Broadly speaking, my scholarly interests include early African American history, politics, visual culture, and material culture. My research incorporates a broad variety of original documents - court records, images, church registers, pamphlets, books, newspapers, ephemera, wills, and other legal materials - to examine the complex histories of African American communities and activism.
My first book, Visualizing Equality: African American Rights and Visual Culture in the Nineteenth Century, was published by the University of North Carolina Press in September 2020. It examines the changing roles of black visual artists who used various visual technologies to produce images that envisioned black social equality, political enfranchisement, and freedom from slavery. Moreover, these artists’ transatlantic activists networks, international travels, and their commentaries on black emigration to Africa and the Caribbean reveal their extensive involvement in the cultures of racial representation and the racial politics. This project identifies these artists as cultural producers who paired their activism and their artistry to make bold claims about the future of African Americans and the United States. A portion of this research can be found in my article, "The Art of Racial Politics: The Work of Robert Douglass Jr., 1833–46," by clicking here.
In addition to my first book, I have developed a second book project as well as smaller projects that center the lives of nineteenth century African Americans. I have written several articles and book chapters that include:
“Reading the Emancipation Proclamation’: Viewing Race and Freedom during the Civil War Era.” Civil War History 68, no. 2 (June 2022): 194-209.
“Claiming Space, Bearing Witness: The Portraits of Early African American Ministers” in Jasmine Nichole Cobb, ed., African American Literature in Transition, 1750-2015: Volume 2, 1800-1830 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021): 288-315.
“Stolen Looks, People Unbound: Picturing Contraband People during the Civil War.” Slavery & Abolition 40, no. 1 (2019): 28-60.
“William Dorsey and the Construction of an African American History Archive.” Social Dynamics: A Journal of African Studies 45, no. 1 (2019): 138-155.
“Stealing Freedom: Robert Smalls and Modeling Citizenship” in Kathleen Diffley and Benjamin Fagan, eds., Visions of Glory: The Civil War in Word and Image (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2019).
“The Art of Racial Politics: The Work of Robert Douglass Jr., 1833-46.” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 138, no. 1 (January 2014), 5-37.
I am very grateful that numerous institutions have supported my research. These include the Ford Foundation, the American Antiquarian Society, the Library Company of Philadelphia, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the American Philosophical Society, the Social Science Research Council, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, the University of Michigan, Emory University, Salisbury University, the Maryland Historical Society, and Williams College.