Conversations at the Washington Library

Michael Blakeman is a Ph.D. candidate at Yale and was the Amanda and Greg Gregory Fellow at the Washington Library for the 2014-2015 academic year. During this Lunch and Fellowship Program, recorded on August 19, 2015, Michael discusses his doctoral dissertation, "Speculation Nation: Land and Mania in the Age of the American Revolution." Over the course of the discussion you’ll hear Michael explain how the market for land speculation grew in the 1780s and 90s, why speculators purchased such vast quantities of land, and how land speculators used the American Revolution to boost their sales.