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Early American Places
In Pursuit of Knowledge: Black Women and Educational Activism in Antebellum America
Winner, 2021 AERA Outstanding Book Award
Winner, 2021 AERA Division F New Scholar's Book Award
Winner, 2020 Mary Kelley Book Prize, given by the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic
Winner, 2020 Outstanding Book Award, given by the History of Education Society
Uncovers the hidden role of girls and women in the desegregation of American education
The story of school desegregation in the United States often begins in the mid-twentieth-century South. Drawing on archival sources and genealogical records, Kabria Baumgartner uncovers the story’s origins in the nineteenth-century Northeast and identifies a previously overlooked group of African American girls and women.
In their quest for education, African American girls and women faced numerous obstacles―from threats and harassment to violence. For them, education was a daring undertaking that put them in harm’s way. Yet bold and brave young women such as Sarah Harris, Sarah Parker Remond, Rosetta Morrison, Susan Paul, and Sarah Mapps Douglass persisted.
In Pursuit of Knowledge argues that African American girls and women strategized, organized, wrote, and protested for equal school rights―not just for themselves, but for all. Their activism gave rise to a new vision of the purposeful woman, who was learned, active, resilient, and forward-thinking. Moreover, these young women set in motion equal-school-rights victories at the local and state level, and laid the groundwork for further action to democratize schools in twentieth-century America. In this thought-provoking book, Baumgartner demonstrates that the confluence of race and gender has shaped the long history of school desegregation in the United States right up to the present.
Winner, 2021 AERA Division F New Scholar's Book Award
Winner, 2020 Mary Kelley Book Prize, given by the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic
Winner, 2020 Outstanding Book Award, given by the History of Education Society
Uncovers the hidden role of girls and women in the desegregation of American education
The story of school desegregation in the United States often begins in the mid-twentieth-century South. Drawing on archival sources and genealogical records, Kabria Baumgartner uncovers the story’s origins in the nineteenth-century Northeast and identifies a previously overlooked group of African American girls and women.
In their quest for education, African American girls and women faced numerous obstacles―from threats and harassment to violence. For them, education was a daring undertaking that put them in harm’s way. Yet bold and brave young women such as Sarah Harris, Sarah Parker Remond, Rosetta Morrison, Susan Paul, and Sarah Mapps Douglass persisted.
In Pursuit of Knowledge argues that African American girls and women strategized, organized, wrote, and protested for equal school rights―not just for themselves, but for all. Their activism gave rise to a new vision of the purposeful woman, who was learned, active, resilient, and forward-thinking. Moreover, these young women set in motion equal-school-rights victories at the local and state level, and laid the groundwork for further action to democratize schools in twentieth-century America. In this thought-provoking book, Baumgartner demonstrates that the confluence of race and gender has shaped the long history of school desegregation in the United States right up to the present.
320 pages, Hardcover
Published December 31, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 7 reviews
February 10, 2025
Really interesting topic. She uses a lot of biography, researched through many archives, to argue that African American women used their fight for education as a form of activism against racism in antebellum Northeastern US.
May 7, 2020
Great contribution to the history of Black women's activism and African American education activism in the 19th century. Pairs well with Anna Mae Duane's "Educated for Freedom" in relating the stories of dozens of individual women who fought to educate and be educated in a complicated, erratic, "hyperlocal" climate across different northeastern communities.
July 31, 2024
lovely written to demonstrate what it means to be a purposeful woman and identity amongst education and intellectualism and activism
April 6, 2023
A history of Black female teachers and the pursuit of education between 1830 and 1860. Focuses more on personal lives and stories, as this subject in history would be forced to, but gives a great overview and in-depth discussion on the court cases and desegregation battles fought by African Americans and women in particular to have the right to an education.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 7 reviews