Dr. Jay Gitlin

Biography

Jay Gitlin received BA, MM, and PhD degrees from Yale University. His work focuses on the history of the French Mississippi Valley and the Great Lakes region. He has edited and contributed to several notable volumes, including the recent publication "French St. Louis" (Nebraska, 2021) and his work on the 2018 book "Country Acres Cul-de-sacs: Reimagining Connecticut, 1938-1952" (Wesleyan). Gitlin was involved in a special issue of Quebec Studies on "Créolité: Identity, History, Culture" in 2021 and is currently writing a comparative study on French Latin Quarters in North America, Europe, and Africa. His book "Bourgeois Frontier: French Towns, French Traders & American Expansion," published in 2010 by Yale University Press, was awarded the 2010 Alf Andrew Heggoy Prize by the French Colonial Historical Society. He has published numerous articles and contributed chapters to significant works, including the "Oxford History of the American West" (Oxford, 1994) and "The Louisiana Purchase and the Emergence of the American Empire" (Congressional Quarterly, 2003). Gitlin teaches courses such as "Yale America" and "Quebec Canada" and is a member of the Urban Studies faculty and Coordinator of the Committee on Canadian Studies at the MacMillan Center.

Research Interests