Nell Irvin Painter

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Occupation Historian Author Role Historian Name Nell Painter		Parent(s) Frank and Dona Irvin Spouse(s) Glenn R. Shafer Employer Princeton University

Born August 2, 1942 (age 81) ( 1942-08-02 ) Houston, Texas, U.S. Alma mater University of California at Berkeley University of California at Los Angeles Harvard University Known for African American Literature; American History; American Slavery Website Website of Historian Nell Irvin Painter Education Harvard University (1969–1974), University of California, Los Angeles, University of California, Berkeley Awards Guggenheim Fellowship for Humanities, US & Canada Nominations NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work, Nonfiction Books The History of White People, Sojourner Truth: A Life - A Sy, Creating Black Americans, Standing at Armageddon: The Unite, Exodusters

Nell irvin painter 2010 national book festival

Nell Irvin Painter (born Nell Elizabeth Irvin; August 2, 1942) is an American historian notable for her works on southern history of the nineteenth century. She is retired from Princeton University, and served as president of the Organization of American Historians. She also served as president of the Southern Historical Association.

Nell irvin painter the history of white people

Biography

She was born Nell Irvin to Dona and Frank E. Irvin, Sr. She had an older brother Frank who died young. Her family moved from Houston, Texas, to Oakland, California when she was ten weeks old. This was part of the second wave of the Great Migration of millions of African Americans from the Deep South to urban centers. Some of their relatives had been in California since the 1920s. The Irvins went to California in the 1940s with the pull of increasing jobs in the defense industry. Nell attended the Oakland Public Schools, including Oakland Technical High School, from which she graduated in 1959.

Her mother Dona Irvin held a degree from Houston College for Negroes (1937), and later taught in the public schools of Oakland. Her father had to drop out of college in 1937 during the Great Depression; he eventually trained for work as a laboratory technician. He worked for years at the University of California at Berkeley, where he trained many students in lab techniques.

Painter earned her B.A. - Anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley in 1964. During her undergraduate years, she studied French medieval history at the University of Bordeaux, France, 1962–63. She also studied abroad at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana, 1965–66. In 1967, she completed an M.A. at the University of California at Los Angeles. In 1974, she earned an M.A. and Ph.D. at Harvard University. She returned to study and earned a B.F.A. at Rutgers University in 2009. Painter has received honorary degrees from Dartmouth College, Wesleyan University, and Yale University, among other institutions. She received a Candace Award from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women in 1986.

Marriage and family

In 1989, Painter married the mathematician Glenn Shafer, co-creator of the Dempster–Shafer theory.

Publications

In addition to many reviews, essays and articles, Painter has written seven books as of 2010:

Exodusters: Black Migration to Kansas After Reconstruction. Norton. 1976. ISBN 978-0-393-00951-4.

The Narrative of Hosea Hudson: His Life as a Negro Communist in the South. 1979. ISBN 978-0674601109.

Standing at Armageddon: The United States, 1877-1919. W.W. Norton. 1989. ISBN 978-0-393-30588-3.

Sojourner Truth: A Life, a Symbol. W.W. Norton. 1997. ISBN 978-0-393-31708-4.

Southern History Across the Color Line. UNC Press Books. 2002. ISBN 978-0-8078-5360-3.

Creating Black Americans: African-American History and Its Meanings, 1619 to the Present. Oxford University Press. 2005. ISBN 978-0-19-513755-2.

The History of White People. W. W. Norton. 18 April 2011. ISBN 978-0-393-07949-4.

References

Nell Irvin Painter Wikipedia

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