Biography in the Archives

Megan Marshall is the author of The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism, which won the Francis Parkman Prize, the Mark Lynton History Prize, the Massachusetts Book Award in Nonfiction, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in biography and memoir. Her second book, Margaret Fuller: A New American Life, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Biography in 2014 and the Massachusetts Book Award in Nonfiction. She teaches nonfiction writing and archival research in the MFA program at Emerson College in Boston, where she has been named the first Charles Wesley Emerson College Professor.

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Charles Sumner’s America

John Stauffer is a Professor of English, American Studies and African American Studies at
Harvard University.  He’s the author of numerous publications, including:  The Black Hearts of Men: Radical Abolitionists and the Transformation of Race (2002), Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln (2008), and The Battle Hymn of the Republic: A Biography of the Song That Marches On (2013).  He also has advised three award-winning documentaries, and has been a consultant for feature films including Django Unchained (2012) and the Free State of Jones (2016), which is based on his book The State of Jones (2009).

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The Historical Adventure

Liz Covart is a historian, writer, and master of a variety of online media platforms. She focuses on the history of early America. In her widely regarded podcast, Ben Franklin’s World, Covart sits down every week for conversations with historians to discuss their craft and the world of the Colonial, Revolutionary, and Early Republican eras. She can be found online at her website or on Twitter.

 

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Interrogating Visual Sources

Laura Prieto is a Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies and Chair of the History Department at Simmons College. Professor Prieto teaches courses across a range of topics, including American cultural history, women and gender history, and historical methodology. Her book, At Home in the Studio: The Professionalization of Women Artists in America studies how women painters, sculptors, and illustrators created a professional identity for themselves in the face of exclusion.