William Chafe, a retired distinguished Duke University professor of history, visits Elon University as part of the Liberal Arts Forum.
Tuesday, April 2
William Chafe, "The Unfinished Journey: America Since World War II"
Whitley Auditorium, 7:30 p.m.
Much of William Chafe's professional scholarship reflects his long-term interest in issue of race and gender equality. His dissertation and first book focused on the changing social and economic roles of American women in the 50 years after the women’s suffrage amendment. Published in 1972 as The American Woman, it was considered a path-breaking work in what has become one of the most dynamic sub-disciplines in history. His subsequent books compared the patterns of race and gender discrimination in America. His book on the origins of the sit-in movement in Greensboro, N.C., helped to re-orient scholarship on civil rights toward social history and community studies.
Chafe has written two books on the history of post-World War II America, a major overview of 20th century America (The Rise and Fall of the American Century), a history of personality and politics in modern America (Private Lives/Public Consequences), and a biography of the liberal crusader Allard Lowenstein. The author of 12 books overall, he has received the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina and the Black Struggle for Freedom (1980), the Sidney Hillman book award for Never Stop Running: Allard Lowenstein and the Struggle to Save American Liberalism (1993), and the Lillian Smith Award for Remembering Jim Crow (2003).
From 1988 until last year, Chafe served as the Alice Mary Baldwin Distinguished Professor of History at Duke University. He is the recipient of numerous fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Rockefeller Foundation, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Humanities Center, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavior Sciences.