Richard Siegler

My dissertation examines how the French Revolution promoted a reconsideration of the crucial constitutional, political and financial ramifications of public entrepreneurship.  What kinds of public resources and spaces can be leased to private individuals?  To what extent should the personal finances of these entrepreneurs be public knowledge?  What should be included in the contracts and how long should they last?  What financial incentives should the entrepreneurs receive?  Should they be driven by a profit motive or fixed compensation? 

These questions fueled a decade-long debate at the national and local level.  By studying this debate, I argue that the Revolution’s reconsideration of public entrepreneurship defined modern norms about public contracts.   Following a brief hiatus during the radical phase of the Revolution, the leasing of canals, roads, mines, and taxes to the private sector returned with a vengeance after 1795 and still remains a central feature of national and municipal policy in modern France.  Wealthy individuals continued to acquire service contracts, but to do so they had to articulate new justifications for their access to public power, such as their expertise, patriotism, and level of public engagement. Henceforth the entrepreneur’s moral character and history would now matter and he would have to exercise such power under scrutiny.

Major Field: Modern Europe

Minor Fields: Atlantic World, Indian Ocean World, British Empire

2018

Robert R. Palmer Research Travel Grant, American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies

2017  

Dan and Sylvia Walbolt Dissertation Research Fellowship, Department of History, Florida State University

Masséna Society Dissertation Research Fellowship, The Masséna Society

Bourse d’étude et de recherche, Fondation Napoléon

Digital History Fellow, Department of History, Florida State University

2016

Masséna Society Dissertation Research Fellowship, The Masséna Society

Ben Weider Non-Military History Fellowship, Institute on Napoleon and the French Revolution, Florida State University

J. Leitch Wright Jr. Award for Outstanding Research (Ph.D.), Department of History, Florida State University (Awarded for best paper 2015-2016)

2013-2015        

Research Assistantship, Department of History, Florida State University

J. Leitch Wright Jr. Award for Outstanding Research (M.A.), Department of History, Florida State University (Awarded for best paper 2014-2015)

2013

Paul Vouras Humanities Award, Department of History, William Paterson University

Livio Stecchini Award, Department of History, William Paterson University

2010-2013        

Humanities Scholar, William Paterson Honors College, William Paterson University        

Trustee Scholarship, William Paterson University

2018

“A Revolution in Public Services: The French Revolution and its Legacy of Public Administration,” Society for French Historical Studies, Pittsburgh, PA, 8-10 March 2018

“Napoleon’s Public Administration: Duties and the French State in Napoleonic France,” Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, Philadelphia, PA, 22-24 February 2018

2017

“The Fall and Rise of Octrois:  Restoring An Old Regime Tax in Revolutionary France, 1791-1800,” Society for French Historical Studies, Washington, D.C., 20-23 April 2017        

“An Old Regime Tax in Napoleonic France: Octrois and Municipal Finance, 1798-1815,” Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, Charleston, SC, 23-26 February 2017

2016                

“Blacking Out the Friction: The Napoleonic State’s Unapologetic Rehabilitation of Monarchy and the Uncomfortable Return of Nobility, 1804-1810,” Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, Shreveport, LA, 25-27 February 2016

2015

“A Motion for Heredity: Napoleonic Justifications for the Creation of Empire, February-May 1804,” Southeast Regional Graduate Conference, Florida State University, 28 March 2015

“A Motion for Heredity: Contextualizing Le Moniteur’s Role In the Creation of the Empire, February-May 1804,” Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, High Point, NC, 19-21 February 2015

2016                

“A Motion for Heredity: Contextualizing Le Moniteur’s Role in the Creation of the Empire, February-May 1804,” Napoleonic Scholarship: The Journal of the International Napoleonic Society, No. 7, December 2016

2015                

Piehler, G. Kurt and Richard Siegler. “The Collections of the Institute on World War II and the Human Experience: Memory, Remembrance, History.” Durra Print, Inc., 2015

Public Scholarship

2016    

“The French Revolution and Napoleon Collection at FSU,” Age of Revolutions, (A collaborative, peer-reviewed online blog on the Age of Revolutions and the concept of “Revolution”) September 2016

2015

“Napoleon’s Revolutionary Crown: The Unapologetic Rehabilitation of Hereditary Power,” Age of Revolutions, December 2015