Painter, Nell Irvin
Born: August 2, 1942, in Houston, Texas
Vocations: Professor, Historian
Geographic Connection to Pennsylvania: Philadelphia, Philadelphia County

Keywords: Guggenheim Fellowship; Harvard University; Princeton University; Project Crossroads Africa; University of California at Berkeley; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; University of Pennsylvania

Abstract: Born in Houston in 1942, historian Nell Irvin Painter came to Pennsylvania in 1974 for professional purposes, accepting a position at the University of Pennsylvania. She has been very active and influential in the field of African-American Studies, writing a number of books, editing volumes, and writing scholarly articles. She currently lives in Princeton, NJ.

Biography:

Nell Irvin Painter was born in Houston, Texas, on August 2, 1942, but she moved with her family to Oakland, California, while still an infant. Her parents were Frank Edward Irvin, a chemistry professor, and Dona Lolita Irvin, a personnel officer. In 1965, she married Colin Painter, but they divorced a year later. In 1989, she married Glenn R. Shafer, a teacher at the University of Kansas. She became the stepmother of Richard and Dennis Shafer.

Painter attended the University of California at Berkeley, deciding to major in anthropology after spending the summer of 1962 in Kano, Nigeria, with her parents. As part of Project Crossroads Africa, she helped to build a school for the indigenous people. Painter returned to Africa after graduation, this time to Ghana, where she discovered a love for history. She attended the University of California, where she received a master’s degree in history in 1967, and earned a Ph.D. from Harvard in 1974. Painter’s first teaching appointment came in 1964 from the Ghana Institute of Languages, where she was employed for a little over a year.

Painter’s contribution to the historical depictions of black Americans throughout the Progressive and Reconstruction Eras in the United States have gained her widespread recognition. Two works in particular, Exodusters: Black Migration to Kansas After Reconstruction, and The Narrative of Hosea Hudson: His Life as a Negro Communist in the South, have drawn much attention. New York Times Book Review contributor, Joe Klein, has said that Painter “seems to have a knack for finding the more curious nooks and crannies of the black experience in America.”

Painter has received various awards and fellowships throughout her career as a historian. She has been presented with the Candace Award, the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, and the Coretta Scott King Award from the American Association of University Women. She has been awarded fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. At Harvard University, she received the Radcliffe Institute Fellowship, and at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she was a fellow in American history through the National Humanities Center. She was also an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, as well as an associate professor of American and Afro-American history. She now teaches at Princeton University.

Works:

Books

• Exodusters: Black Migration to Kansas after Reconstruction. New York: Knopf, 1977.
• The Narrative of Hosea Hudson: His Life as a Negro Communist in the South. Boston: Harvard UP, 1979.
• The Progressive Era. New York: Knopf, 1984.
• Standing at Armageddon: The United States, 1870-1919. New York: Knopf, 1987.
• Sojourner Truth, A Life, A Symbol. New York: W.W. Norton, 1996.
• Southern History Across the Color Line. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 2002.

Sources:

• “Nell Irvin Painter” nellpainter.com. 1 Dec. 2004. 30 June 2005. <http://www.nellpainter.com/nell/cv/cv.html>.
• “Nell Irvin Painter.” The Gale Literary Database: Contemporary Authors. 6 Dec. 2000. 4 Mar. 2001. <http://www.galenet.com >.
• Scanlon, Jennifer and Sharon Cosner. American Woman Historians, 1700-1900. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000.

This biography was prepared by Adam Benshoff.