CURRICULUM VITAE
MEG JACOBS
EDUCATION
INSTITUTION
University of Virginia
University of Virginia
Cornell University
DEGREE
Ph.D.
M. A.
B.A.
DATE
1998
1993
1990
TITLE OF DOCTORAL THESIS: The Politics of Purchasing Power: Political Economy,
Consumption Politics, and State-Building in the United States, 1909-1959
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
ACADEMIC POSITIONS
2013-2014
Visiting Associate Professor of History and Public Affairs, Princeton
University
2006Associate Professor of History, MIT
1999-2006
Assistant Professor of History, MIT
1997-1999
Assistant Professor of History, Claremont McKenna College
WORKS-IN-PROGRESS
The Energy Crisis: Divided Democrats Washington Conservatives, and the Failure of
American Politics in the 1970s, under contract with Hill and Wang.
“1980: American Politics in the Age of Reagan,” book chapter, forthcoming, University
of Pennsylvania Press
PUBLICATIONS
BOOKS
Conservatives in Power: The Reagan Years, 1981-1989: A Brief History with
Documents, Co-authored with Julian E. Zelizer, Bedford/St. Martin, 2010.
Pocketbook Politics: Economic Citizenship in Twentieth-Century America,
Princeton University Press, 2005. Winner of the Organization of American
Historians 2006 Ellis Hawley Prize for best book on modern political economy
and the 2006 New England History Association Best Book Award.
The Democratic Experiment: New Directions in American Political History, Coedited with William Novak and Julian E. Zelizer, Princeton University Press,
2003.
ARTICLES AND BOOK CHAPTERS
“Fiscal Drag,” Democracy, Fall 2013, 93-100.
“The Politics of Environmental Regulation: Business-Government Relations in
the 1970s and Beyond,” in Kimberly Phillips-Fein and Julian E. Zelizer, eds.,
What’s Good for American Business, Oxford University Press, 2012.
“The Politics of Consumption” Reviews in American History, 39, no. 3 (2011):
561-573.
“The Uncertain Future of American Politics, 1940-1973,” in Eric Foner and Lisa
McGirr, eds, The New American History: Critical Perspectives on the Past,
Temple University Press, 2011.
“Back to the Future: Energy Politics in the Bush Administration,” in The
Presidency of George W. Bush: A First Historical Assessment. Julian E. Zelizer,
editor, Princeton University Press, 2010.
“Consumers and Politics,” in Michael Kazin, ed., Encyclopedia of American
Politics (Princeton University Press, 2010).
“The Conservative Struggle and the American Energy Crisis” in Rightward
Bound: Making America Conservative in the 1970s, edited by Bruce Schulman
and Julian E. Zelizer, Harvard University Press, 2008.
“Swinging Too Far to the Left.” Co-author with Julian E. Zelizer, Journal of
Contemporary History, October 2008, 43(4).
“Energy Talk: Democrats Need to Learn to Sell Their Priorities,” Washington
Independent, June 24, 2008
Co-author with Julian E. Zelizer, “Introduction,” in The Democratic Experiment:
New Directions in American Political History, Princeton University Press, 2003,
1-19.
“Pocketbook Politics: Democracy and the Market in Twentieth-Century
America,” in The Democratic Experiment: New Directions in American Political
History, Princeton University Press, 2003.
“Inflation: ‘The Permanent Dilemma’ of the American Middle-Classes,” in
Olivier Zunz, Leonard Schoppa, and Nobuhiro Hiwatari, eds., Social Contracts
Under Stress: The Middle Classes of America, Europe, and Japan at the Turn of
the Century, Russell Sage Press, 2002, 130-153.
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“The Politics of Plenty in the United States,” in Martin Daunton and Matthew
Hilton, eds., The Politics of Consumption, Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2001, 223239.
“Constructing a New Political Economy: Philanthropies, Institution-Building,
and Consumer Capitalism in the Early Twentieth Century,” in Ellen Condliffe
Lagemann, ed., Studying Philanthropic Foundations: Essays Toward a New
History, Indiana University Press, 1999, 101-118.
“‘Democracy’s Third Estate:’ New Deal Politics and the Construction of a
‘Consuming Public.’” International Labor & Working-Class History 55, Spring
1999: 27-51.
