Daina Ramey Berry

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Daina Ramey Berry
Dr Daina Ramey Berry.jpg
Education University of California, Los Angeles (BA, MA, PhD)
Scientific career
Fields
Institutions

Daina Ramey Berry is an American historian and academic who is the Michael Douglas Dean of Humanities and Fine Arts at the University of California at Santa Barbara. She was formerly the associate dean of the graduate school and chair of the history department at the University of Texas at Austin. She studies gender and slavery, as well as black women's history in the United States. She has written books about the connection between the idea of skilled work and the gender of enslaved people in antebellum Georgia, the economic history of slavery in the United States, and the historical contributions of African American women to the politics and governance of the United States and to securing their own rights.

Contents

Education

Berry attended the University of California, Los Angeles, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in history in 1992. [1] She continued to study at the University of California, Los Angeles as a graduate student. [1] In 1994, she earned a Master of Arts in African American studies and in 1998, she received a PhD in United States history. [1]

Career

External videos
Nuvola apps kaboodle.svg A historian's Brief But Spectacular take on understanding the past to live a better future, Brief But Spectacular, PBS NewsHour, 3:38, February 5, 2021

In 1998, Berry became a professor of history and African American studies at Arizona State University. [1] In 2000, she joined the history faculty at Michigan State University, and in 2010 she moved to the University of Texas at Austin, where she was affiliated with the history department and the department of African and African Diaspora Studies. [1] In 2018 she was named Oliver H. Radkey Regents Professor of History and in 2019, she became associate dean of the graduate school at the University of Texas at Austin. [1] In 2022, she became the Michael Douglas Dean of Humanities and Fine Arts. [1]

Research

Berry published her first book, Swing the Sickle for the Harvest is Ripe: Gender and Slavery in Antebellum Georgia, in 2007. Through a comparison of Glynn County, Georgia and Wilkes County, Georgia during the early 19th century, Berry studies the relationship between the idea of skilled labor and gender in understanding enslaved peoples' work, and more broadly she examines the relationship between enslaved peoples' labor and their family and community relations. [2] She contrasts the effects of the more closed system in Glynn County, which was more restrictive for the mobility of enslaved people but reinforced stronger and more stable family bonds, with the more open system of Wilkes County. [3] She describes these systems through a detailed social and economic micro-history of the two counties. [4]

In 2017, Berry published the book The Price for their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, from Womb to Grave, in the Building of a Nation. In The Price for their Pound of Flesh, Berry studies the economic history of slavery in the United States, examining how a price was assigned to the bodies of enslaved people in America from before they were born until after they died. [5] Berry proposes four types of value that an enslaved person could hold: their assessed value, as determined by others for the purposes of accounting and sale; their market value, which was a function of local demand; their soul value, derived from inherent spiritual self-worth and reinforced by familial and communal connections; and their ghost value, evaluated by body brokers who engaged in the sale of human cadavers. [6] Through this categorisation scheme, Berry is able to produce an economic history which is not completely centered on the market. Rather, by including the inherent self-value that many enslaved people held through the idea of soul value, Berry also produces an intellectual history of the thoughts, emotions, and ideas of enslaved people when considering their own value. [7] [8] Berry's focus on the factors that produced assigned value, as well as the value of unborn slaves, also makes a contribution to the historical literature on the violent role of gender and reproduction in the systems of American slavery. [8]

In 2020, Berry published the book A Black Women's History of the United States with coauthor Kali Nicole Gross. The book examines the history of African American women through the narratives of eleven women who either had a significant impact on the history of the United States or whose lives reflect something about Black women's lives in American history. [9] Two theses of the book are that African American women have been under-recognised for their core role in American history, and that the rights that have been won by African American women were gained primarily through their own struggle and activism. [10] Specifically, Berry and Gross argue that political acts by African American women have crucially clarified the idea of liberty in American politics, exposed failures in mainstream approaches to democracy, and demonstrated how to correct those failures. [11] Berry and Gross selected stories about historical figures who are not well-known, in what was described in Kirkus Reviews as a "wide-ranging search-and-rescue mission for black female activists, trailblazers, and others who have left a mark". [10] A Black Women's History of the United States was listed as one of "the 10 books to read in February" of 2019 by The Washington Post , [12] as well as one of "the 22 most anticipated books of February 2020" by Bustle magazine . [13]

