Much of the site content was researched—and continues to be researched—by Columbia University students. Below is a listing of student research and interviews.
2021 CU & Slavery Class
That Which Belongs to Us: The Grammar of Possession & Collegiality in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Anthropology by Olganydia Plata Aguilera
Columbia College and the Civil War: The Impact of the Civil War on Columbia’s Administration, Finances, and Affiliates by Joaquin Bratton-Benfield
“We Shall Have Law & Order”: Columbia College, the Seventh Regiment Militia, and the 1863 Draft Riots by Zirui Chen
Gilded Pawns and the Guise of Diversity: 20th Century Admissions Practices and the Function of Early Black Students at Columbia College by Trey Greenough
Columbia Law School’s Earliest Black Students by Carolyn Lau
“(Un)sound on the Slavery Question”: Frederick A.P. Barnard, Slavery in the Academic World, and the Case for Re-Examining Institutional Legacies at Columbia University by Heather Loepere
Columbia and Harlem: Contextualizing the History of Expansion with Administrative Narrative and Student Interactions, 1896-1947 by Neely McKee
Seeking Neutrality: The Public Politics of the Colored Orphan Asylum of New York by Olivia Jenkins
A Brief History of Dr. Jane Ellen McAllister and Columbia's Teachers College by Andreia Wardlaw
2020 CU & Slavery Class
The Right to be Heard: Black Voices in the New York Manumission Society Archive by Olivia Baker
“The Extinction of the Dred Scott Principle”: Francis Lieber, Juridical Rights, and African American Citizenship by Zachary Kimmel
“A pleasant good Family”: Domestic Enslavement in Samuel Johnson’s Household, 1723–1772 by Rachel Page
Understanding Environmental Racism through the Medical Studies of David Hosack and his contemporaries by Molly Shapiro
The Duplicitous Abolitionist: Re-examining Columbia’s James Kent by Isabel von Stauffenberg
2019 CU & Slavery Class
Columbia University and Domestic Slavery: Violence, Resistance, Female Slaveholders, and the Projection of Civility and Domesticity by Keziah Anderson
Shaping Our Campus: A History of Enslaved Labor in 18th Century Morningside Heights by Cleome Barber
Slavery in the Archives: Mapping the campus discourse surrounding slavery from the 1890s to present day by Devin K. Barricklow
On Slavers and Settlers: A History of the Philipse Family, 1662-1785 by Meghan Brophy
Corporate Bodies, Disdainful and Aloof: Columbia Fraternities and White Supremacy by Rosie Lichtenbaum
A Tarnished Legacy: George Fisher Baker, U.S. Steel, Convict Leasing and Columbia Athletics by Christopher Lopez
Race Science at Columbia University in the Early 20th Century by Amy Rupert
Open and Closed Doors at the University: Two Giants of the Harlem Renaissance by Citlalli Contreras Sandoval
Columbia, Coolies, Commerce & Cane: The Intersection of Columbia, Domino Sugar and Slavery by Nolen Scruggs
Bondage and Boards: Unfree Labor and the Construction of King’s College by Katie Smith
Centuries of Racialized Food for Thought: Columbia University, Slavery & the Food Industry by Sarah Toscano
2018 CU & Slavery Class
Bermudians and Columbia’s Tuition: How Thaddeus Outerbridge and his Family Benefited from International Slavery by Anthony Howell
Southern Society At Columbia University, 1880s-1920s by Jonathan Bronstein
The Silences of Today Reflect the Silences of the Past: The New-York Evening Post and the 1807 Act to Prohibit the Importation of Slaves by Margaret Dickinson
Sims Invents the Speculum | I Invent the Wincing by Caroline Jobson
The Treatment and Framing of Early Black Students at Columbia University by Paulina Fein
Blurring the Lines: James Parker Barnett, Racial Passing, and Invisible Early Black Students at Columbia University by Ciara Keane
F.A.P. Barnard: 10th President of Columbia University by Tommy Song
A Darkened Past: The Role of Blackface Minstrelsy in Forming the Columbia Community by John Scott Butler
Columbia and Harlem: The Beginning by Francisco Hernandez
“The Whorearchy”: Confronting Columbia University’s Historic Erasure of Black Women by Katherine Nickols
Annie Nathan Meyer and Barnard College’s Exclusivity by Dzvinka Stefanyshyn
2017 CU & Slavery Class
"Bright Spots Giving Sign in a Dark Sky:" The Columbia University Cross Burning of 1924 by Thomas Germain
Building Havemeyer Hall: Charles Frederick Chandler and the Sugar Refining Industry by Anne-Laure White
A History of Barnard College; Frederick A.P Barnard and the afterlives of slavery by Hannah Eyob
Race Science and Columbia by Peper Carroll
The Influence of Extracurricular Activities on Racism at Columbia University Through 1930 by Talia Balakirsky
Columbia’s Insistent Problem: Protestant Ethics, World War I, and Contemporary Civilization by Dimitri Leggas
An “Apostle of Reaction” on the Hudson Shore: John W. Burgess, Reconstruction, and the Birth of the American University by Nicholas Hallock
The Birth of a Nation and Columbia University: Racism and Activism in the Early Twentieth Century by Lawrence Grief
The Columbian League: The Life of George Edmund Haynes and the Formation of the National Urban League by Theodore Ostrow
The Enduring Legacy of Black Disenfranchisement: A Call-in for Envisioning a Blacker Future by Alejandro Patrick Desince
William Archibald Dunning: Father of Historiographic Racism Columbia’s Legacy of Academic Jim Crow by Tommy Song
2016 CU & Slavery Class
A Columbia Family: Merchants, Slavers, Americans by Daniel Echikson
“Run-away from the Subscriber”: Resistance Against King’s College and Columbia Slave-owning Students and Affiliates from the Class of 1760 to 1805 by Jordan Brewington
Erased: Columbia University and Patterns of Abuse of Black Women by Maya Zundel
On Trial: Racialized Science, Politics, and the University in the 1808 Whistelo Trial by Michaela Greer
Teaching Race and Medicine at Columbia by Elana Sulakshana
2015 CU & Slavery Class
Ambition & Bondage: An Inquiry on Alexander Hamilton and Slavery by Ankeet Ball
Necessary Evils: Slavery and Columbia College’s Revolution Era and Post-Revolution Era Finances by Lorenzo Alexander Gibson
Hardly Student Activists: Columbia College Students in the Early Republic by Chloe Hawkey
Entrenched Apathy Toward “Horrible Iniquity”: Columbia College Faculty and Slavery, 1784-1865 by Megan Kallstrom
“A Merchants’ College:” King’s College (1754-1784) and Slavery by Sharon Liao
“New Birth of Freedom”: Columbia Alumni, The New York Manumission Society and the end of Slavery in New York by Cody Nager
“Possessed of but One Idea Himself”: John Jay II’s Challenges to Columbia on Slavery and Race by Jared Odessky
“Africa’s Glory and America’s Hope”: Columbia’s Involvement in the African Colonization Movement by Sarah Schutz
Columbia's Civil War Presidents: How Charles King and Frederick A.P. Barnard's Views On Slavery Shaped Columbia by Sabrina Singer
A Tale of Two Columbias: Francis Lieber, Columbia University and Slavery by Samara Trilling
Joseph Murray, Edward Antill, and New York City's Interlocking Elite by Tyler Zimmet