Mellon Mays Fellow Discusses New Book About an Enslaved Woman’s Escape from Nation's First President
Erica Dunbar is considered one of the leading historians of her generation on the history of African American women, 19th century America, and Black Philadelphia. She is the Blue and Gold Professor of Black American Studies and History at the University of Delaware. Since 2011, she has also served as inaugural director of the program in African American history at the Library Company of Philadelphia, the nation’s oldest library, founded by Benjamin Franklin. Simon & Shuster released her second book Never Caught: Ona Judge, the Washingtons, and the Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave in February 2017. It is an account of a young enslaved woman’s escape from the Philadelphia home of the nation’s first president to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where she created a new life and evaded capture.
Dunbar, who grew up in Philadelphia, is one of the more than 700 Mellon Mays PhDs who are not only helping to diversify university faculty in the United States, but who are also contributing groundbreaking scholarship and rising to the highest ranks in academia...