How do historians and biographers reconstruct the lives of people from the past?

Good biographies rely on telling the lives of people using practiced historical methods of thorough archival research and the sound interrogation of historical sources. But what does this practice of historical methods look like?

In this final episode of the Omohundro Institute’s Doing History series about biography, Erica Dunbar, the Charles and Mary Beard Professor of History at Rutgers University and author of Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave Ona Judge, takes us into the archives to show us how she recovered the life of Ona Judge.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/212

 

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Complementary Episodes

• Episode 137: Erica Dunbar, The Washingtons’ Runaway Slave, Ona Judge
• Episode 173: Marisa Fuentes, Colonial Port Cities and Slavery
• Episode 183: Douglas Bradburn, George Washington’s Mount Vernon
• Episode 209: Considering Biography
• Episode 210: Considering John Marshall, Part 1
• Episode 211: Considering John Marshall, Part 2

 

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