I am a musicologist and cultural historian of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain with a special focus on the musical history of British abolitionism. My interdisciplinary approach stems from my M.A. in Eighteenth-Century Studies from the University of Southampton and my B.A. in Music and English from the College of the Holy Cross.

My Ph.D. dissertation from Columbia University, entitled “Political Songs in Polite Society: Singing about Africans in the Time of the British Abolition Movement, 1787 to 1807,” explored a set of scores whose textual and musical content critiqued Britain’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade. These scores were included in the music collections of British women from the era, and thus represent a variety of musical activities through which women promoted abolitionism from their homes. I published an article based on this research, entitled “‘African’ Songs and Women’s Abolitionism in the Home, 1787-1807” in Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture (2021). My book project, which is supported by a 12-month Fellowship from the National Endowment of the Humanities, is tentatively titled Abolitionism at Home: Women, Music, and Material Culture in Britain, 1760 to 1830.

I am an Assistant Professor of Musicology at Ithaca College. Please feel free to email me at jhamilton4@ithaca.edu or jmh2273@columbia.edu.