“‘How About Some Meat?’: the Office of Price Administration, Consumption
Politics, and State-Building from the Bottom Up, 1941-1946,” Journal of
American History, December 1997: 910-41.
BOOK REVIEWS
Review of Susan J. Matt, Keeping Up with the Joneses: Envy in American
Consumer Society, 1890-1930, in Technology and Culture, Fall 2005
Review of Janice Williams Rutherford, Selling Mrs. Consumer: Christine
Frederick and the Rise of Household Efficiency, in American Historical Review,
Fall 2004
Review of Lizabeth Cohen, A Consumer’s Republic: The Politics of Mass
Consumption in Postwar America, in Journal of Interdisciplinary History,
Summer 2004
Review of Landon Storrs, The National Consumers’ League, Women’s Activism,
and Labor Standards in the New Era, in Business History Review, Fall 2001.
Review of Amy Bentley, Eating for Victory: Food Rationing and the Politics of
Domesticity, in Law and History, Spring 2001.
Review of Lawrence B. Glickman, A Living Wage: American Workers and the
Making of Consumer Society, in Journal of American History, September 2000.
Review of Dana Frank, Purchasing Power: Consumer Organizing, Gender, and
the Seattle Labor Movement, 1919-1929, in International Labor and WorkingClass History, Fall 1997.
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FELLOWSHIPS AND HONORS
MIT Alumni Sponsored Education Grant
2010-2011
Radcliffe Fellowship, Harvard University
2008-2009
MIT Levitan Prize in the Humanities
2007-2008
D’Arbeloff Fund for Excellence in Education Grant
2006-2007
MIT Alumni Sponsored Education Grant
2005-2006
Class of 1947 Career Development Chair
2004-2007
Charles Warren Fellow, Center for the Study of American History,
Harvard University
2003-2004
MIT Provost Fund Research Award
2000
Harvard Business School Newcomen Postdoctoral Fellowship
1999-2000
John C. Geilfuss Fellowship, State Historical Society of Wisconsin
1999
Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. Grant, Harvard Business School
1997-8
Harry S. Truman Library Dissertation Writing Fellowship
1996-7
Bankard Fund for Political Economy Dissertation Fellowship,
University of Virginia
1996-97
Smithsonian Institution Pre-Doctoral Fellowship
1995-96
All-University Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award,
University of Virginia
1994-95
University of Virginia Academic Enhancement Fellowship
1992-1994
SEMINARS, COLLOQUIA, AND INVITED TALKS
January 2012
“The Politics of Austerity,” American Historical Association
October 2012
“Austerity in the 70s,” Urban History Association
February 2012
“American Liberalism in an International Context,” Transitions to
Modernity Seminar, Yale University
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April 2011
“Liberalism Revisited,” Cambridge Political History Seminar
November 2010
Roundtable on Conservatism in American Politics, Social Science
History Association
November 2010
“The Energy Crisis,” Workshop at Harvard University for
Teachers as Scholars Program
October 2010
“Conservatives and American State-Building,” Invited Paper at the
Remarque Institute, New York University
June 2010
“From the Cold War to the Gulf War: US in the Middle East,”
Presented at the Policy History Conference
April 2010
The Politics of Environmental Regulation: Business-Government
Relations in the 1970s and Beyond,” Princeton University
April 2010
Roundtable on the State of the Field of Consumption History,
Organization of American Historians
January 2010
“The History of Capitalism” Presented at the American History
Association
July 2009
“From the New Deal to the Great Society,” Workshop for Teachers
at the John F. Kennedy Library
June 2009
“America in the 1970s,” Center for European Studies Outreach
Program, Harvard University
May 2009
“The Energy Crisis: Lessons from the Past,” Keynote Address,
MIT-Congress Seminar
May 2009
“Energy Policy in America,” Radcliffe Institute, Harvard
University
April 2009
“Richard Hofstadter and the Writing of American Political
History,” Organization of American Historians
April 2009
“The Reagan Revolution Revisited,” Political History Seminar,
Boston University
February 2009
“President Carter and the Energy Crisis,” Presented at the
American Politics Seminar, Princeton University
November 2009
“The Energy Crisis, Then and Now,” Mitsui Corporation, MIT
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October 2008
“From Movement to Power: Energy Politics in the Age of
Reagan,” Social Science History Association
August 2008
Roundtable on Eric Patashnik’s Reforms at Risk: What Happens
After Major Policy Changes Are Enacted, American Political
Science Association
June 2008
“The Energy Crisis 30 Years Later,” MIT Alumni Board
May 2008
“Conservatives in Power.” Presented at the Policy History
Conference.
