Leslie Maria Harris is an American

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...

and scholar of African American Studies. She is a professor of History and African American Studies at

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

. Harris studies the history of

African Americans African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

in the United States. She has published work on the history of slavery in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, on slavery, gender and sexuality in the

Antebellum South In History of the Southern United States, the history of the Southern United States, the Antebellum Period (from la, ante bellum, lit=Status quo ante bellum, before the war) spanned the Treaty of Ghent, end of the War of 1812 to the start of ...

, and on the

historiography Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians ha ...

of slavery in the United States.

Education and positions

Harris attended

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, where she graduated in 1988 with a BA degree, majoring in American history and minoring in literature. Thereafter she attended

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 ...

, where she obtained an MA degree in

American History The history of the lands that became the United States began with the arrival of the first people in the Americas around 15,000 BC. Numerous indigenous cultures formed, and many saw transformations in the 16th century away from more densely ...

in 1993, followed by a PhD in 1995 in American history with a secondary focus on African history and a tertiary focus on humanities. From 1994 to 1995, Harris was a postdoctoral researcher at the

University of Maryland at College Park The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of Mary ...

. In 1995, she became a professor of history at

Emory University Emory University is a private research university in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1836 as "Emory College" by the Methodist Episcopal Church and named in honor of Methodist bishop John Emory, Emory is the second-oldest private institution of ...

. She remained at Emory until 2016. Beginning in 2003, Harris was also affiliated with the department of African American Studies at Emory, where she served as the chair for multiple years. She was also a co-founder and director of the Transforming Community Project at Emory. In 2011 Harris was awarded a Winship Distinguished Research Professorship in the Humanities, which recognizes "tenured faculty who demonstrate singular accomplishments in research". In 2016, she moved to Northwestern University, where she became a professor in the departments of history and African American studies. Harris was chosen as the 2020–2021 Beatrice Shepherd Blane Fellow at the

Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University—also known as the Harvard Radcliffe Institute—is a part of Harvard University that fosters interdisciplinary research across the humanities, sciences, social sciences, arts, a ...

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 ...

, to work on a book studying

Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Katrina was a destructive Category 5 Atlantic hurricane that caused over 1,800 fatalities and $125 billion in damage in late August 2005, especially in the city of New Orleans and the surrounding areas. It was at the time the cost ...

in the context of family history and climate change.

Research

In 2003, Harris published ''In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626-1863''. Harris studies the history of slavery in New York City throughout the 17th, 18th, and especially the 19th centuries, with a focus on the 1830s and 1840s. She particularly focuses on the city's Black voluntary associations, which began as informal networks organized around purposes like mutual aid and mechanical or literary instruction, and evolved into formal institutions that helped structure the lives of African American residents of the city. ''In the Shadow of Slavery'' won the 2003 Wesley-Logan Prize from the

American Historical Association The American Historical Association (AHA) is the oldest professional association of historians in the United States and the largest such organization in the world. Founded in 1884, the AHA works to protect academic freedom, develop professional s ...

and the

Association for the Study of African American Life and History The Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) is an organization dedicated to the study and appreciation of African-American History. It is a non-profit organization founded in Chicago, Illinois, on September 9, 1915 ...

, which is "awarded annually for an outstanding book in African diaspora history". In 2005, she co-edited the book ''Slavery in New York'' with

Ira Berlin Ira Berlin (May 27, 1941 – June 5, 2018) was an American historian, professor of history at the University of Maryland, and former president of Organization of American Historians. Berlin is the author of such books as ''Many Thousands Gone: T ...

, which accompanied an exhibition on Slavery in New York by the

New-York Historical Society The New-York Historical Society is an American history museum and library in New York City, along Central Park West between 76th and 77th Streets, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The society was founded in 1804 as New York's first museum. ...

. In 2011, Harris organized the first ever conference on slavery and the university, which was held at Emory University. This conference was the originator of several pieces in a book that Harris co-edited with James T. Campbell and Alfred L. Brophy, called ''Slavery and the University: Histories and Legacies'' and published in 2019. The chapters of ''Slavery and the University'' study the history of American higher education, and higher education in contemporary America, in light of revelations about universities and slavery. Harris has also co-edited two books with

Daina Ramey Berry Daina Ramey Berry is an American historian and academic who is the Michael Douglas Dean of Humanities and Fine Arts at the University of California at Santa Barbara. She was formerly the associate dean of the graduate school and chair of the hist ...

