Ariela Julie Gross (born 1965) is an American historian. She is the John B. and Alice R. Sharp Professor of Law and History at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law (USC).

Early life and education

Gross was born in 1965 and raised in

Princeton, New Jersey Princeton is a municipality with a borough form of government in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton and Princeton Township, both of whi ...

. Selected for the

Presidential Scholars Program The United States Presidential Scholars Program is a program of the United States Department of Education. It is described as "one of the Nation's highest honors for students" in the United States of America and the globe. The program was estab ...

after graduating from Princeton High School in 1983, Gross led an effort to have Presidential Scholars sign a petition requesting a nuclear freeze, which was presented to President

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...

with signatures from 14 of that year's 140 honorees. She attended

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

for her

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

degree in History and Literature and later earned her JD from Stanford Law School and

Master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

and PhD from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

Career

Upon earning her PhD, Gross joined the faculty at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law (USC) in 1996. During her early years at the school, Gross earned three fellowships; a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

, the Frederick J. Burkhardt Fellowship from the

American Council of Learned Societies American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

, and a National Endowment for the Humanities Long-Term Fellowship at the Huntington Libraries. This allowed her to research American courts interpretations of racial identity throughout history. Gross' research led her to publish her first book titled ''Double Character: Slavery and Mastery in the Antebellum Southern Courtroom.'' The book focused on the legal proceedings of civil disputes over property in the deep South pre the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

. She specifically focused on the legal dispute over slave ownership that required not only a moral judgment of slaves as human beings to be called into question but the moral judgment of the slave owners as well. In 2007, Gross received the USC's endowed faculty position title of John B. and Alice R. Sharp Professor of Law and History. Following her endowed faculty appointment, Gross published her second book ''What Blood Won’t Tell: A History of Race on Trial in America'' through the

Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retirem ...

. The book focused on how American society built race as a social and political construct and why racial identity was important. Her book received the 2009

Lillian Smith Book Award Jointly presented by the Southern Regional Council and the University of Georgia Libraries, the ''Lillian Smith Book Awards honor those authors who, through their outstanding writing about the American South, carry on Lillian Smith's legacy of elu ...

, the James Willard Hurst Jr. Prize, and the

American Political Science Association The American Political Science Association (APSA) is a professional association of political science students and scholars in the United States. Founded in 1903 in the Tilton Memorial Library (now Tilton Hall) of Tulane University in New Orleans, ...

’s award for the best book on race, ethnicity, and politics. The following year, she accepted a short-term residency in Japan through the

Organization of American Historians The Organization of American Historians (OAH), formerly known as the Mississippi Valley Historical Association, is the largest professional society dedicated to the teaching and study of American history. OAH's members in the U.S. and abroad inc ...

and the Japanese Association for American Studies to teach at

Kyoto University , mottoeng = Freedom of academic culture , established = , type = National university, Public (National) , endowment = ¥ 316 billion (2.4 1000000000 (number), billion USD) , faculty = 3,480 (Teaching Staff) , administrative_staff ...

. During the 2017–18 academic year, Gross was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University to work on a manuscript for a future book. In January 2020, Gross and

Alejandro de la Fuente Alejandro de la Fuente is an academic and art curator. He is the Robert Woods Bliss Professor of Latin American History and Economics, Professor of African and African American Studies and of History at Harvard University. He is also Director of ...

co-published their book ''Becoming Free, Becoming Black: Race, Freedom, and Law in Cuba, Louisiana, and Virginia'' through the

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press A university press is an academic publishing hou ...

. They examined three slave societies during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Cuba, Virginia, and Louisiana, to explain how free and enslaved people of color used the law to gain freedom. In April, she was elected a Fellow of the

Society of American Historians The Society of American Historians, founded in 1939, encourages and honors literary distinction in the writing of history and biography about American topics. The approximately 300 members include professional historians, independent scholars, jou ...

Publications

* ''"The manners of the people" : etiquette for the American republic, 1830-1860'', 1987 * ''Pandora's box : slavery, character, and Southern culture in the courtroom, 1800-1860'', 1996 * ''Litigating whiteness : trials of racial determination in the nineteenth century south'', 1998 * ''Double character : slavery and mastery in the antebellum southern courtroom'' (Princeton University Press), 2000 * ''What blood won't tell : a history of race on trial in America'' (Harvard University Press), 2008 * ''Becoming Free, Becoming Black: Race, Freedom and Law in Cuba, Virginia, and Louisiana'' (with

, Cambridge University Press), 2020

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gross, Ariela 1965 births Living people Harvard College alumni People from Princeton, New Jersey Princeton High School (New Jersey) alumni Stanford University alumni Stanford Law School alumni USC Gould School of Law faculty American women historians Historians from New Jersey 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American women writers Historians from California