About the Presenters' Research
Using the resources at the George Washington Presidential Library, Zachary Deibel is researching the intertwined histories of learning and politics in eighteenth-century America.
Ben Wright is researching how white southern evangelical Baptists—especially in Revolutionary Virginia—were the most consistent, effective, and consequential advocates of church–state separation.
About the Presenters
Zachary W. Deibel
Deibel is Assistant Professor of History at Virginia Military Institute where he teaches courses on United States History, the American Revolution, and the Atlantic World. He previously served as a secondary Social Studies teacher for seven years before earning his doctorate in history at Binghamton University. His research explores the intertwined histories of learning and politics in eighteenth-century America.
Ben Wright
Ben Wright is an associate professor of history and the Director of the Open US History Lab at the University of Texas at Dallas. He is the author or editor of five books, including Bonds of Salvation: How Christianity Inspired and Limited American Abolitionism (LSU 2020), the two-volume American Yawp: A Massively Collaborative, Open History of the United States (Stanford 2019), and, most recently, American Revolutions in the Digital Age (Cornell 2024). His articles have appeared in outlets ranging from the American Historical Review to the Washington Post. As the Lilly Religious Freedom Fellow at the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon, he is writing a book titled, Evangelical Secularism: How Southern Baptists Created the Separation of Church and State.
Recipient of the Lilly Religious Freedom Fellow