Berry was a co-editor of two more books: Slavery and Freedom in Savannah (2014) and Sexuality & Slavery: Reclaiming Intimate Histories in the Americas (2018). [1] Berry's work has been cited, or she has been interviewed, in news outlets like The New York Times , [14] The Washington Post, [15] and NPR. [16]

Selected works

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slavery in the United States</span>

The legal institution of human chattel slavery, comprising the enslavement primarily of Africans and African Americans, was prevalent in the United States of America from its founding in 1776 until 1865, predominantly in the South. Slavery was established throughout European colonization in the Americas. From 1526, during the early colonial period, it was practiced in what became Britain's colonies, including the Thirteen Colonies that formed the United States. Under the law, an enslaved person was treated as property that could be bought, sold, or given away. Slavery lasted in about half of U.S. states until abolition in 1865, and issues concerning slavery seeped into every aspect of national politics, economics, and social custom. In the decades after the end of Reconstruction in 1877, many of slavery's economic and social functions were continued through segregation, sharecropping, and convict leasing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">African-American history</span> Black American history

African American history started with the arrival of Africans to North America in the 16th and 17th centuries. Former Spanish slaves who had been freed by Francis Drake arrived aboard the Golden Hind at New Albion in California in 1579. The European colonization of the Americas, and the resulting Atlantic slave trade, led to a large-scale transportation of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic; of the roughly 10–12 million Africans who were sold by the Barbary slave trade, either to European slavery or to servitude in the Americas, approximately 388,000 landed in North America. After arriving in various European colonies in North America, the enslaved Africans were sold to white colonists, primarily to work on cash crop plantations. A group of enslaved Africans arrived in the English Virginia Colony in 1619, marking the beginning of slavery in the colonial history of the United States; by 1776, roughly 20% of the British North American population was of African descent, both free and enslaved.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Free Negro</span> Emancipated people of color

In the British colonies in North America and in the United States before the abolition of slavery in 1865, free Negro or free Black described the legal status of African Americans who were not enslaved. The term was applied both to formerly enslaved people (freedmen) and to those who had been born free, whether of African or mixed descent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ellen and William Craft</span> American fugitive slaves and abolitionists

Ellen Craft (1826–1891) and William Craft were American abolitionists who were born into slavery in Macon, Georgia. They escaped to the Northern United States in December 1848 by traveling by train and steamboat, arriving in Philadelphia on Christmas Day. Ellen crossed the boundaries of race, class and gender by passing as a white planter with William posing as her personal servant. Their escape was widely publicized, making them among the most famous fugitive slaves in the United States. Abolitionists featured them in public lectures to gain support in the struggle to end the institution.

<i>Partus sequitur ventrem</i> Former legal doctrine of slavery by birth

Partus sequitur ventrem was a legal doctrine passed in colonial Virginia in 1662 and other English crown colonies in the Americas which defined the legal status of children born there; the doctrine mandated that children of slave mothers would inherit the legal status of their mothers. As such, children of enslaved women would be born into slavery. The legal doctrine of partus sequitur ventrem was derived from Roman civil law, specifically the portions concerning slavery and personal property (chattels), as well as the common law of personal property.

The plantations of Leon County were numerous and vast. Leon County, in the U.S. state of Florida, was a true cotton kingdom. From the 1820s through 1850s Leon County attracted cotton planters from Georgia, Virginia, Maryland, North and South Carolina, plus other states and abroad to its fertile red clay soils and long growing season.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Female slavery in the United States</span> Overview of female slavery in the United States of America

The institution of slavery in North America existed from the earliest years of the colonial history of the United States until 1865 when the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery throughout the United States except as punishment for a crime. It was also abolished among the sovereign Indian tribes in Indian Territory by new peace treaties which the US required after the Civil War.

