Barbara J. Fields Explained

Barbara J. Fields
Birth Name:	Barbara Jeanne Fields
Alma Mater:	Harvard University (BA) Yale University (PhD)
Workplaces:	Columbia University Northwestern University University of Michigan University of Mississippi
Awards:	John H. Dunning Prize (1986) Lincoln Prize (1994)

Barbara Jeanne Fields (born 1947) is an American historian. She is a professor of American history at Columbia University.^[1] Her focus is on the history of the American South, 19th century social history, and the transition to capitalism in the United States.

Life

Barbara Fields was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1947,^[2] and was raised in Washington, D.C., where she attended Morgan Elementary School, Banneker Junior High School, and Western High School.^[3] She received her B.A. from Harvard University in 1968, and her Ph.D. from Yale University in 1978. At Yale, she was one of the last doctoral students of C. Vann Woodward, one of the preeminent American historians of the twentieth century. She appears in Ken Burns' documentary series, The Civil War and The Congress.^{[4] [5]} Fields was the first African American woman to earn tenure at Columbia University. She has also taught at Northwestern University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Mississippi. She is widely known for her 1990 essay, "Slavery, Race and Ideology in the United States of America."^[6] She authored the 2012 book (along with her sister Karen Fields, a sociologist).^{[7] [8] [9]} The book argues that race is a product of racism; that racism is an ideology and a way of misunderstanding social reality; and that racecraft in American society serves to obfuscate the actual dynamics of inequality.

Bard College awarded Fields an honorary doctorate in May 2007. She received the Philolexian Award for Distinguished Literary Achievement in 2017.

Awards

• 1992 MacArthur Fellows Program
• 1986 John H. Dunning Prize of the American Historical Association, for Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground: Maryland during the Nineteenth Century
• Founders Prize of the Confederate Memorial Literary Society, for The Destruction of Slavery
• Thomas Jefferson Prize of the Society for the History of the Federal Government, for The Destruction of Slavery
• 1994 Lincoln Prize by the Lincoln and Soldiers Institute at Gettysburg College, for Free At Last: A Documentary History of Slavery, Emancipation, and the Civil War

Works

• "Slavery, Race and Ideology in the United States of America", New Left Review, Issue 181, May/June 1990
• "Whiteness, Racism and Identity", International Labor & Working-Class History, Issue 60, Fall 2001
• "Origins of the New South and the Negro Question", Journal of Southern History, Vol 67 No 4, November 2001
• "Of Rogues and Geldings", American Historical Review, Vol 180 No 5, December 2003
• Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground: Maryland during the Nineteenth Century (Yale University Press, 1985),
• The Destruction of Slavery (Cambridge University Press, 1985), Editors Ira Berlin, Barbara J. Fields, Thavolia Glymph, Joseph P. Reidy, Leslie S. Rowland,
• Slaves No More: Three Essays on the Emancipation and the Civil War (Cambridge University Press, 1992)
• Free At Last: A Documentary History of Slavery, Emancipation, and the Civil War (The New Press, 1992)
• Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life (Verso, 2012), with Karen Fields,

External links

• "Presentation given by historian Barbara J. Fields at a "School", RACE, March 2001
• 2011 C-SPAN talk by Barbara Fields recorded in Charleston, South Carolina.

Notes and References

1. Web site: Fields, Barbara. 31 August 2016.
2. Web site: MacArthur Foundation. www.macfound.org. en. 2018-05-11.
3. Web site: Barbara J. Fields . 2010-04-14 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110411054403/http://library.buffalo.edu/exhibits/ForeverFree/bio_fields.htm . 2011-04-11 . dead .
4. Web site: Barbara Fields. 2020-10-06. IMDb.
5. Torres . Mo . 2022 . Against Race, Toward the Abolition of Racism . Sociology of Race and Ethnicity . 9 . 124–127 . en . 10.1177/23326492221136168 . 253329204 . 2332-6492.
6. Fields. Barbara Jeanne. 1990. Slavery, race and ideology in the United States of America. New Left Review. 181. 95–118.
7. Web site: Denvir. Daniel. 17 Jan 2018. Barbara and Karen Fields discuss their new book, "Racecraft". 2020-10-06. historynewsnetwork.org.
8. Magubane . Zine . 2022 . Exposing the Conjuror's Tricks: Barbara Fields's Sociological Imagination . Sociology of Race and Ethnicity . 9 . 128–132 . en . 10.1177/23326492221136165 . 253342715 . 2332-6492.
9. Heideman . Paul . 2022 . Racecraft as a Challenge to the Sociology of Race . Sociology of Race and Ethnicity . 9 . 119–123 . en . 10.1177/23326492221136164 . 253326167 . 2332-6492.