May 2008
“Can Government Be Part of the Solution?” Invited to Global
Warming Summit by Vice President Al Gore
April 2008
“Wreaking Havoc from Within: the George W. Bush Energy
Policy.” Princeton University Conference on the Presidency of
George W. Bush in Historical Perspective.
February 2008
“Panic at the Pump: The Oil Crisis and the Challenges of
Conservative Governance Since the 1970s.” Rutgers University,
Department of History.
February 2008
““The Reagan Revolution: How Conservatives Governed Once
They Actually Achieved Power.” Presented at the University of
Santa Barbara, Department of History.
January 2008
“Was the 1980s Conservative?” Presented at the American
Historical Association
November 2007
“State-Building in the Nixon Era.” Presented at the Social Science
History Association
November 2007
“How to Stage a Revolution.” Presentation to MIT Board of
Trustees
April 2007
“What was New about the New Deal?” Presented at the Kennedy
Library.
March 2007
Workshop on “Panic at the Pump,” Michigan University,
Department of History
March 2007
“Conservative Struggle and the American Energy Crisis,”
Presented at Cambridge University Conference on 1970s
June 2006
Co-organizer of the Policy History Conference
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June 2006
Roundtable on Pocketbook Politics Economic Citizenship in
Twentieth-Century America. At the Policy History Conference
April 2006
“The Energy Crisis of the 1970s Revisited.” Presented to the
Harvard Business School Business History Workshop
January 2006
“Project Independence: The Energy Crisis and the Rise of a Free
Market Ideology.” Presented at the American Historical
Association
November 2005
“Natural Disaster and the Unnatural Bush Response.” Presented as
part of the MIT-wide Symposia on Big Questions after Big
Hurricanes
November 2005
“Independent Truckers Strike: The Energy Crisis and the Not So
Silent Majority.” Invited Participant at Robert Brenner’s “The
Long Seventies: Rank and File, the Unions and the Left
Conference,” UCLA
October 2005
“Foxes in the Hen House: the Nixon Administration and the Arab
Oil Embargo, 1973-74.” Presented at the Boston University
Political History Seminar
September 2005
“How the Energy Crisis Changed American Politics.” Presented at
the Market Cultures Workshop, Yale University
April 2005
Participant in Symposium on Richard White’s The Sorcerer’s
Apprentice. Present at Harvard University Charles Warren Center
March 2005
“Panic at the Pump: The Energy Crisis and the Politics of the
1970s.” Presented at Organization of American Historians
March 2005
“Panic at the Pump: The Energy Crisis and the Politics of the
1970s.” Presented to the Economic History Workshop, MIT
May 2004
“Panic at the Pump: The Energy Crisis and the Politics of the
1970s.” Presented at the Policy History Conference
April 2004
“Crisis of Confidence: Inflation, the Middle Class, and the Politics
of the 1970s.” Presented at the Charles Warren Seminar Workshop
on the Political Economy of North America
March 2004
Commentator for “Roundtable on The Democratic Experiment:
New Directions in American Political History.” At the Annual
Meeting of the Organization of American Historians
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February 2003
“Inflation—the Permanent Dilemma of Postwar American
Economic Culture.” Presented at the Capitalism and Its Culture
Conference, University of California, Santa Barbara
January 2003
“Debates over the Cost of Living in Postwar America.” Presented
at the Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association
June 2002
“Democracy and the Market in 20th Century US.” Presented at the
Policy History Conference
April 2002
“Markets—Public, Private, Political: Women and Consumption at
Mid-Century.” Panel Organizer and Commentator at the Annual
Meeting of the Organization of American Historians
May 2001
“Pocketbook Politics: Democracy and the Market in TwentiethCentury America.” Presented at the Democracy in America
Conference II, MIT
May 2001
Democracy in America Conference II, Conference Organizer,
MIT
March 2001
“Reassessing the American Corporation: History, Politics,
Culture.” Chair and Commentator, John F. Kennedy School of
Government, Harvard University
December 2000
“The Politics of Inflation in the 20th Century United States.”
