Archive for category: History

Preview: Lynne M. Jackson, “How the Constitution Worked for and against Dred Scott,”

Provided Description of Assignment:

Submit brief but substantive written preview (500 words should usually be adequate) for a speaker that looks at their previous work and explaining how it seems to fit into the discourse on their topic/past scholarship, or just what makes it seem interesting and important. DO NOT simply repeat the information that is given on the Kinder Institute web site, or the speaker’s web page at their home university. Push yourself to find something of interest about the speaker or topic (even if you are not sure it is) and fill in key background information that may not be easily available elsewhere. Your main intended audience should be fellow Kinder Institute students, including undergraduates, who might be considering either attending the event or watching it remotely. Try to make the topic intelligible and relevant to their concerns, career plans or interests.

The preview must “Describes presenter’s background & research. Anticipates the subject of presentation and its relation to presenter’s body of work. Mostly makes original comments—NOT copied and pasted, i.e. what are you looking forward to the most about the talk and why? What do you think are the major contributions of this presenter to their field? How does this converse with their other scholarship? Etc.”
The topic of this preview will be Lynne M. Jackson’s speech at the State Historical Society of Missouri. Here is a link describing the event  https://democracy.missouri.edu/events/kicd-constitution-day-lecture/

Brief explanation of Jackson:

For the Kinder Institute’s annual James E. Fleming and Linda C. McClain Constitution Day Lecture, Lynne M. Jackson, President and Founder of the Dred Scott Heritage Foundation and the great-great granddaughter of Harriet and Dred Scott, will unpack the backstory of the landmark Dred Scott decision and how the Constitution was used and abused in reaching it. Co-sponsored by the MU Department of Black Studies and the Michael A. Middleton Center for Race, Citizenship, and Justice, the talk will be held at 5pm on September 15 in Cook Hall at the State Historical Society of Missouri.

The following links will be helpful in this assignment

Biographical Information:

http://www.thenys.com/lynne-m-jackson/

Other Important information:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lynne-m-jackson-7075aa1a/

https://www.thedredscottfoundation.org/dshf/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=104&Itemid=86

https://dredscottlives.org/about/president-founder/

https://brownandassociates-speakers.com/Lynne-Jackson.html

Below are a few examples of past previews and how they should sound etc.

Dr. Woody Holton is a historian of Early America and the Revolution, and is approaching the ten-year anniversary of his tenure as the Peter and Bonnie McCausland Professor of History at the University of South Carolina. He received his B.A. in English from the University of Virginia, before earning his Ph.D. in History from Duke University. Dr. Holton is particularly interested in the political and economic experiences of women, African Americans, and Native Americans in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Perhaps Dr. Holton’s best known work is his 2009 book, Abigail Adams, which was honored with a number of awards including the Bancroft prize, as well as a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice selection. Using newly-discovered collections of his subject’s papers and documents, the biography unveils not only Adams’ financial and political influence on the early republic’s formation, but also of women in general in the years following the Revolution.

Similarly applauded are his earlier publications, including Black Americans in the Revolutionary Era: A Brief History with Documents (2009), Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution (2007), and Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia(1999). Unruly Americans, a finalist for the National Book Award, made the compelling and innovative argument that the Constitution’s drafting was much more intent on attracting international financial attention than on protecting American citizens, and that civil rights largely earned their inclusion through public protest and dissent. Forced Founders comparably reconsiders the equally momentous American Revolution through a class and race-based lens, aiming to explain why the prosperous plantation class came into alignment with those lower classes to rise up against English colonial rule.

His fifth book, Liberty is Sweet: The Hidden History of the American Revolution, was published late last month with the help of a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship. Characteristically adding detail to the collective historical imagination of America, Holton explores the impact of oft-ignored influences during the Revolutionary period, including Indigenous peoples, women, religious objectors, and Black Americans, as well as extra-political circumstances, such as disease. Nikole Hannah-Jones, creator of the “1619 Project”, commented that the “book unsettles the reader in the best possible way, and shows once again how the simplistic histories of our founding fail to explain the divided country in which we all live,” while Annette Gordon-Reed, Carl M. Loeb University Professor of law and history at Harvard, called Liberty is Sweet a “persuasive and necessary account [that] will challenge all who think they know exactly why the 13 colonies opted to leave Great Britain.”

This evening, Dr. Holton will be speaking about Liberty is Sweet at the State Historical Society of Missouri. 

