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Professor Freeman is on research leave for the 2025-2026 academic year.

I am a historian of the nineteenth-century United States, with a focus on political, social, and cultural history of slavery and abolition. Through teaching and public history work, I also explore abolitionism, African American history, and women’s and gender history in �������� and New England. I received my PhD from Columbia University, and my BA is from Williams College.

My first book,��, was published by University of Pennsylvania Press in 2026. I argue that correspondence enabled abolitionists to organize as a group and articulate radical ideas at a time when their ideas were excluded from mainstream electoral politics. Letter writing opened a space for people on the political fringes and disfranchised persons, especially African Americans and women, to claim a voice in national politics. In Spring 2023, I published an article titled “” in the��Journal of the Early Republic. I am now developing research projects on nineteenth-century Black activism in �������� and on the history of abolitionist archives.

I teach undergraduate courses in the fields of �������� history, nineteenth-century U.S. history, African American history, and women’s and gender history. I also teach graduate courses and supervise MA and PhD students working in those fields. I am an affiliated faculty member in U��������’s Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program.

I have a strong interest in public history. I give public talks about the history of slavery and abolition in ��������, consult with public institutions and media outlets about historical topics, and am active in various historical organizations and initiatives across the region. Since 2018, I have led the U�������� History Department’s partnership with �������� Historical society as the Faculty Advisor and Managing Editor for the  journal.

Undergraduate Courses

HTY 210: History of ��������
HTY 232/WGS 201: Womanhood in America
HTY 310: Slavery, Politics, and Memory in American History
HTY 311: Research Seminar: Social Movements and Activism
HTY 415: African American History
HTY 463: The Early Republic, 1789-1840

Graduate Courses

HTY 515: Slavery, Abolition, and Race in American History
HTY 516: Archives and Power