Podcast appearances and mentions of daniel sharfstein

Hello, when Samuel Townsend died in 1856 near Huntsville, Alabama, he was the era's equivalent of a multimillionaire. He had thousands of acres of cotton-land, and hundreds of enslaved people who planted, harvested, and processed that cotton to make him rich. Like many other parents, he left it all to his five sons, four daughters, and two nieces. But in this case all of them were slaves. And that crucial event is not even the beginning of the intricate, horrible, thrilling, and ennobling story of the Townsend family, which Isabela Morales tells in her new book Happy Dreams of Liberty: An American Family in Slavery and Freedom.  R. Isabela Morales is the Editor and Project Manager of the Princeton & Slavery Project and the Digital Projects Manager at the Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum. She received her PhD in history from Princeton University. Happy Dreams of Liberty is published by Oxford University Press. For Further Investigation For more on the internal slave trade, and the kidnapping of free blacks in the north for enslavement in the South, see Episode 141; for a discussion on American slavery, see Episode 25 The Septimus D. Cabaniss Papers at the University of Alabama–Isabela writes "The full collection has been digitized, so you can explore the actual letters and other sources I use in the book." Direct link to the 1856 will of Samuel Townsend Martha Hodes, The Sea Captain's Wife: A True Story of Love, Race, and War in the Nineteenth Century (W. W. Norton, 2006) Tiya Miles, Ties That Bind: The Story of an Afro-Cherokee Family in Slavery and Freedom (University of California Press, 2005) Daniel Sharfstein, The Invisible Line: Three African American Families and the Secret Journey from Black to White (The Penguin Press, 2011)

American History: Chief Joseph, White Supremacy and the quest for human rights in the late 19th Century. In his new book, Daniel Sharfstein tells the story of two men — Chief Joseph, the young leader of the Nez Perce who fought to keep his ancestral lands in the Pacific Northwest, and Oliver Otis Howard, the Union general who believed it was his destiny to send Joseph and his tribe to a reservation in Idaho. How the devout Christian and abolitionist Howard, the man for whom Howard University is named, came to conduct a ruthless war 140 years ago against Native Americans is the subject of "Thunder in The Mountains: Chief Joseph Oliver Otis Howard ---- the Nez Perce War." Daniel Sharfstein is a professor of law and history and co-directs the George Barrett Social Justice Program at Vanderbilt University. He is a Guggenheim Fellow, and his first book, "The Invisible Line: A Secret History of Race in America," won the J. Anthony Lukas Prize for narrative nonfiction.Links:http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/books/ct-thunder-in-the-mountains-daniel-sharfenstein-books-0409-20170404-story.html

When Union General Oliver Otis Howard was named right after the Civil War to head the Freedman's Bureau, Howard was creating a new kind of government agency, one that would take an active role in solving the problems of freed slaves and poor whites in the former Confederacy. A dozen years later, with the Freedman's Bureau disbanded, Howard went west. Aided by a bright young officer from Baltimore, Howard led the fight against Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce Indians in Oregon. In this program, historian Daniel Sharfstein introduces us to those characters, and traces the arc of change in how the U.S. saw its governing role as he discusses his new book, ----Thunder in the Mountains----. Original air date: May 1, 20172

Listen in on a great interview from interview archive in 2011 with Daniel Sharfstein who is the author of The Invisible Line: Three American Families and the Secret Journey from Black to White (Penguin Press 2011) http://danieljsharfstein.com

Daniel Sharfstein‘s The Invisible Line: Three American Families and the Secret Journey from Black to White (Penguin Press, 2011) is the latest and perhaps best book in the growing genre of neo-passing narratives. The Invisible Line easily rests between Philip Roth’s The Human Stain and Blis Broyard’s One Drop, though it is different and in ways richer than both. Part American history, part legal analysis (Sharfstein is a legal scholar), part ethnographic study, it is a wholly gripping and exquisitely written narrative that tracks the racial passing of three black families over several centuries, leading us right up to their living “white” descendents today. You will certainly learn a lot about the history of race in the United States from The Invisible Line and, if you’re like me, you won’t be able to put it down. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Daniel Sharfstein‘s The Invisible Line: Three American Families and the Secret Journey from Black to White (Penguin Press, 2011) is the latest and perhaps best book in the growing genre of neo-passing narratives. The Invisible Line easily rests between Philip Roth’s The Human Stain and Blis Broyard’s One Drop, though it is different and in ways richer than both. Part American history, part legal analysis (Sharfstein is a legal scholar), part ethnographic study, it is a wholly gripping and exquisitely written narrative that tracks the racial passing of three black families over several centuries, leading us right up to their living “white” descendents today. You will certainly learn a lot about the history of race in the United States from The Invisible Line and, if you’re like me, you won’t be able to put it down. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Daniel Sharfstein‘s The Invisible Line: Three American Families and the Secret Journey from Black to White (Penguin Press, 2011) is the latest and perhaps best book in the growing genre of neo-passing narratives. The Invisible Line easily rests between Philip Roth’s The Human Stain and Blis Broyard’s One Drop, though it is different and in ways richer than both. Part American history, part legal analysis (Sharfstein is a legal scholar), part ethnographic study, it is a wholly gripping and exquisitely written narrative that tracks the racial passing of three black families over several centuries, leading us right up to their living “white” descendents today. You will certainly learn a lot about the history of race in the United States from The Invisible Line and, if you’re like me, you won’t be able to put it down. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Daniel Sharfstein‘s The Invisible Line: Three American Families and the Secret Journey from Black to White (Penguin Press, 2011) is the latest and perhaps best book in the growing genre of neo-passing narratives. The Invisible Line easily rests between Philip Roth's The Human Stain and Blis Broyard's One Drop, though it is different and in ways richer than both. Part American history, part legal analysis (Sharfstein is a legal scholar), part ethnographic study, it is a wholly gripping and exquisitely written narrative that tracks the racial passing of three black families over several centuries, leading us right up to their living “white” descendents today. You will certainly learn a lot about the history of race in the United States from The Invisible Line and, if you're like me, you won't be able to put it down. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

In The Invisible Line, Daniel Sharfstein follows three families, from the Revolutionary Era up to the Civil Rights movement, as they straddle the color line and change their racial identification from black to white. While previous stories of "passing" have focused on individuals' struggles to redefine themselves, Sharfstein's subjects managed to defy the legal definitions of race within their own communities. For members of the Gibson, Spencer, and Wall families, what mattered most was the ways that their neighbors treated them in spite of their racial differences.Daniel Sharfstein teaches at Vanderbilt University Law School, focusing on the legal history of race in the United States. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School.Recorded On: Wednesday, March 9, 2011