In celebration of Black History Month, this week the University of Maryland is profiling Carla Peterson, professor of English and MITH Faculty Fellow, on her research project, Black Gotham Archive. In “Online Archive to Share Stories of 19th Century Free Blacks,” Karen Shih, University Editor, interviews Peterson on her family history, 19th century black New Yorkers, and the origins of her digital archive.
Black Gotham Archive is an extension of Dr. Peterson’s book, Black Gotham: A Family History of African Americans in Nineteenth-Century New York City (Yale University Press, 2011). Dr. Peterson has received much well-deserved recognition for her research so far. Just last week, she was featured on The New York Times City Room Blog “Taking Questions” series, where she answered readers’ questions on 19th century black New York. Tomorrow, February 23rd, Dr. Peterson will be speaking at The Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University, and Saturday the 25th she will be giving a talk in Washington, DC for the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. Please visit blackgothamarchive.org for further details, or follow @bgarchive.
Congratulations, Carla!