voc ep: 45 Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass (National Archives)

Ezra Greenspan discusses his current research, a multi-generational family biography titled, Frederick Douglass’ People: A Family Biography. “It recounts the life of Frederick Douglass in relation to the lives of his relatives-ancestors, siblings, cousins, wives, children, and grandchildren,” he said. “What I will call the Frederick Bailey/Frederick Douglass family straddled the nation’s chief dividing line, the Mason-Dixon. Once Douglass escaped in 1838 from the border city of Baltimore, Maryland, he would not cross back over the Mason-Dixon until well into the Civil War or return “home” to Maryland’s Eastern Shore until 1877.”

Ezra Greenspan is a literary and cultural historian who studies and teaches the history of written communications and media in the United States — from manuscript and print to digitalia. His interests include the history of writing, printing, and publishing; of institutions of letters such as libraries and schools; of the interplay between letters and visual images; of archives and archiving; and of the historic uses of written communications, especially by ethnic groups such as African Americans and Jews.