I am a PhD candidate at the University of Missouri-Columbia and I am looking for papers as well as a commentator and session chair for a panel for SHEAR 2013 in St. Louis that will deal with Trans-Atlantic trade during the Era of the Early Republic and the role played by U.S. waterways. More specifically, the panel will be looking at ways in which rivers linked merchants, farmers and products in the West to markets in the East and Europe. My paper will examine shipbuilding on western waters during the Era of the Early Republic and how the construction of ocean-going vessels in the Ohio Valley along the Ohio River is both an indicator of the vital role that the area played in Trans-Atlantic trade and its dependence on markets in the East and Europe during this period. The topic and description of this panel is merely a rough draft and I am more than willing to alter it in order to accommodate other papers dealing with Trans-Atlantic trade, the Atlantic World or maritime history.The deadline for proposals is Dec. 1, 2012.