Eric Gardner
Proud geek, dad, and husband. Teacher and literary historian with emphasis on Black print culture--esp. C19 and African American women writers. Opinions my own.
- If you need a brief recharge, tune in to C-SPAN2 / American HistoryTV tomorrow afternoon: a rich Nov 2025 program on Frances Ellen Watkins Harper featuring @drkmttr82.bsky.social, Sherita Johnson, & me via @amantiquarian.bsky.social. Harper still has so much to teach! www.c-span.org/event/americ...
- This is one of those classes that I just never want to end.
- Reposted by Eric Gardner[Not loaded yet]
- one term is just never enough
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- The footnotes I struggled with most in my new book Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s Civil War and Reconstruction (#24 & #28) are in Chapter 1, and THAT is the chapter that is currently freely available to everyone. Book info in the comments. See academic.oup.com/book/60645/c...
- A birthday present for Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s 200th: you can now read Chapter 1 of my new book Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s Civil War and Reconstruction online for free for a limited time! Please share widely. Book info in the comments. Check out: academic.oup.com/book/60645/c...
- Frances Ellen Watkins Harper is 200 today! @c19americanists.bsky.social @digblk.bsky.social @ccp-org.bsky.social @blkgrlpoet.bsky.social @profgabrielle.bsky.social @npr.org She’s just as fabulous, relevant, and fiery now as she was in C19! For a sample, see commonplace.online/article/vol-...
- After a decade of work, here is the unboxing of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s Civil War and Reconstruction! Cloth ISBN 9780197804490. Use discount code AUFLY30 to get 30% off at global.oup.com/academic/pro...
- The digital version of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s Civil War and Reconstruction is now available for folks who have Oxford Academic Access! Online ISBN 9780197804520; print (forthcoming) ISBN 9780197804490. See academic.oup.com/book/60645
- Proofs are proofed. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s Civil War and Reconstruction is on track for 1 Oct release from Oxford UP. The book wouldn’t exist w/o support from the NEH & so many librarians & scholars committed to the fact that Black history is American history. We still have so much to learn.
- “[I]t may have been the fourth of July; it does not matter.... The next day my child … said: ‘I know why we can’t ride in the cars; because we are colored!’ … yet … trodden under foot as our people are, I would not change souls with the richest and proudest stockholder….”--Frances E. W. Harper 1867
- Per Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, remembering Black soldiers who “marched to the front, faithful to the country when others were faithless—who were rallying around the flag when Rebels were trampling it under feet; true to the country when she wanted a friend.” See commonplace.online/article/vol-...
- September will mark the 200th anniversary of author-activist Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s birth. Here’s the sixth of six essays in the exciting forum on Harper in the current issue of Legacy, @brigfield.bsky.social’s breathtaking & visionary “Generational Harper.” muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/artic...
- September will mark the 200th anniversary of Frances E. W. Harper’s birth. Here’s the fifth of six essays in the forum on Harper in the current Legacy, Barbara McCaskill’s wise & rich “Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s Ethics of Personal Rest and National Restoration”: muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/artic...
- September will mark the 200th anniversary of Frances E. W. Harper’s birth. Here’s the fourth of six essays in the forum commemorating Harper in the current Legacy, Nazera Sadiq Wright’s amazing study of Harper, Gertrude Bustill Mossell, & Black library use & creation: muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/artic...
- September will mark the 200th anniversary of author-activist Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s birth. Here’s the third of six essays in the forum commemorating Harper in the current issue of Legacy, Leslie Schwalm’s groundbreaking intro to Harper’s work in Iowa (!) muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/artic...
- September will mark the 200th anniversary of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s birth. Here’s the second of six essays in the forum commemorating Harper in the current issue of Legacy, the powerful “We Need to Speak about Home” by Kristin Moriah @dark-stars.bsky.social: muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/artic...
- September will mark the 200th anniversary of author-activist Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s birth. Here’s the first of six essays in the forum celebrating & commemorating Harper in the current issue of Legacy, Lois Brown’s stunning & timely “Catalysts for Justice”: muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/artic...
- September will mark the 200th anniversary of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s birth. To help commemorate and celebrate, the current issue of Legacy features a forum on Harper’s life and work. This week, I’ll share each of the six essays; for now, here’s the intro: muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/artic...
- A powerful piece by Patricia Okker, former President of the New College of Florida, on how reading American women writers can shape our current moment. This is what the humanities can do, and this is why they are so afraid of us. Free access from Legacy: muse.jhu.edu/article/959226
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- Save the NEH! More great books on Black history & culture--these, all aided by the NEH: Courtney Thorsson’s meticulous & beautiful The Sisterhood studies a world-changing community of Black women writers (Morrison, Shange, Jordan & more) @courtneythorsson.bsky.social cup.columbia.edu/book/the-sis...
