The residents of eighteenth-century Bethlehem designed their community to prioritize their local and transatlantic missionary work. With this aim in mind, they re-envisioned property, gender, family roles, and a communal economy. Living in dormitories segregated by gender and by age, they built no private dwellings; parents did not raise their children. These men and women also constructed one of the colonies’ most important industrial districts and established trade networks across the Atlantic and west to the Ohio River Valley. Many of Bethlehem’s eighteenth-century sacred and secular buildings remain in use today, just steps from our conference site.

Given Bethlehem’s many histories, the theme of this conference will be the Sacred and the Secular in the Transatlantic Eighteenth Century. We welcome proposals that explore these issues in light of science, history, religion, politics, literature, art, or technology. Of course, we also welcome proposals that are not directly related to the conference’s theme.

We are delighted that this year’s keynote speaker will be Jon Sensbach, professor of history at the University of Florida. Professor Sensbach is an outstanding scholar of religion, race, and colonization.