When one thinks of the American Revolution, the traditional story of great men who fought for independence against a tyrannical monarchy will often come to mind. However, this focus upon the founding fathers and their achievements has potentially created an understanding of the revolution that ignores social history and cultural diversity. If we are to truly reckon with the American Revolution, we must consider the impact of these well-trodden events in a new light.

In his new book, Liberty Is Sweet: The Hidden History of the American Revolution, the Bancroft Prize winning historian Woody Holton grapples with the inconstancies and complexities of the American Revolution in order to readdress our common perceptions about the founding of the United States. He considers well known battles and events through the eyes of those who have traditionally been ignored by the historical record – such as Native American soldiers, women, dissenters, and enslaved African Americans. However, he also considers how lesser-known battles, such as the Battle of Monongahela during the French and Indian War, contributed to the tactical development of well-known revolutionary figures like George Washington. This keen focus upon episodes and people who impacted the American Revolution in unconventional ways helps us to reconsider our deductions about war, revolution, constitutionalism and U.S. national identity.

In his lecture, Holton will discuss the themes and conclusions of his work, helping to complicate our understanding of American Democracy and the actors who contributed to its beginning. This focus upon those whose contributions, beliefs and identities have previously been minimised allows us to move beyond elite perspectives and justifications for the revolution to consider a bottom-up approach. Crucially, Holton will highlight that the motivations for revolution differed between the elites and the different marginalised groups who are included in this study, with these disparate provocations often leading to inter-group tension. The understanding and stakes of freedom were vastly different for each group and his lecture shall illuminate how this complicates our belief in a unified revolutionary force. This lecture promises to consider the consequences of revolution and the enacting of constitutions on the efforts of freemen and other people at the edges of the historical narrative, considering what revolution means for those who do not possess the power to influence the national legal and social consequences of war and state building.

Professor Woody Holton is a historian of Early America, with a specialization in the economic, social and unconventional history of the American Revolution. Holton received his PhD from Duke University in 1990 and has taught at the University of South Carolina as the Peter and Bonnie McCausland Professor of History since 2012. His previous book, Abigail Adams, won the Columbia University Bancroft Prize for monographs about diplomacy and the history of the Americas. Liberty is Sweet and this subsequent lecture will build upon the efforts of his previous works, such as Forced Founders and Black Americans in the Revolutionary Era, by readdressing our traditional understandings of crucial moments in American history through primary sources that provide neglected perspectives. This entry in the Kinder Institute’s Colloquium series will no doubt prove to be a skilful reassessment of one of the most important revolutions in the making of the modern Western world.

For centuries, the Haitian Revolution was little more than a footnote in the wider historiography of Atlantic history. Despite being home to nearly the same number of enslaved people of African descent as in the United States, the first state in the Western hemisphere governed predominantly by African descendants, and the site of the second major defeat of a European power in the Americas, the colony formerly known as Saint-Domingue gained little traction within the historical research of the 19th and 20th centuries. The field was turned on its head, however, in the lead up to the bicentennial of the nation’s independence when a new wave of scholars began to give the tiny Caribbean Island (and its own local scholars) its historical due. One of the historians leading that charge was this week’s speaker, Laurent Dubois.

Holding a B.A. in Anthropology and English from Princeton University and a Ph.D. in Anthropology and History from the University of Michigan, Dubois comes to us from his new position at the University of Virginia where he is the John L. Nau III Bicentennial Professor of the History and Principles of Democracy and the Co-Director of the Democracy Initiative. Prior to that he was Professor of Romance Studies and History as well as the Co-Director of the Haiti Laboratory and founder of the Forum for Scholars and Publics at Duke University. Dubois specializes in the histories of the Caribbean, particularly Haiti whose aforementioned revolution was the topic of his landmark books Avengers of the New World (2004) and A Colony of Citizens: Revolution and Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787-1804 (2004) the latter of which was the recipient of several book prizes, including the Frederick Douglass Prize for work on slavery, abolition, or anti-slavery movements. His work in Caribbean history continued with his 2012 book, Haiti: The Aftershocks of History, and his most recent book, Freedom Roots: Histories from the Caribbean (2019), co-written by Richard Turits. Dubois’ work does not solely focus on that of the Caribbean, however, as his interests have led him into the world of sports where he has contributed several articles to Sports Illustrated and written two books, Soccer Empire: The World Cup and the Future of France (2010) and The Language of the Game: How to Understand Soccer (2018), on the politics of the sport. He has also delved into the realm of cultural history and music with his book The Banjo: America’s African Instrument (2016).

