Andrew Wender Cohen

• 2026 Spring
  • HST 300 Selected Topics - Hist. of Capitalism in the US
• 2025 Fall
  • HST 386 Crime and Society in American History, 1620 to Present
  • HST 496 Distinction Thesis in History
• 2025 Spring
  • HST 102 American History Since 1865
  • HST 495 Distinction Thesis in History
  • HST 301 Practicum in the Study of History
• 2024 Spring
  • HST 102 American History Since 1865
  • HST 496 Distinction Thesis in History

Andrew Wender Cohen has published three books. His most recent is Gangster of New York: A Violent Life in Nineteenth Century America (Cambridge, 2026), which uses the life of Louis Bieral, a boxer, pimp and assassin turned Civil War hero, to understand everyday brutality and the rule of law in the United States. 

In 2015, W.W. Norton & Co. published his book, Contraband: Smuggling and the Birth of the American Century, which explored illicit trade, tariff enforcement and economic nationalism in the nineteenth century.  His first monograph, The Racketeer’s Progress: Chicago and the Struggle for the Modern American Economy, 1900-1940 (Cambridge, 2004), focused on economic violence and the origins of racketeering law.

His current research project, “Anthony Comstock’s Gilded Age,” examines the role of the criminal law in regulating sex and gender in the post-Civil War era.  

Cohen has won fellowships from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the American Council of Learned Societies and the National Humanities Center, among others. He co-edits a book series on “American Business, Politics, and Society” with the University of Pennsylvania Press and sits on the editorial boards of Reviews in American History and Law and History Review.

• Books
  • Cohen, A. W., Contraband: Smuggling and the Birth of the American Century. W.W. Norton & Co, 2015.
  • Cohen, A. W., The Racketeer’s Progress: Chicago and the Struggle for the Modern American Economy, 1900-1940. Cambridge University Press, 2004.
• Journal Articles
  • Cohen, A. W., "Enforcing Gender at the Polls: Transing Voters and Women’s Suffrage before the American Civil War." Journal of Social History, 2023.
  • Cohen, A. W., "Smuggling, Globalization, and America’s Outward State, 1870-1909." Journal of American History, 2010.

Paper People, History Department, Northwestern University, ""'If you please sir, I want…a certificate that I am a man': Legitimizing Gender in Nineteenth Century America"" (May 2, 2025 - May 3, 2025)

History of Capitalism Seminar, Newberry Library (October 6, 2023)

British American Nineteenth-Century History Conference, British American Nineteenth-Century History Association, "The State: Economy and Finance" (September 22, 2023 - September 24, 2023)

History of Capitalism Seminar, Newberry Library (January 27, 2023)

Work, Capitalism, And Democracy: Past, Present, and Future, Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy, "Incarceration and Capitalism: Rethinking the Historical Relationship" (May 20, 2022 - May 21, 2022)

Associate Professor – Department of History – Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs – Syracuse University – 2005 to Present.

Assistant Professor – Department of History – Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs – Syracuse University – 1999 to 2005.

J. Willard Hurst Fellow – Institute for Legal Studies – U. of Wisconsin Law School – 1997 to 1999.

Researcher – Public Citizen’s Congress Watch, Washington, D.C. – 1991. 

Citation for Excellence in Graduate Education, Syracuse University (2019)

Otey and Barbara Scruggs History Faculty Scholar, Syracuse University (2012 - 2015)

Fellow, American Council of Learned Societies (2010 - 2011)

American Fellow, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (2005 - 2006)

Daniel Patrick Moynihan Award, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University (2005)