Invited Lecture to Twentieth-Century Politics and Society
Workshop, Columbia University
September 2000
Democracy in America Conference I, Conference Organizer, MIT
February 2000
“The Politics of Purchasing Power: Considerations on American
Political Economy and State-Building in the 1930s and 1940s.”
Invited Lecture to the History and Politics Workshop, Columbia
University
November 1999
“The Politics of Inflation in the United States, 1945-1973.”
Presented to the Business History Seminar, Harvard Business
School
September 1999
“Consumerism and Economic Policymaking in the TwentiethCentury U.S.” Presented at the Conference on Material Politics,
Churchill College, Cambridge
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June 1999
“The American Politics of Consumption: A Postwar Comparative
Look.” Presented at the Conference on Postwar Social Contracts
under Stress, Institute for Social Sciences, University of Tokyo
May 1999
“The Politics of Plenty: Postwar Political Economy and the Fight
for a Consumer’s Interest.” Presented at the Policy History
Conference
April 1999
“‘What’s Good for G.M. is Good for the Country:’ Postwar
Politics and the Meaning of a Consuming Public.” Presented at the
Annual Meeting of the Organization of American Historians
November 1998
“Consumerism and State-Building from the Bottom-Up.”
Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Social Science History
Association
December 1997
“Rethinking the New Deal State: The Rise and Demise of a
Consuming Public.” Presented to the Hagley Research Seminar,
Hagley Museum and Library
October 1997
“Department Store Democracy.” Presented at the Annual Meeting
of the Social Science History Association
September 1997
“Constructing a New Political Economy: Philanthropy, InstitutionBuilding, and Consumer Capitalism in the Early Twentieth
Century.” Presented at the Philanthropy in History Conference,
Indiana University
April 1997
“The Battle for Full Employment: Policy Choices, Agenda Setting,
and the Meaning of Economic Citizenship.” Presented at the
Annual Meeting of the Organization of American Historians
October 8, 1996
“From the Bargain Basement to the Bargaining Table: Edward A.
Filene and the Creation of a Consuming Public.” Presented to the
History of Technology, Society, and Culture Workshop, University
of Delaware
June 1996
“Edward A. Filene, the Twentieth Century Fund, and the Science
of Mass Consumption.” Presented to the Work in Progress
Colloquia on Philanthropic Organizations, New York University
May 1996
“Wages and Jobs in an Era of Downsizing.” Co-organizer of
Conference in Commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the
Employment Act of 1946, Smithsonian Institution
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November 1995
“The Promise of Purchasing Power: Edward A. Filene and the
Creation of a Modern American Consumer Society.” Presented at
the Annual Meeting of the Social Science History Association
October 1995
“‘How About Some Meat:’ The Politics of Inflation and the
Limits of the Postwar State in the Truman Period.” Presented at the
Conference on the Aftermath of World War II, Hagley Museum
and Library
MIT COMMITTEES
Committee on Educational Technology
Committee on the Undergraduate Program
Gender Task Force Committee
Committee for Family Life and Work
Burchard Scholars Committee
MIT Energy Initiative Seminar Series Committee
Compton Lecture Series Committee
DeFlorez Lecture Series Committee
MIT Corporation Joint Advisory Committee
Humanities and Social Sciences Oversight Committee
Committee to Reform the Humanities/Social Sciences Requirements
HISTORY FACULTY COMMITTEES
Science, Technology and Society Graduate Curriculum Committee
HASTS Graduate Admissions Committee
Undergraduate Curricular Committee
American Studies Adviser
Concentration Adviser
Minor Adviser
Bruce Mazlish Prize Committee
PROFESSIONAL COMMITTEES
OAH Ellis Hawley Prize, Chair, 2012
Social Science History Association Sharlin Prize Committee, 2013
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