The Education of Betsey Stockton

An Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom

Gregory Nobles

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Hardback

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English

University of Chicago Press
13 June 2022

Biography: religious & spiritual; Black & Asian studies

The first full-length biography of an extraordinary woman born into slavery who, through grit and determination, became a historic social and educational leader.

The life of Betsey Stockton (ca. 1798–1865) is a remarkable story of a Black woman’s journey from slavery to emancipation, from antebellum New Jersey to the Hawai‘ian Islands, and from her own self-education to a lifetime of teaching others—all told against the backdrop of the early United States’ pervasive racism. It’s a compelling chronicle of a critical time in American history and a testament to the courage and commitment of a woman whose persistence grew into a potent form of resistance.

When Betsey Stockton was a child, she was “given, as a slave” to the household of Rev. Ashbel Green, a prominent pastor and later the president of what is now Princeton University. Although she never went to school, she devoured the books in Green’s library. After being emancipated, she used that education to benefit other people of color, first in Hawai‘i as a missionary, then Philadelphia, and, for the last three decades of her life, Princeton—a college town with a genteel veneer that never fully hid its racial hostility. Betsey Stockton became a revered figure in Princeton’s sizeable Black population, a founder of religious and educational institutions, and a leader engaged in the day-to-day business of building communities.

In this first book-length telling of Betsey Stockton’s story, Gregory Nobles illuminates both a woman and her world, following her around the globe, and showing how a determined individual could challenge her society’s racial obstacles from the ground up. It’s at once a revealing lesson on the struggles of Stockton’s times and a fresh inspiration for our own.

By: Gregory Nobles
Imprint: University of Chicago Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9780226697727
ISBN 10: 022669772X
Pages: 288
Publication Date: 13 June 2022
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Gregory Nobles is professor emeritus of history at Georgia Institute of Technology and a historian who has written extensively on the era from the American Revolution to the Civil War. He is the author or coauthor of several books, most recently John James Audubon: The Nature of the American Woodsman.

Reviews for The Education of Betsey Stockton: An Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom

Using only scraps of historical evidence, Nobles thoroughly succeeds in tracing the life of an individual African American-Betsey Stockton-and simultaneously illuminating the end of slavery in the North. Nobles is a gifted writer, an excellent historian, and an imaginative researcher, and his well-timed book is a pleasure to read. * Shane White, author of Prince of Darkness: The Untold Story of Jeremiah G. Hamilton, Wall Street's First Black Millionaire *