Erica Armstrong Dunbar, a recognized
scholar whose work examines the lives of free and enslaved African
American women in the early days of the United States, has been named
the Blue and Gold Professor of Black American Studies and History at the University of Delaware.
Her named professorship took effect March 1.
Your appointment to this professorship is in recognition of your
achievements as a scholar and educator, UD Acting President Nancy M.
Targett and Provost Domenico Grasso said in the appointment letter. We
greatly appreciate your outstanding contributions and service to the
University of Delaware.
In addition to her teaching and scholarship at UD, Armstrong Dunbar
is the inaugural director of the Program in African American History at
the Library Company of Philadelphia, the nations oldest library,
founded by Benjamin Franklin.
In her post at one of the most respected repositories of Early
Americana, Armstrong Dunbar promotes the public humanities, mentors and
advises advanced graduate students and junior scholars and raises
significant funding for diversity pipeline initiatives.
A distinguished author, her much-anticipated new book, Never Caught: The Presidents Runaway Slave Woman,
is a biographical study of Ona Judge Staines, George and Martha
Washingtons house slave who escaped to New Hampshire in 1796. The book
is scheduled for publication by Simon and Schuster in January 2017.
Her first book, A Fragile Freedom: African American Women and Emancipation in the Antebellum City, positioned her as a scholar of early African American women's history.
Wunyabari O. Maloba, professor and interim chair of Black American
Studies and professor of history, said Armstrong Dunbar represents the
best that any department can offer for academic elevation and
promotion, adding that she is now generally considered one of the
leading historians of her generation on the history of African American
women, 19th century American history and Black Philadelphia.
Armstrong Dunbar has been named a distinguished lecturer by the
Organization of American Historians and has received fellowships from
the Ford Foundation, Mellon Foundation and Social Science Research
Council.
She also served on the editorial board for the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography and currently sits on the editorial board for the Race and the Atlantic World Series with the University of Georgia Press.
Her expertise is in high demand, and she regularly participates in
print, television and radio interviews. She has appeared in the
documentaries Philadelphia: The Great Experiment and The Abolitionists, a PBS American Experience production.
Maloba praised Armstrong Dunbar as an outstanding teacher and
adviser. In addition to her scholarly work, he noted that she has
taught numerous undergraduate and graduate courses in the departments of
Black American Studies and History and has served on many graduate
committees in the history department and as the primary adviser to a
number of doctoral students in history.
Her service to the Department of Black American Studies, the College
[of Arts and Sciences] and the University of Delaware, the profession
and the public is truly unusually extensive and varied, Maloba said.
Armstrong Dunbar received her bachelors degree from the University
of Pennsylvania and her masters and doctoral degrees from Columbia
University.