This Thursday, in a talk two and a half years in the making, Laurent Dubois combines his interest in the cultural history of the Arts and his background in the Haitian Revolution with “Minette’s Worlds: Theatre & Revolution in Saint-Domingue.” His talk aims to view the Haitian Revolution through the vibrant lens of theatrical performance and culture in Saint-Domingue, centered around three key figures: Alzire, the titular character of Voltaire’s anticolonial work Alzire, ou les Américains; Zaïre, both a Saint-Domingue slave seeking her freedom and the star of an unrelated Voltaire play sharing her name; and Minette, the namesake of this talk and one of the most prominent stars of the island’s theater scene. Each of their stories weaves through that of the shifting world around them and the themes of gender, sexuality, and political and cultural transformations their lives and works portray help paint a vivid picture of a nation set to change the course of not only their tiny Caribbean island, but that of an entire Ocean.

Prof. Robinson Woodward-Burns (Howard U.), “Hidden Laws,” 1/22/21

Dr. Robinson Woodward-Burns is currently an Assistant Professor within the Political Science department at Howard University. His areas of research include American constitutional thought and development and he primarily teaches classes on law, American political thought, and political theory. He holds his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, his M.A. from the University of Maryland, and his B.A. from from William and Mary.

During Friday’s Kinder Colloquia, Dr. Woodward-Burns will speak about his new book Hidden Laws: How State Constitutions Stabilize American Politics, currently set to be published June 29, 2021. In it, Woodward-Burns will argue that state constitutions play a vital role in regulating tensions amongst the federal branches of government. He will also argue that state constitutions provide political legitimacy that the federal constitution cannot provide. Because state constitutions have a closer relationship to the people it governs than federal constitutions, state constitutions unambiguously represent the people and its ideals more than the U.S. constitution.

State constitutions are understudied in the field of political science. Most scholars opt to study the U.S. Constitution. Its brevity and succinct nature, not to mention just a few amendments, make it an easier source to study. In contrast, “The states have held 233 constitutional conventions, ratified 146 constitutions, and passed 7,586 amendments to the current 50 constitutions, with 97% of American litigation filed in state courts.” (Woodward-Burns e85) But, as Woodward-Burns points out, ignoring the state constitutions in favor of the easier to study U.S. Constitution fails to provide a full picture of political thought and legitimacy in the United States.

Scholarship into state constitutions is an emerging field within the discipline of political science. Beginning at the turn of the millennium, scholars questioned what role state constitutions play within American society. Since then, influential political scientists have found that “state constitutional development shapes national political development.” (Woodward-Burns e89) While Woodward-Burns forthcoming book argues this very same sentiment found throughout existing scholarship on state constitutions, no one has attempted to systematically organize and process every single proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution and every state constitutional convention. Previous works focus on select instances in American history. Recently, Paul E. Herron published his book Framing the Solid South: The State Constitutional Conventions of Secession, Reconstruction and Redemption, 1860-1902. In it, he argue that southern states consolidated their power in the old, antebellum tradition after the Civil War through the use of their state constitutions. Sean Beienburg also argued recently in his book Prohibition, the Constitution, and States’ Rights that the state constitutions in the 1920s helped to clearly define the role of the state and the role of the federal government. These books, while informative, do not offer a holistic picture of state constitutions and their purposes. The clear, comprehension study conducted by Woodward-Burns will help fill in some of the missing gaps. Hidden Laws will undoubtedly be a fascinating and informative read.

These last two previews are the most recent. See the link for the event they are “previewing” https://democracy.missouri.edu/events/kicd-thompson/

Much before the landmark decision in Roe v. Wade (1973), the discussion of the constitutionality of abortion and birth control was extremely controversial in American society. By the turn of the 20th century, abortion was illegal in every state in the United States. This ban impacted women all over the country, but especially people of color and lower socioeconomic status. As a result, women usually had no other choice but to resort to dangerous abortion practices that they performed on themselves or other pregnant women. In an effort to prevent these life-threatening practices, Emma Goldman, Mary Dennett, and Margaret Sanger announced the beginning of the birth control movement in 1914. Over 100 years later, the discussion of birth control and abortion is just as pertinent and contentious with the recent Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

On Friday, September 2, Dr. Lauren MacIvor Thompson will be kicking off the 2022 Kinder Institute Colloquium Series by presenting her talk, “‘Thoughtful Mothers Choose Abortion’: Birth Control Law and Reform in the Age Before Roe.” Starting at 3:30 p.m. in Jesse Hall 410, Thompson will speak about the historical and current significance of the early birth control movement, and more particularly how birth control activists fought for the legalization of contraception in the Progressive Era. Her presentation will look at how birth control activism at the time was successful in creating laws that allowed physicians to prescribe birth control to their patients. Additionally, Thompson will argue how the laws passed at the time would eventually shape the inequality surrounding women’s reproductive health in the post-Roe United States. Dr. Thompson’s presentation will continue her scholarly debate with supporters of the pro-life movement over the historical record of the use of birth control and abortion by American women.

