Casey Eilbert is a historian of the modern United States interested in political culture, the history of the state, the history of capitalism, and the history of ideas. Her research explores how the concept of bureaucracy developed in the modern America. Looking to discourses in social science, politics, business, and popular culture, it considers how Americans’ ideas about bureaucracy changed over time and contributed to the major political economic shifts of the 20th century. It shows that more than merely an organizational form, bureaucracy – as a symbol of the tensions between impersonality and instrumentalism and community and self in the modern world – was a concept at the heart of Americans’ efforts toward democracy, merit, and equality and their attempts to create institutions (in the private and public sectors) that supported these values.
Eilbert is interested in interdisciplinary teaching and writing pedagogy and has enjoyed working with students via Princeton’s Freshman Scholars Institute, Writing Program, and Prison Teaching Initiative. She received her PhD in History from Princeton University in 2024. Before that, she received her B.A. in Political & Social Thought from the University of Virginia.