Paul E. Johnson and Sean Wilentz

Paul E. Johnson and Sean Wilentz are both historians with prolific academic careers. Johnson was born in Los Angeles in 1942, during World War Two. Nine years later, Wilentz was born in New York City in 1942, to a family that owned a bookshop in Greenwich Village. Both studied history in prestigious institutions and took up academic posts, with Johnson at the University of South Carolina and Wilentz at Princeton in New Jersey. They became friends through their work in the academic community. While conducting separate research on 19th-century religious revivals, each scholar independently came across the curious story of Robert Matthews and the press scandal over his cult, “The Kingdom of Matthias.” They decided to put their heads together and collaborate. The project took almost a decade, as Johnson and Wilentz painstakingly researched historical records and sources to bring the scandalous story of Robert Matthews’s 1830s-era cult to life. In doing so, Johnson and Wilentz weave together a telling picture of economics, gender, race, and religion during a time when American society was rapidly evolving. Johnson has since retired, while Wilentz continues his professorship at the University of South Carolina. Wilentz has also engaged with politics as a public figure, speaking out in 2006 against George W. Bush’s presidency and again in 2008, to endorse Hilary Clinton’s presidential candidacy.