Will Mackintosh

Growing up in the Rust Belt, Will Mackintosh sought answers from the past in order to understand and explain the fading world around him. “My roots on the banks of the Erie Canal have profoundly shaped my professional interests, both chronologically and thematically,” said Mackintosh, who earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Swarthmore College and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in history from the University of Michigan.

Mackintosh’s book Selling the Sights: The Invention of the Tourist in American Culture, was inspired by his high school summer job as a waiter on a dinner cruise boat touring a lake lined with Gilded-Age mansions. “It just got me really interested in the way people spent their leisure time in the nineteenth century,” he said in an interview on the With Good Reason public radio show. He is also the editor of “The Panorama: Expansive Views from The Journal of the Early Republic.”

An expert on American criminal history, Mackintosh has researched the Loomis Gang, a highly organized group of horse thieves that operated out of central New York state for much of the 1800s. “Although clearly a criminal organization, the gang used many of the pioneering organization techniques of nineteenth century big business, including dividing territory, monitoring and manipulating local markets, and investing heavily in the control of local and statewide politicians in order to influence public policy,” Mackintosh said.

At UMW, Mackintosh teaches courses on early American history, the American Revolution and Early Republic, American history to 1865, gender history, urban history, history of the book, history of capitalism, and the history of crime and punishment in the U.S.