Victoria W. Wolcott

Academic Historian

Victoria W. Wolcott is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Rochester. She holds a joint appointment with the Frederick Douglass Institute for African and African-American Studies. Wolcott’s book Remaking Respectability: African American Women in Interwar Detroit explores the migration and resettlement of black women in Detroit, Michigan during the 1920s and 1930s. Her new research analyzes the intersection of race and recreation in urban America at mid-century. She is currently researching and writing a monograph, Race, Riots, and Roller Coasters: Integrated Amusements in the Postwar Urban North, that explores segregation, racial violence, and leisure in northern cities.

John Campbell Dancy Jr. (1888-1968)

John Campbell Dancy, Jr. headed the Detroit Urban League through the tumultuous years of the Great Migration, Great Depression and World War II. He was born into a prominent family in North Carolina who steered him to the north to obtain degrees from Phillips-Exeter Academy … Read MoreJohn Campbell Dancy Jr. (1888-1968)

Elizabeth Ross Haynes (1883-1953)

In the early twentieth century Progressive era reformers largely ignored the needs of African American women. Lacking settlement houses and other resources African American reformers such as Elizabeth Ross Haynes turned to one of the few institutions available to them, the YWCA. Ross Haynes was … Read MoreElizabeth Ross Haynes (1883-1953)

Cora Mae Brown (1914-1972)

Cora Mae Brown was part of a generation of African American women who translated their community work into political struggle during the first half of the twentieth century. Born on April 19, 1914 in Bessemer, Alabama, Brown’s family migrated to Detroit, Michigan when she was … Read MoreCora Mae Brown (1914-1972)