100718 Mary Ball Washington 1819

The School of History is delighted to announce the appointment of (opens in a new window)Prof. Glenda Gilmore to the 2018/19 Mary Ball Washingto Chair in American History. Glenda is currently based at  (opens in a new window)Yale  where she is the Peter V. and C. Van Woodward Professor of History, African American Studies, and American Studies.  Her most recent book,  These United States:  A Nation in the Making, 1890 to the Present , coauthored with Thomas Sugrue, appeared as a trade book in October, 2015, published by W. W. Norton.    Defying Dixie: The Radical Roots of Civil Rights, 1919-1950 , was one of the American Library Association’s Notable Books of 2008, and the  Washington Post’s  Best Books of 2008. She is the editor of  Who Were the Progressives?  and co-edited  Jumpin’ Jim Crow: Southern Politics from Civil War to Civil Rights .  Her first book,  Gender and Jim Crow:  Women and the Politics of White Supremacy in North Carolina, 1896-1920 , published in 1996, won Frederick Jackson Turner Award, the James A. Rawley Prize, the Julia Cherry Spruill Prize, and the Heyman Prize.  She is at work on a study of the African American artist Romare Bearden and his family interpreted through his artistic work, to be published by the University of North Carolina Press

The (opens in a new window)Mary Ball Washingto Chair in American History was founded through the efforts of John D.J. Moore, Ambassador of the United States of America to Ireland, 1969-1975, and established on August 7 1975 by Statute LXXXVI of the University, with the support of a gift from the Alfred I. Du Pont Foundation.

Since its foundation, the Professorship has been held by some extremely distinguished historians, and it has been regarded as a crucial benefit for those teaching history at UCD, as providing a point of contact with the historical profession in the United States and as helping to interest generations of Irish students in the history of the United States of America.