<i>The Slave Community</i> 1972 book by John W. Blassingame

The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South is a book written by American historian John W. Blassingame. Published in 1972, it is one of the first historical studies of slavery in the United States to be presented from the perspective of the enslaved. The Slave Community contradicted those historians who had interpreted history to suggest that African-American slaves were docile and submissive "Sambos" who enjoyed the benefits of a paternalistic master–slave relationship on southern plantations. Using psychology, Blassingame analyzes fugitive slave narratives published in the 19th century to conclude that an independent culture developed among the enslaved and that there were a variety of personality types exhibited by slaves.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of slavery in Virginia</span> Aspect of history

Slavery in Virginia began with the capture and enslavement of Native Americans during the early days of the English Colony of Virginia and through the late eighteenth century. They primarily worked in tobacco fields. Africans were first brought to colonial Virginia in 1619, when 20 Africans from present-day Angola arrived in Virginia aboard the ship The White Lion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Freedom suit</span> Enslaved persons lawsuits for freedom

Freedom suits were lawsuits in the Thirteen Colonies and the United States filed by slaves against slaveholders to assert claims to freedom, often based on descent from a free maternal ancestor, or time held as a resident in a free state or territory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anti-literacy laws in the United States</span>

Anti-literacy laws in many slave states before and during the American Civil War affected slaves, freedmen, and in some cases all people of color. Some laws arose from concerns that literate slaves could forge the documents required to escape to a free state. According to William M. Banks, "Many slaves who learned to write did indeed achieve freedom by this method. The wanted posters for runaways often mentioned whether the escapee could write." Anti-literacy laws also arose from fears of slave insurrection, particularly around the time of abolitionist David Walker's 1829 publication of Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, which openly advocated rebellion, and Nat Turner's slave rebellion of 1831.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Treatment of slaves in the United States</span> Treatment endured by enslaved people in the US

The treatment of slaves in the United States often included sexual abuse and rape, the denial of education, and punishments like whippings. Families were often split up by the sale of one or more members, usually never to see or hear of each other again.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cotton production in the United States</span>

The United States exports more cotton than any other country, though it ranks third in total production, behind China and India. Almost all of the cotton fiber growth and production occurs in the Southern United States and the Western United States, dominated by Texas, California, Arizona, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana. More than 99 percent of the cotton grown in the US is of the Upland variety, with the rest being American Pima. Cotton production is a $21 billion-per-year industry in the United States, employing over 125,000 people in total, as against growth of forty billion pounds a year from 77 million acres of land covering more than eighty countries. The final estimate of U.S. cotton production in 2012 was 17.31 million bales, with the corresponding figures for China and India being 35 million and 26.5 million bales, respectively. Cotton supports the global textile mills market and the global apparel manufacturing market that produces garments for wide use, which were valued at USD 748 billion and 786 billion, respectively, in 2016. Furthermore, cotton supports a USD 3 trillion global fashion industry, which includes clothes with unique designs from reputed brands, with global clothing exports valued at USD 1.3 trillion in 2016.

Deborah Gray White is the Board of Governors Professor of History and Professor of Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey. In addition to teaching at Rutgers, she also directed, "The Black Atlantic: Race, Nation and Gender", a project at The Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis from 1997 to 1999. Throughout 2000-2003 she was the chair of the history department at Rutgers. White has been awarded the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, the Woodrow Wilson International Center Fellowship, the Carter G. Woodson Medallion for excellence in African American history, and has also received an Honorary Doctorate from her undergraduate alma mater, Binghamton University. She currently heads the Scarlet and Black Project which investigates Native Americans and African Americans in the history of Rutgers University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of slavery in Louisiana</span> Regional history of slavery in the USA

Following Robert Cavelier de La Salle establishing the French claim to the territory and the introduction of the name Louisiana, the first settlements in the southernmost portion of Louisiana were developed at present-day Biloxi (1699), Mobile (1702), Natchitoches (1714), and New Orleans (1718). Slavery was then established by European colonists.

