This brief bibliography lists scholarly works useful for investigating the history and legacies of racial inequality at the University of Delaware and its surrounding communities. Reflecting the research sponsored by the Legacies committee to date, it focuses on the nineteenth century. When possible, it provides links to online versions of resources. Neither exhaustive nor comprehensive, this list is intended to be a starting point – not an end.
Research Guides
Dalleo, Peter T. and Underground Railroad Coalition of Delaware. Researching the Underground Railroad in Delaware: A Select Descriptive Bibliography of African American Fugitive Narratives. Wilmington, DE: Underground Railroad Coalition of Delaware, 2008.
New Castle County Department of Land Use, Historic Preservation Section and New Castle County, Department of Land Use. How to Research the History of Your Home in New Castle County, Delaware. 2005. https://www.nccde.org/DocumentCenter/View/739/Researching-Your-Homes-History-PDF?bidId=.
Schrag, Zachary M. The Princeton Guide to Historical Research. Skills for Scholars. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2021.
U.S. History – General Works
Berry, Daina Ramey, and Kali Nicole Gross. A Black Women’s History of the United States. Boston: Beacon Press, 2020.
Howe, Daniel Walker. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Locke, Joseph, and Ben Wright, eds. The American Yawp: A Free and Online, Collaboratively Built American History Textbook. Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0), 2018. http://www.americanyawp.com/.
Kendi, Ibram X. Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America. New York: Nation Books, 2016.
Local & State History
Boylan, Anne M. Votes for Delaware Women. Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 2021.
Gadsden, Brett V. Between North and South: Delaware, Desegregation, and the Myth of American Sectionalism. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013.
Heniford, Kellen. “The Rise and Fall of a ‘Free’ Delaware: The Missouri Crisis and the Invention of the Free State in the Mid-Atlantic.” Journal of the Early Republic 42, no. 2 (2022): 227–51. http://muse.jhu.edu/article/854128.
Hessey, Theresa. Newark. Images of America. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Pub., 2007.
Hoffecker, Carol E., ed. Readings in Delaware History. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1973.
———. Delaware: A Bicentennial History. The States and the Nation Series. New York: Norton, 1977. https://archivesfiles.delaware.gov/ebooks/Delaware_Bicentennial_History.pdf.
———. Democracy in Delaware: The Story of the First State’s General Assembly. Wilmington, DE: Cedar Tree Books, 2004. https://archivesfiles.delaware.gov/ebooks/Democracy_In_Delaware.pdf.
Lemke, Colleen “Finding Aid: George G. Evans Family Papers and Supplement, 1717-1937,” Special Collections, University of Delaware, 2004, https://library.udel.edu/special/findaids/view?docId=pdf/mss0271.pdf;tab=full
- See “Biographical Note” and “Scope and Content Note” for a brief but thorough summary of major figures in the antebellum history of Newark, DE and Delaware College.
Munroe, John A. History of Delaware. Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 2001.
Slavery and Higher Education
Bogues, Anthony, Cass Cliatt, and Allison Levy, eds. Brown University’s Slavery and Justice Report: With Commentary on Context and Impact. 2nd ed. Providence, RI: Brown University, 2021. https://www.brown.edu/news/2021-11-12/report.
Brown-Nagin, Tomiko, Sven Beckert, Annette Gordon-Reed, Stephen Gray, Evelynn M. Hammonds, Nancy F. Koehn, Meira Levinson, et al. Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery. Cambridge, MA, 2022. https://legacyofslavery.harvard.edu/.
Carey, Miya, Marisa J. Fuentes, and Deborah Gray White, eds. Scarlet and Black. 3 vols. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2016-2021. https://scarletandblack.rutgers.edu/
Harris, Leslie M., James T. Campbell, and Alfred L. Brophy, eds. Slavery and the University: Histories and Legacies. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2019.
Oast, Jennifer. Institutional Slavery: Slaveholding Churches, Schools, Colleges, and Businesses in Virginia, 1680-1860. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2016.
Rothman, Adam, and Elsa Barraza Mendoza, eds. Facing Georgetown’s History: A Reader on Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2021.
Wilder, Craig Steven. Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America’s Universities. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014.
The University of Delaware, and predecessor institutions
Hoffecker, Carol E. Beneath Thy Guiding Hand: A History of Women at the University of Delaware. Newark, DE: University of Delaware, 1994. https://www1.udel.edu/Archives/books/hoffecker/index.html.
Munroe, John A. The University of Delaware: A History. Newark, DE: The University of Delaware Press, 1983. https://sites.udel.edu/uarm/the-university-of-delaware/.
Russ, Jonathan. “An Abridged History of UD.” UDaily (blog), June 29, 2018. https://www.udel.edu/udaily/2018/june/275-year-history-university-francis-alison/.
African American History in Delaware
Ames, David L., Ann Fangmann, Debra C. Martin, Catherine Morrissey, Lael J. Ensor, Robin Krawitz, Erin Ferriter, et al. “Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway.” Delaware Scenic and Historic Highway Nomination Application. Center for Historic Architecture and Design, University of Delaware, June 2009. https://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/3411.
Cassman, Vicki, et al. “New London Road Community Walking Tour.” Accessed July 29, 2019. https://www.artcons.udel.edu:443/outreach/diversity-initiatives/new-london-road.
A Celebration of Community: New London Road and School Hill, 2021. https://doi.org/10.2307/artstor.31526754.
Cooper, Constance J. Forging Faith, Building Freedom : African American Faith Experiences in Delaware, 1800-1980. Dover, DE : Delaware Heritage Press, 2015.
Essah, Patience. A House Divided: Slavery and Emancipation in Delaware, 1638–1865. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 1996.
Food Always Brings People Together: Recipes, Poems, and Stories from the New London Road Community, Newark, Delaware. Newark, DE: Center for Material Culture Studies, University of Delaware, 2006.
Marks, Carole C., ed. A History of African Americans of Delaware and Maryland’s Eastern Shore. 2nd ed. Wilmington, DE: Delaware Heritage Commission, 1998. https://archivesfiles.delaware.gov/ebooks/A_History_of_African_Americans_of_Delaware_and_Marylands_Eastern_Shore.pdf.
“New London Road/Cleveland Avenue Oral Histories and Research Materials.” UD Special Collections, 2006. https://library.udel.edu/special/findaids/view?docId=ead/mss0642.xml.
Sheppard, Rebecca J. and Kimberly Toney, et al. “Reconstructing Delaware’s Free Black Communities, 1800-1870.” Center for Historic Architecture and Design, University of Delaware, September 27, 2010. https://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/5647.
Williams, William H. Slavery and Freedom in Delaware, 1639-1865. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1999.
Williams, Yohuru. “Permission to Hate: Delaware, Lynching, and the Culture of Violence in America,” Journal of Black Studies 32, no. 1 (2001): 3–29. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2668012
———. “A Tragedy with a Happy Ending? The Lynching of George White in History and Memory.” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 72, no. 3 (2005): 292–304. https://journals.psu.edu/phj/article/view/58635/58322
———. “‘Revenged in the Most Terrible Manner’: The Lynching of African American Civil War Veteran William ‘Obie’ Evans.” Delaware History 34, no. 1 (Fall 2013): 33–60.
———. “‘No Sympathy, No Mercy’: The 1861 Lynching of Jacob Hamilton.” Delaware History 36, no. 1 (Winter -2021 2020): 1–25.