CBH Talk | Elizabeth Gloucester, The Most Powerful Black Woman Lost to History
Co-presented by the Center for Brooklyn History and The Brooklyn Heights Association
Elizabeth Gloucester, was born into slavery in 1817 in Richmond, Virginia. When she died in Brooklyn Heights six decades later, the Brooklyn Eagle described her as “the wealthiest colored woman in the United States.”
Gloucester’s remarkable story, her financial success and anti-slavery activities, were chronicled this past February in The New York Times by editorial board member Brent Staples. Staples’ essay was the product of nearly two years of research which, as he writes, “rescues her from the margins by drawing on hundreds of pages of archival material — including real estate transactions, banking records and genealogical research conducted across three states.”
The Center for Brooklyn History and The Brooklyn Heights Association are proud to co-present an evening with Staples and historian Prithi Kanakamedala, whose scholarship focuses on Brooklyn Abolitionists and Brooklyn’s nineteenth century free Black communities. Kanakamedala’s upcoming book, Brooklynites: the Free Black Community that Shaped a Borough, relays Gloucester’s often overlooked narrative, detailing her abolitionist, feminist, and social justice activism and the impact she had on the borough we live in today.
Moderated by Dominique Jean-Louis, CBH’s Chief Historian, the program will also shed light on the challenge of this research and the ways that scholars and genealogists must grapple with “silences in the archives” in which lives and voices of marginalized groups are excluded from the historical record. They will bring to life the risks, dangers, and uncertainty of the Civil-War era for New York’s free Black communities, and the critical importance of lifting their stories into the light.
Participants
Brent Staples writes on politics and culture for The New York Times Editorial Board and was awarded the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. He is the author of the essay “The Lost Story of New York’s Most Powerful Black Woman,” published in the New York Times in February 2024.
Prithi Kanakamedala is an Associate Professor of History at Bronx Community College CUNY. She also teaches at CUNY Graduate Center, where she is the inaugural faculty coordinator of the Public Scholarship Practice Space. Her book Brooklynites: the Free Black Community that Shaped a Borough comes out September 2024 with NYU Press. As a public historian, Prithi has worked with a range of cultural organizations including Danspace Project Inc, Place Matters/City Lore, Brooklyn Historical Society (now Center for Brooklyn History at Brooklyn Public Library), and Weeksville Heritage Center.
Dominique Jean-Louis, Ph.D is the Chief Historian of the Center for Brooklyn History at the Brooklyn Public Library. Previously, she held the position of Associate Curator of History Exhibitions at New-York Historical Society, where she co-curated Black Citizenship in the Age of Jim Crow (2018), Our Composite Nation: Frederick Douglass' America (2022), and Black Dolls (2022). She is a former Mellon Predoctoral Fellow in Museum Education at the Museum of the City of New York, where she also contributed to the flagship exhibition New York at Its Core (2016). She received her B.A. in Comparative Ethnic Studies from Columbia University, and her Ph.D in US History from New York University, with her doctoral research focusing on race, education, and immigration in post-Civil Rights Era Brooklyn. Dominique regularly writes and lectures on Blackness in America, schools and education, and New York City history.
Co-presented by the Center for Brooklyn History and The Brooklyn Heights Association
Elizabeth Gloucester, was born into slavery in 1817 in Richmond, Virginia. When she died in Brooklyn Heights six decades later, the Brooklyn Eagle described her as “the wealthiest colored woman in the United States.”
Gloucester’s remarkable story, her financial success and anti-slavery activities, were chronicled this past February in The New York Times by editorial board member Brent Staples. Staples’ essay was the product of nearly two years of research which, as he writes, “rescues her from the margins by drawing on hundreds of pages of archival material — including real estate transactions, banking records and genealogical research conducted across three states.”
The Center for Brooklyn History and The Brooklyn Heights Association are proud to co-present an evening with Staples and historian Prithi Kanakamedala, whose scholarship focuses on Brooklyn Abolitionists and Brooklyn’s nineteenth century free Black communities. Kanakamedala’s upcoming book, Brooklynites: the Free Black Community that Shaped a Borough, relays Gloucester’s often overlooked narrative, detailing her abolitionist, feminist, and social justice activism and the impact she had on the borough we live in today.
Moderated by Dominique Jean-Louis, CBH’s Chief Historian, the program will also shed light on the challenge of this research and the ways that scholars and genealogists must grapple with “silences in the archives” in which lives and voices of marginalized groups are excluded from the historical record. They will bring to life the risks, dangers, and uncertainty of the Civil-War era for New York’s free Black communities, and the critical importance of lifting their stories into the light.
Participants
Brent Staples writes on politics and culture for The New York Times Editorial Board and was awarded the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. He is the author of the essay “The Lost Story of New York’s Most Powerful Black Woman,” published in the New York Times in February 2024.
Prithi Kanakamedala is an Associate Professor of History at Bronx Community College CUNY. She also teaches at CUNY Graduate Center, where she is the inaugural faculty coordinator of the Public Scholarship Practice Space. Her book Brooklynites: the Free Black Community that Shaped a Borough comes out September 2024 with NYU Press. As a public historian, Prithi has worked with a range of cultural organizations including Danspace Project Inc, Place Matters/City Lore, Brooklyn Historical Society (now Center for Brooklyn History at Brooklyn Public Library), and Weeksville Heritage Center.
Dominique Jean-Louis, Ph.D is the Chief Historian of the Center for Brooklyn History at the Brooklyn Public Library. Previously, she held the position of Associate Curator of History Exhibitions at New-York Historical Society, where she co-curated Black Citizenship in the Age of Jim Crow (2018), Our Composite Nation: Frederick Douglass' America (2022), and Black Dolls (2022). She is a former Mellon Predoctoral Fellow in Museum Education at the Museum of the City of New York, where she also contributed to the flagship exhibition New York at Its Core (2016). She received her B.A. in Comparative Ethnic Studies from Columbia University, and her Ph.D in US History from New York University, with her doctoral research focusing on race, education, and immigration in post-Civil Rights Era Brooklyn. Dominique regularly writes and lectures on Blackness in America, schools and education, and New York City history.