Wolleman Family History Lecture

Why are we still talking about slavery? Perhaps because the effects of US slavery, which officially ended in 1865, continue to accumulate and grow in the present. Edward Baptist, Department of History professor, will discuss the way that US slavery drove the rapid development of American capitalism, while also showing how slavery helped shape the our society's character and culture.  Even in 2016, American slavery is uncomfortably close.

Professor Baptist's focus is on the history of the 19th-century United States, and in particular on the history of the enslavement of African Americans in the South.  The expansion of slavery in the United States between the writing of the Constitution in 1787 and the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 had enormous consequences for all Americans.  Indeed, the expansion shaped many elements of the modern world that we now live in, both inside and outside the borders of the United States.  I am writing a book about that process: the experience of the slave trades and forced migrations that drove expansion, the systems of labor that emerged, the economic and political and cultural consequences for women and men and children.  Professor Baptist will discuss his book, The Half Has Never Been Told, which is told through intimate slave narratives, plantation records, newspapers, and the words of politicians, entrepreneurs, and escaped slaves.

Professor Baptist teaches a wide variety of courses: the first half of the American survey, classes on slavery, the South, the Civil War, on U.S. political history, modernity and modernization, masculinity, and 19th-century US history in general. 

6:00-6:30pm reception; 6:30pm lecture, gratis.  Members and guests are invited to dine at The Club following the lecture. The cost is $40 per person, inclusive of tax, gratuity and one glass of wine with dinner. Dinner reservations are required 48 hours prior to the program. Same-day cancellations and no shows will be charged.