Dr. Thompson is a historian of reproductive health, women’s rights, and law. She is an Assistant Professor of History and Interdisciplinary Studies at Kennesaw State University, as well as a faculty research fellow at the Georgia State University College of Law’s Center for Law, Health, and Society. Thompson holds a Ph.D. from Georgia State University, an M.A. from Georgia State University, and a B.A. from the University of Virginia. Thompson’s work focuses on the intersections of medical practices, women’s reproductive health, and public health policy in the early 20th century.

Previously, she has published several academic articles and op-eds in the Law and History Review, The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, The New York Times, and The New York Times. Some of her most note-worthy articles include “Roe v. Wade and Feminism: The Limits of Public Memory,” “Women Have Always Had Abortions,” “‘The Presence of a Monstrosity’: Eugenics, Female Disability, and Obstetrical-Gynecological Medicine Late 19th-Century New York,” “The politics of Female Pain: The Twilights Sleep Association and the Origins of the Birth Control Movement, 1913-1915,” and “‘The Reasonable (Wo)man’: Physicians, Freedom of Contract, and Women’s Rights, 1870-1930.” With the widespread trend of several states to pass restrictive trigger laws following the Supreme Court’s decision in June 2022 to overturn Roe v. Wade the overarching issue has only increased the popularity and relevance of Thompson’s profound work in her field of history. Currently, she is working on her first book, Rivals and Rights: Mary Dennett, Margaret Sanger, and the Making of the American Birth Control Movement, which is forthcoming with the Rutgers University Press in 2024.

The Kinder Institute is looking forward to Dr. Thompson presenting her unique approach to such a widely disputed issue.

 

‘Thoughtful Mothers Choose Abortion’: Birth Control Law and Reform in the Age Before Roe,”

Roe v. Wade was a landmark legal decision issued on January 22, 1973, in which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Texas statute banning abortion, effectively legalizing the procedure across the United States, and making it a federal constitutional right. The decision affected all women, but most significantly, it impacted lower-class, poorer women, allowing them to obtain safe, legal abortions, where they had previously been condemned to prohibited, “back-alley” abortions, or self-induced ones. Whilst still being touched by the illegality of abortions, women, notably those who were white and within higher socio-economic classes, more often had the financial means to obtain a safe abortion, either by travelling to another country or paying a large fee to a U.S. doctor willing to perform the operation.

What existed before Roe v. Wade? Who was fighting for women’s contraceptive rights, and how did the birth control movement develop within the United States to reach such a point that legal transformations would be the result? Dr. Lauren MacIvor Thompson, a historian on early-twentieth-century women’s rights, medicine, law, and public health, will help to enlighten our understanding on some of these issues during her talk on Friday 2nd of September. Not only will her talk enhance our understanding of the activism of the early birth control movement, but it will point to how this process shaped the following fights for reproductive rights; further, it will lead us to consider how that fight went on to develop unevenly across the nation, with impacts that are still felt today.

After gaining her PhD from Georgia State University in 2016 (– see Bailey’s post for the facts and stats of her BA, MA, and current positions), Thompson’s first publication (2017) drew together medical, legal and women’s history, and contemporary moral reflections on these fields, through examining the interconnection of eugenics, the professionalization of American medicine, and the development of the specialties of obstetrics and gynaecology. Her following publications continued to focus on the early-twentieth century and draw on the themes of medicine, law, and women’s history – specifically women’s reproduction and women’s rights movements; she has noted the convergence of these themes within public health policy – notably policy which had no input from women.

It is fruitful to draw together the women’s suffrage movement and the fight for contraceptive rights, as some of her previous work has done, as the two are unified in their fighting for female for female autonomy. It will be interesting on Friday to hear how the struggle for birth control movement developed and took shape: how it converged with the women’s suffrage movement and had to grow beyond that; how there were women who fought for one and not the other; and to hear about the intersectionality of women’s, medical, and legal histories in an era before the landmark statue.

Finally, it must be noted that this talk is coming at a critical time: the historic precedent protecting women’s abortion rights has just been overturned. This makes reflections on the disproportionality of the movement, both in historic and contemporary terms, all the more illuminating, and pressing, to discuss.