Tera Hunter facts for kids

Tera Hunter is an American historian and professor. She studies the history of African Americans and how gender roles have changed over time. She holds an important teaching position at Princeton University. Her work often focuses on the history of the Southern United States, looking at how race, gender, and work have shaped people's lives.

Early Life and Education

Tera Hunter was born in Miami, Florida. She went to Duke University and earned a degree in History with special honors. Later, she continued her studies at Yale University, where she received her master's and Ph.D. degrees in history.

Teaching Career

Before joining Princeton University in 2007, Professor Hunter taught at other universities. She was a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She also taught at Carnegie Mellon University.

Books and Research

Professor Hunter has written several important books about American history. Her books help us understand the lives of African Americans, especially women, after slavery.

Understanding To 'Joy My Freedom

In 1997, Tera Hunter published her first book, To 'Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women's Lives and Labors After the Civil War. This book tells the story of African American women in the South. It focuses on domestic workers, like washerwomen, in Atlanta after the Civil War.

The book shows the many challenges these women faced. They worked hard to control their jobs, their pay, and how their children were raised. They also fought for the right to control their own bodies. This book was special because it focused on working-class women. Many history books at the time focused more on middle- and upper-class women.

To 'Joy My Freedom won several awards. These included the H. L. Mitchell Award and the Letitia Brown Memorial Book Prize. It was also named Book of the Year by the International Labor History Association.

Exploring Bound in Wedlock

In 2017, Professor Hunter released another book called Bound in Wedlock: Slave and Free Black Marriage in the Nineteenth Century. This book looks at how slavery affected marriage and family life for African Americans. It also explores how these effects continued even after slavery ended.

The book describes different kinds of relationships people had. Some were short-term, while others were as lasting as possible. Professor Hunter studied how the law treated marriages between enslaved people. She argued that legal definitions of marriage were sometimes used to break up families. She also looked at marriage laws during the Civil War and in the years before it.

Later Achievements

In 2018, Tera Hunter received a special honor at Princeton University. She was named the Edwards Professor of American History. She also gave an important speech at the event where a statue of William B. Gould was revealed.