News
Department of History
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November 13, 2020
Anna Murray Douglass art installation to be unveiled Friday
An art installation depicting Anna Murray Douglass, the first wife of famed social reformer and abolitionist Frederick Douglass, will be unveiled today at the site of where the couple lived at 297 Alexander St. in Rochester from 1848 to 1851. The piece was funded by RIT.
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November 6, 2020
Rochester Museum & Science Center exhibit includes content developed by RIT alumni
RIT alumni contributed to a major exhibition at the Rochester Museum & Science Center highlighting Rochester and Haudenosaunee women who pushed for social change. “The Changemakers: Rochester Women Who Changed the World” opens Nov. 20.
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October 29, 2020
Podcast: Voting Rights: Past, Present, and Future
Intersections: The RIT Podcast, Ep. 38: In 1920, women in the U.S. won the right to vote. But the 19th Amendment did not flip the switch for women equally, and the struggle against voter suppression continues. RIT Associate Professor Tamar Carroll and fourth-year student Anika Griffiths speak with Johns Hopkins University professor Martha S. Jones about the past, present, and future of voting rights and social justice in America.
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October 28, 2020
RIT undergraduates create digital exhibit of historical suffrage posters
Women in the United States and in the United Kingdom fought for voting rights on either side of the Atlantic Ocean in the early 20th century, protesting for suffrage by picketing, going on hunger strikes, and using a savvy poster campaign. RIT students this semester dug into the suffrage movement’s use of graphic arts to design and create a digital exhibit of historical posters from Harvard University’s Schlesinger Library.
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October 23, 2020
‘Iron Jawed Angels’ film discussion Oct. 30
An HBO film about Alice Paul and the suffrage movement, Iron Jawed Angels, will be the focus of a campus discussion and part of RIT's centennial celebration of the 19th amendment and women’s voting rights, Moving Forward: Suffrage Past, Present and Future on Oct. 30.
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October 12, 2020
Columbus is the wrong hero for Italian-Americans: In fact, associating him with us is a form of cultural erasure
Essay by Lawrence Torcello, associate professor of history, published in the New York Daily News.
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September 14, 2020
RIT ROAR the Vote seeks to engage students
RIT’s ROAR the Vote campaign is making it simple for RIT students to become engaged, educated voters this fall through registration drives and presidential election debate viewing parties.
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September 11, 2020
RIT celebrates 100 years of women’s right to vote with yearlong program
RIT celebrates the 19th Amendment, equal rights, and the power of voting with “Moving Forward: Suffrage Past, Present, and Future.” The special programming includes talks, voter registration and pre-election events and exhibits.
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May 18, 2020
LaVerne McQuiller Williams named COLA interim dean
LaVerne McQuiller Williams, senior associate dean of RIT’s College of Liberal Arts, has been named interim COLA dean effective June 1. McQuiller Williams succeeds Dean James Winebrake, who is leaving RIT on June 30 to become provost and vice chancellor of Academic Affairs at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.
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April 8, 2020
COLA Dean James Winebrake accepts UNCW provost post
Dean James Winebrake will be leaving RIT’s College of Liberal Arts to become provost and vice chancellor of Academic Affairs at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Winebrake, who came to RIT in 2002 as chair of the Department of Public Policy and became dean in 2011, will leave RIT effective June 30.
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March 31, 2020
Podcast: Experiencing History Where it Happened
Intersections: The RIT Podcast, Ep. 34: Studying history is more than poring over textbooks and old documents. History Professor Richard Newman and humanities Professor Lisa Hermsen talk about place-based learning, which gets students into the community to experience where the history happened.
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March 31, 2020
Faculty Profile: Richard Newman
When Richard Newman graduated from high school, he never imagined he’d wind up being a college history professor. Newman, a professor of history in RIT’s College of Liberal Arts, came to RIT in 1998. He specializes in early American, African-American, and environmental history.