Donna Rilling

Donna Rilling is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at Stony Brook University, part of the College of Arts and Sciences. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania (1993) and specializes in early American history, particularly the Early Republic period (1780s–1850s), with teaching spanning from the colonial era through the Civil War.

Her research focuses on the history of capitalism, labor (free and enslaved), business and entrepreneurship, household production, gender roles, technological change, and the relationship between legal institutions and economic development. She is particularly interested in urban environmental history and the socio-political dynamics surrounding industrialization and infrastructure in 19th-century American cities.

Rilling is the author of Making Houses, Crafting Capitalism: Builders in Philadelphia, 1790–1850 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001), which explores the role of master builders as entrepreneurs in Philadelphia’s urban expansion. She is currently working on two major book projects: Mill Creek: A Biography, an environmental and social history of a contested urban waterway in 19th-century Philadelphia, and Foreclosed: The Struggles of a Black Community in Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia, which examines the experiences of a free Black community marginalized by municipal neglect and urban development.

She is deeply committed to public history and historic preservation, having successfully nominated the African Friends to Harmony Burial Ground to Philadelphia’s Register of Historic Sites and co-authored nominations for other significant African American historical sites, including the William and Letitia Still Underground Railroad Way Station and the Stephen and Harriet Smith—William and Harriet Whipper Abolitionist houses.

• Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 1993

Her scholarly contributions reflect a sustained engagement with the intersections of economy, law, race, and environment in American urban history. While no specific grants or advising roles are listed, her active research agenda and preservation work demonstrate ongoing scholarly and civic engagement.