During the 2019 Spring Presentation, students shared their research on slave-owning alumni and the university’s early fundraising efforts. The students also studied campus rhetoric about slavery in the forms of faculty commencement speeches and student magazines and debates. Another student researched the demographics of students who served in the military. Further research into the medical school has shed light on the way Penn functioned as an academic institution. Researchers focused on the professors and students of the early medical school, including the first African American medical practitioner to receive an education at the University of Pennsylvania. Students also studied the collections of crania and other specimens and the source of cadavers used in lectures. Students examine the medical literature published by graduates, professors, and alumni in the form of graduate theses, medical journals, and books.
Using these approaches, students explored the diverse ways Penn certified and produced knowledge in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Through their efforts, the Penn & Slavery Project has further identified ways that Penn and Penn’s alumni used profits from slavery and the slave trade to help the university remain financially secure. They have also shown how medical school professors stimulated and supported the rise of scientific racism and race medicine.
Categories of Research:
Explore the links below for more detailed information about the student’s newest research.
Slaveholding Alumni
Medical School Professors & Students
- Charles Caldwell
- Samuel Henry Dickson
- John Ramsay McDow
- W.S. Forwood
Note: Several students have elected to continue their research over multiple semesters. The researchers’ full reports and further information will be featured on the website soon. In the interim, the Digital Historian, VanJessica Gladney has compiled summaries of the information presented by students.
Penn & Slavery Project 