Father Thomas Murphy, a member of the Department since 1999, holds his doctorate from the University of Connecticut. His dissertation became the book “Jesuit Slaveholding in Maryland, 1717-1838.” He has now turned his attention to the years following the American Civil War, and has a long-range goal of exploring the interaction between the Reconstruction reforming era in the United States and efforts to extend voting rights and citizenship in the United Kingdom during the same era. Fr. Murphy is also researching Anglo-American relations as they affected the Pacific Northwest during the period 1859-1903, an era encompassing several disputes concerning the US-Canadian border along both the Washington state and Alaska frontiers.