- Care about the National Endowment for the Humanities? You should! NEH makes lives better & for some folks simply makes life possible. Consider @altnehgov.bsky.social & @humanitiesall.bsky.social. And really valuable ideas to help save NEH at: nhalliance.org/federal-fund...
- Save the NEH! More great books on Black history & culture--these, all aided by the NEH: Derrick R. Spires’s The Practice of Citizenship is an archivally-rich must-read about early Black print but also about what we should be doing now. @drkmttr82.bsky.social www.pennpress.org/978081225080...
- The daily barrage of evil made me hold back on a cover reveal, but maybe this is the day. Out later in 2025, this book, like 7000+ books & so many other rich projects, would not exist without the support of the National Endowment for the Humanities. These stories must be told & we must save the NEH.
- February’s too short, so each day in March, a C21 book on Black histories. Organize & learn from the past. The Colored Conventions Movement = a great place to begin/recommit: field-making interdisciplinary work treating the archive as a live space. @ccp-org.bsky.social uncpress.org/book/9781469...
- Pols & pundits, please quit saying things are "distractions." It is both dismissive & wrong. DEIJ, colleges & universities, museums & libraries, PBS & NPR, the NEH & the NEA make lives better & simply make some lives possible. If you call them “distractions,” you’ve already capitulated.
- February’s too short, so each day in March, a C21 book on Black histories. Manisha Sinha’s The Slave’s Cause is magisterial but never forgets that the big picture is composed of many, many individuals. Archivally & conceptually brilliant. @profmsinha.bsky.social yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...
- February’s too short, so each day in March, a C21 book on Black histories. I love a good biography & Barbara Ransby’s Ella Baker & the Black Freedom Movement is that & so much more: a deep & nuanced study of a whole world of activism that tells of both the then & the now uncpress.org/book/9780807...
- February’s too short, so each day in March, a C21 book on Black histories. No way to do this w/o Darlene Clark Hine, so a fabulous edited collection with John McCluskey Jr: The Black Chicago Renaissance. Short version: Harlem, yes, but don’t forget the Chi. www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p0...
- February’s too short, so each day in March, a C21 book on Black histories. The reason Jennifer L. Morgan’s Reckoning with Slavery won such praise? It is *that* good. Early enslaved women’s lives, capitalism, the Middle Passage: required reading on so many issues. www.dukeupress.edu/reckoning-wi...
- February’s too short, so each day in March, a C21 book on Black histories. Leslie M. Harris’s In the Shadow of Slavery knocked me over when it came out & the 2024 version has a powerful new afterword. Such a key work for C19 NYC and beyond. press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...
- February’s too short, so each day in March, a C21 book on Black histories. Even tho I’ve already included a Tiya Miles book, Dawn of Detroit is SO good. Rethinking the times, places, & structures of slavery, this archival wonder never stops seeing individual lives thenewpress.com/books/dawn-o...
- February’s too short, so each day in March a C21 book on Black histories. All the more important now, Hilary Green’s Educational Reconstruction reminds that studies of Black ed have to dig deep, challenge existing narratives & see communities @hngreen.bsky.social www.fordhampress.com/978082327012...
- February’s too short, so each day in March, a C21 book on Black histories. In addition to some of the smartest close readings I’ve seen, Katherine Clay Bassard’s Transforming Scriptures does stunningly good interdisciplinary work w/ real emphasis on that opening verb ugapress.org/book/9780820...
- February’s too short, so each day in March, a C21 book on Black histories. Telling Histories, edited by Deborah Gray White, brings together the voices & stories of 17 field-building Black women historians to reflect on history, praxis, & futures. A gift, pure & simple. uncpress.org/book/9780807...
- February’s too short, so each day in March, a C21 book on Black histories. Glad to see William & Ellen Craft in broader public spaces & remembering the power of Barbara McCaskill’s deeply-researched Love, Liberation, & Escaping Slavery ugapress.org/book/9780820...
- February’s too short, so each day in March, a C21 book on Black histories. Erica Armstrong Dunbar’s A Fragile Freedom is one of those rich, deeply local studies (Philly) that has much to say about broader landscapes and thoughtscapes. yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...
- February’s too short, so each day in March, a C21 book on Black histories. Daina Ramey Berry’s The Price for Their Pound of Flesh changed everything for folks considering the nexus of slavery & capitalism & Black lives. It still haunts. www.beacon.org/The-Price-fo...
- February’s too short, so each day in March, a C21 book on Black histories. I think I learned something from every page of Keisha N. Blain’s Set the World on Fire. Also, I love it when really smart people are also really clear. www.pennpress.org/978081222459...