Jenny Slew was one of the first black Americans to sue for her freedom, and the first person to succeed through trial by jury.

Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers is an American historian. She is an associate professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South. She is an expert in African-American history, the history of American slavery, and women's and gender history.

Leslie Maria Harris is an American historian and scholar of African American Studies. She is a professor of History and African American Studies at Northwestern University. Harris studies the history of African Americans in the United States. She has published work on the history of slavery in New York City, on slavery, gender and sexuality in the Antebellum South, and on the historiography of slavery in the United States.

<i>The Delectable Negro</i> 2014 book

The Delectable Negro: Human Consumption and Homoeroticism within U.S. Slave Culture is a 2014 book by Vincent Woodard. The book explores the homoeroticism of both literal and figurative acts of human cannibalism that occurred during slavery in the United States.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Daina Berry About". University of Texas, Austin. 2020. Retrieved 22 May 2020.
  2. ↑ Dornan, Inge (November 2008). "Review Swing the Sickle for the Harvest is Ripe: Gender and Slavery in Antebellum Georgia" (PDF). The Journal of Southern History. 74 (4): 961–962. doi:10.2307/27650335. JSTOR   27650335.
  3. ↑ Thompson, Katrina (2008). "Review Swing the Sickle for the Harvest is Ripe: Gender and Slavery in Antebellum Georgia". The Journal of African American History. 93 (4): 575–577. doi:10.1086/JAAHv93n4p575.
  4. ↑ West, Emily (1 January 2009). "Review Swing the Sickle for the Harvest is Ripe: Gender and Slavery in Antebellum Georgia". Journal of Interdisciplinary History. 39 (3): 440–441. doi:10.1162/jinh.2009.39.3.440. S2CID   142795254.
  5. ↑ Jacobe, S. A. (1 October 2017). "Review The Price for their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, from Womb to Grave, in the Building of a Nation". CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries. 55 (2): 257.
  6. ↑ Marjorie, Brown (2019). "Review The Price for their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, from Womb to Grave, in the Building of a Nation". Southwestern Historical Quarterly. 122 (3): 346–348. doi:10.1353/swh.2019.0004. S2CID   151111783.
  7. ↑ Finley, Alexandra J. (2018). "Review The Price for their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, from Womb to Grave, in the Building of a Nation". The Journal of the Civil War Era. 8 (1): 132–134. doi:10.1353/cwe.2018.0006. S2CID   166095816.
  8. 1 2 Smithers, Gregory D. (2018). "Review The Price for their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, from Womb to Grave, in the Building of a Nation". Register of the Kentucky Historical Society. 116 (3): 521–523. doi:10.1353/khs.2018.0063. S2CID   191991838.
  9. ↑ Lesley, Williams (1 January 2020). "Review A Black Women's History of the United States". Booklist. 116: 9–10.
  10. 1 2 "Review A Black Women's History of the United States". Kirkus Reviews. LXXXVII (22). 15 November 2019.
  11. ↑ "Review A Black Women's History of the United States". The Christian Century. 137 (6): 143. 11 March 2020.
  12. ↑ Patrick, Bethanne (28 January 2020). "The 10 books to read in February". The Washington Post. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
  13. ↑ Colyard, K. W. (3 February 2020). "The 22 Most Anticipated Books Of February 2020". Bustle magazine. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
  14. ↑ Schuessler, Jennifer (22 March 2019). "Your Ancestors Were Slaves. Who Owns the Photos of Them?". The New York Times. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
  15. ↑ Brockell, Gillian (26 February 2020). "Joe Biden is making a Supreme Court promise. Ronald Reagan did, too". The Washington Post. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
  16. ↑ Gonyea, Don (23 May 2019). "Treasury Secretary Mnuchin Says New $20 Bill Won't Come Out Until 2028". NPR. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
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