| Lauranett Lee | |
| Birth Name: | Lauranett Lorraine Lee |
| Birth Date: | c. |
| Birth Place: | Chesterfield County, Virginia, U.S. |
| Alma Mater: | Mundelein College, Virginia State University, University of Virginia |
| Occupation: | Independent historian, educator, curator, author |
| Known For: | Civil War, Reconstruction, African-American history |
Lauranett Lorraine Lee (born)[1] is an American historian, educator, curator, and author.[2] She is a professor at the University of Richmond, and the founding curator for African American History in the Virginia Museum of History and Culture.[3] [4] She specializes in study of the Civil War, Reconstruction, Virginia state history, and African-American history.
Lauranett L. Lee was born in Chesterfield County, and was raised near Bon Air. Lee's mother work as a computer operator for the U.S. Defense Supply Center.
Lee received a B.A. degree in communications from Mundelein College (now Loyola University Chicago) in Chicago; followed by a M.A. degree from Virginia State University; and a PhD in 2002 from University of Virginia. She studied under Edgar Toppin at VSU, who greatly influenced her work. Her doctoral thesis, Crucible in the Classroom: The Freedpeople and Their Teachers Charlottesville, Virginia, 1861–1876, was on the teachers of the freed people of Charlottesville, Virginia, such as Philena Carkin, a white northern schoolteacher who moved to Charlottesville to teach African Americans after the Civil War.[5]
Lee had lived in Raleigh, Chicago and Atlanta before returning home to Virginia in 1988, to be closer to family. She had started her career working as a teacher in middle school and high school with the Chesterfield County Public Schools.[6]
From 2000 to 2016, Lee worked at the Virginia Historical Society, now the Virginia Museum of History and Culture. Starting in 2011, she led the development of a database called "Unknown No Longer: A Database of Virginia Slave Names," to help genealogist and families identify people who were once enslaved.[7] Lee wrote a book, "Making the American Dream Work: A Cultural History of African Americans in Hopewell, Virginia" (2008, Morgan James Publishing) on the cultural history of African Americans in Hopewell, Virginia.[8] She has appeared on C-Span.[9]
She was appointed to an advisory council on Virginia's executive mansion.[10] She discussed the history of Juneteenth at Virginia governor Ralph Northam's press conference on making it a state holiday.[11]
As of 2023, Lee is a candidate for Chesterfield County School Board in the Midlothian District.[12]