Contributors are being solicited for the newly commissioned Cambridge History of Black Women in the
United States. The Cambridge History of Black Women in the United States (CHBW) is a five-volume
history that will appeal to students, lay readers, and specialists. These volumes will be a landmark
opportunity to reflect seriously on the state of scholarship on Black women in the United States, as well
as reshape our thinking about their impact on American society. We want to showcase the best work of
recent years, as well as point the way forward for a new generation of scholars and readers. We see this
as a scholarly project that aims to lead the field, and to educate and engage a broad audience of non-
professionals.
Volume One: Contexts (1500-1800) examines the period from 1500-1800. We seek submissions that
examine Black women in the context of the making of the African diaspora, Black women’s resistance,
gender and reproduction, religion, and Black women’s lives and labors.
Volume Two: Bondage and Resistance (1800-1860) focuses on the myriad experiences of free Black and
enslaved women, the gendered dimensions of the domestic slave trade, marriage, family, religion, Black
women’s resistance, Black girlhood, Black feminism, Black internationalism, and Black women’s labor.
Volume Three: Transformations (1860-1900) surveys the Civil War through the end of the nineteenth
century focusing on the impact of the Civil War and emancipation on Black women, Black women’s
leadership in the reparations movement, marriage, family, religion, Black women’s organizing, Black
women and banking, Black women and the carceral state, and the ways in which Black women
navigated and protested Jim Crow.
Volume Four: Lifting As We Climb (1900-1945) assesses the period from 1900-1945 focusing on the
impact of Black women on women’s suffrage, education, migration, art, religion, literature, civil rights,
their roles during World War I and World War II, Black women and the carceral state, and Black
internationalism.
Volume Five: Social and Political Movements (1945-2020) interrogates the impact of Black women on
the Civil Rights movement, the Black Power and Black Arts movement, literature, education, science,
music, sports, religion, Black feminism, Black quotidian life, Black women’s queer history, reproductive
justice, health and wellness, Black women and the carceral state, and Black women’s political activism
during the twentieth and twenty-first century.
Interested persons should submit an abstract and two page CV to the General Editor, Dr. Karen Cook
Bell at kcookbell@bowiestate.edu with the subject line “Cambridge History of Black Women.”
Volume Editors include Drs. Catherine Adams, Felicia Y. Thomas, Nikki Taylor, Crystal Webster, Crystal
Feimster, Hilary Green, Ashley Robertson Preston, Sheena Harris Hayes, Crystal Sanders, and Hettie V.
Williams.
The Advisory Board for the CHBW includes Drs. Keisha Blain, Elsa Barkley Brown, Stephanie Y.
Evans, Tanisha Ford, Sharon Harley, Kali Gross, Cherise Jones-Branch, Alison Parker, Noliwe Rooks,
and Barbara Savage.