Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina (born 1950) is an American author and academic who has written mostly historically-grounded biographical studies. Her academic posts have included being the Kathe Tappe Vernon Professor of Biography at

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...

, working as a professor at

Vassar College Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States, closely foll ...

, being a professor and a director of Africana Studies at

Barnard College Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...

, and as at April 2019 being the Dean of the

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, ...

Commonwealth Honors College. Gerzina was the host of

WAMC WAMC is a public radio network headquartered in Albany, New York. The network has 12 broadcast radio stations (transmitters) and 16 broadcast relay stations (translators, repeaters). The two flagship stations in the WAMC network are WAMC-FM 90. ...

's nationally-syndicated radio program ''The Book Show'' for fourteen years, where she interviewed authors. In the UK, she presented a ten-part documentary for

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC's ...

called ''Britain's Black Past'', which she subsequently adapted into a book.

Selected publications

* 1989: ''Carrington: A Life'' * 1995: ''Black England: Life Before Emancipation'' * 2004: ''

Frances Hodgson Burnett Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett (24 November 1849 – 29 October 1924) was a British-American novelist and playwright. She is best known for the three children's novels ''Little Lord Fauntleroy'' (published in 1885–1886), '' A Little ...

: The unexpected life of the author of The Secret Garden'' * 2008: ''Mr. and Mrs. Prince: How an Extraordinary 18th-Century Family Moved out of Slavery and into Legend''

References

External links

Official website

"Zadie Smith on discovering the secret history of Black England: 'Into my ignorance poured these remarkable facts'
''The Guardian'', September 24, 2022 {{DEFAULTSORT:Gerzina, Gretchen Living people American women historians 21st-century American women 1950 births