Eugene Genovese facts for kids

Eugene Dominic Genovese (May 19, 1930 – September 26, 2012) was an American historian. He studied the history of the American South and slavery in the United States.

He was known for looking at history from a Marxist point of view. This meant he focused on how power, social classes, and relationships between plantation owners and enslaved people worked in the American South. His famous book, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made, won the Bancroft Prize.

Later in his life, Genovese changed his political views. He moved away from Marxism and became a traditional conservative thinker. He wrote during the Cold War, and his ideas were often seen as very controversial at the time.

Early Life and Education

Eugene Genovese was born on May 19, 1930, in Brooklyn, New York. He grew up in a working-class Italian American family. His father was an immigrant dockworker.

When he was 15, in 1945, he joined the Communist Party USA. He was active in their youth group until 1950, when he was 20. He was asked to leave the party for not following their rules.

He earned his first degree from Brooklyn College in 1953. He then went on to get his master's degree in 1955 and a Ph.D. in history in 1959, both from Columbia University.

After college, he taught at many universities. These included Yale, Cambridge, and Rutgers. He was also discharged from army service because of his communist beliefs. Despite these challenges, he remained a Marxist thinker until the 1980s.

Teaching Career

Genovese began his teaching career at Brooklyn's Polytechnic Institute from 1958 to 1963. During the early years of the Vietnam War, his views became quite controversial. He was a history professor at Rutgers University (1963–67) and later at the University of Rochester (1969–86). At Rochester, he was even chosen to lead the History Department.

After 1986, Genovese taught part-time at several other universities. These included the College of William and Mary, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Emory University. He also helped edit important history magazines like Studies on the Left and Marxist Perspectives. He was known for having strong debates with other historians. In 1978, he became the first Marxist president of the Organization of American Historians.

In 1998, after his political ideas shifted to the right, Genovese started The Historical Society. His goal was to bring together historians who shared a traditional way of studying history.

Studies on Slavery

Eugene Genovese was especially famous for his deep studies on slavery in the Americas. In 1968, he wrote about the main studies of slavery. He looked at how different thinkers understood the lives of enslaved people.

In the 1960s, when he was a Marxist, Genovese described slave owners as part of a "seigneurial" society. This meant it was an older type of society, not modern or capitalist.

His most well-known book, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (1974), explored the lives of enslaved people. This book won the Bancroft Prize in 1975. Genovese saw the American South before the Civil War as a society where slave owners tried to control and dehumanize enslaved people.

He paid close attention to how religion helped enslaved people resist their situation. They used their faith to keep their sense of humanity. Genovese believed that resistance to slavery included many things. It wasn't just open rebellion, but also using religion, music, and culture. It also included slowing down work, temporarily disappearing, or escaping.

Genovese used the idea of "cultural hegemony" from thinker Antonio Gramsci. This idea suggests that the ruling class's ideas become the accepted way of thinking. For Genovese, the slaveholding society used its ideas to control enslaved people. However, enslaved people still found ways to create their own culture and resist.

He also focused on "paternalism" in the master-slave relationship. Slave owners used paternalism to see themselves as kind and to justify their actions. They thought it made slavery seem less harsh. Enslaved people, however, used paternalism to their advantage. They tried to turn the "gifts" or "privileges" from their masters into rights. This allowed them to demand better treatment.

Religion was a very important topic in Roll, Jordan, Roll. Genovese noted that after 1830, Southern Christianity became a tool for controlling enslaved people. But he also argued that the religion of enslaved people helped them survive and resist their harsh lives.

Historians had some criticisms of Genovese's work. They debated his focus on the master-slave relationship. They also discussed his ideas on white guilt, his use of "hegemony," and his views on slave religion and family life. However, most historians agreed that his contributions were very important.

In his 1979 book From Rebellion to Revolution, Genovese showed how slave rebellions changed. They went from trying to gain individual freedom to trying to overthrow the entire system of slavery. In 1983, he wrote The Fruits of Merchant Capital with his wife. In this book, they described slavery as a "hybrid system." This meant it had parts that were both pre-capitalist and capitalist.

Shift to Conservative Views

Starting in the 1990s, Genovese began to study the history of conservatism in the South. He eventually adopted these views himself. In his book, The Southern Tradition: the Achievements and Limitations of an American Conservatism, he looked at a group called the Southern Agrarians. These writers believed that modern capitalism was destroying traditional values. Genovese agreed with them.

In his personal life, Genovese also moved to the right. He had once criticized liberalism from a radical left viewpoint. Now, he did so as a traditional conservative. This change included leaving atheism and returning to Catholicism in December 1996. He had been raised in the Catholic faith. His wife, historian Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, also changed her views and converted to Catholicism.

Marriage and Family

In 1969, Eugene Genovese married Elizabeth Fox, who was also a historian. She passed away in 2007. In 2008, he wrote a book in her honor called Miss Betsey: A Memoir of Marriage.

Eugene Genovese died on September 26, 2012, at the age of 82. He passed away in Atlanta, Georgia, due to heart problems.