A fellow's forum with Ethan Gonzales, PhD candidate at the University of Virginia from August 20, 2024.
About the presentation
This project examines the early American state’s efforts to manage and control information across Europe and in the Northwest and Southwest federal territories during Washington and Adams administrations. Focusing largely on the 1790s, the dissertation argues that the early U.S. federal government engaged hostile foreign powers (European and Indigenous) in a contest over information with the aim of influencing foreign opinion about the new American nation and bolstering its image globally. As an inchoate state without a formidable military or bureaucracy, federal officials struggled to assure European critics and Indigenous groups of the United States’ staying power. Promoting the American republic’s stability against foreign disinformation designed to weaken U.S. reputation ultimately remained critical to earning foreign powers’ respect, which helped secure international sovereignty and prosperity for the postrevolutionary United States. To confront foreign disinformation, the U.S. Congress and executive branch deployed a network of diplomatic agents to gather, produce, spread, and control information. This dissertation traces how these agents—planters, merchants, and politicians who functioned as middlemen supported by the American state—enhanced the U.S. government’s capacity to assert itself as a viable and equal member of the European states’ system.
About Ethan Gonzales
Ethan Gonzales is a History PhD candidate at the University of Virginia under the supervision of