Notes