Laura Rigal is an associate professor in the Department of English and in the American studies program at the University of Iowa. She teaches courses in 18th- and 19th- century American literature and culture that emphasize the intersection of nation-building and imperial expansion; the culture of American federalism; the history and culture of industrialization; the relationship between visual and textual structures of representation; and Native American cultural history of the 18th century. Her book on the early industrial culture of federalist America, The American Manufactory: Art, Labor, and the World of Things in the Early Republic was published in 1998 by Princeton University Press. Her other articles and book reviews may be found in recent issues of Theatre Journal, The Huntington Library Quarterly, The William and Mary Quarterly, and in American Iconology: New Approaches to Nineteenth Century Art and Literature, edited by David Miller.