. The first of these was ''Slavery and Freedom in Savannah'', published in 2014. In collaboration with the

Telfair Museums Telfair Museums, in the historic district of Savannah, Georgia, was the first public art museum in the Southern United States. Founded through the bequest of Mary Telfair (1791–1875), a prominent local citizen, and operated by the Georgia Histo ...

preservation of the slave quarters at the

Owens–Thomas House The Owens–Thomas House & Slave Quarters is a historic home in Savannah, Georgia, that is operated as a historic house museum by Telfair Museums. It is located at 124 Abercorn Street, on the northeast corner of Oglethorpe Square. The Owens–Th ...

, the chapters in the volume study urban slavery in antebellum Georgia and aim to place urban slavery in the broader context of southern American slavery. The book focuses on

Savannah, Georgia Savannah ( ) is the oldest city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia and is the county seat of Chatham County, Georgia, Chatham County. Established in 1733 on the Savannah River, the city of Savannah became the Kingdom of Great Br ...

both as an integral part of the staple crop production of the surrounding rural areas as well as a distinctive area with somewhat different social systems. Though ''Slavery and Freedom in Savannah'' begins with a study of the founding of the

Province of Georgia A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outs ...

in the mid-1700s and largely focuses on studying slavery in Savannah, it also studies the ramifications of these systems as late as the era of the

Civil Rights Movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...

in the mid-1900s. Harris and Berry also co-edited the 2018 book ''Sexuality and Slavery: Reclaiming Intimate Histories in the Americas'', a collection that E. R. Crowther wrote uses the small amount of evidence that is available on the topic to understand "how intimacy and sexuality operated in the cruel world of slavery". Harris has engaged in substantial public education regarding African American history. She was one of the historians who was consulted on

The 1619 Project The 1619 Project is a long-form journalism endeavor developed by Nikole Hannah-Jones, writers from ''The New York Times'', and ''The New York Times Magazine'' which "aims to reframe the country's history by placing the consequences of slavery an ...

for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''. Harris has written that although she argued that evidence was insufficient to conclude "that the patriots fought the American Revolution in large part to preserve slavery in North America," the project was overall a "much-needed corrective to the blindly celebratory histories that once dominated our understanding of the past." She has also stated that by ignoring her advice, editors opened the door for critics to "use the overstated claims to discredit the entire undertaking".

Selected works

*''In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626-1863'' (

University of Chicago Press The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including ''The Chicago Manual of Style'', ...

, 2003)
ISBN 9780226317731 *''Slavery, emancipation, and class formation in colonial and early national New York City'' (''

Journal of Urban History The ''Journal of Urban History'' (abbreviated ''JUH'') is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal covering the field of urban studies. The current editor-in-chief is David Goldfield, who is Robert Lee Bailey Professor of History at the Unive ...

'', 2004) *''Slavery in New York'', co-edited with

, (

New Press The New Press is an independent non-profit public-interest book publisher established in 1992 by André Schiffrin University of Georgia Press The University of Georgia Press or UGA Press is the university press of the University of Georgia, a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university with its main campus in Athens, Georgia. It is the oldest and la ...

, 2014)
ISBN 9780820344096 *''Sexuality and Slavery: Reclaiming Intimate Histories in the Americas'', co-edited with Daina Ramey Berry (University of Georgia Press, 2018) ISBN 9780820354033 *''Slavery and the University: Histories and Legacies'', co-edited with James T. Campbell and Alfred L. Brophy (University of Georgia Press, 2019) ISBN 9780820354422

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Harris, Leslie M. Living people 21st-century American women writers 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American historians 20th-century American historians Historians of the United States African-American historians Historians of African Americans American women historians Stanford University alumni Emory University faculty Northwestern University faculty Columbia College (New York) alumni Year of birth missing (living people) 20th-century African-American women writers 20th-century African-American writers 21st-century African-American women writers 21st-century African-American writers 21st-century African-American academics 21st-century American academics