Victoria W. Wolcott
PhD
Professor
Director of Gender Institute
Fields
20th century United States History; African American History; Gender and Sexuality; Social and Cultural History; Urban History
Education
- PhD, ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ of Michigan, 1995
- BA, New York ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½, 1989, magna cum laude
Courses Regularly Taught
HIS 162: U.S. History II
HIS 379: African American History
HIS 306: The City in American History
HIS 306: Civil Rights in America
HIS 419: Race and the American City
HIS 459: American Utopias
HIS 503: American History Core II
HIS 550: The Long Civil Rights Movement
Current Research
My current research investigates the life and work of a Black pacifist and athlete during the cold war. This will culminate in a microhistory tentatively titled, The Embodied Resistance of Eroseanna Robinson: Athleticism and Activism in the Cold War Era. I am also drafting two articles related to the project:
“The Route 40 Desegregation Campaign and the Elkton Three,” and “Resistant Bodies: Female Hunger Strikes in Modern America,”
Selected Publications
Utopian Imaginings: Saving the Future in the Present (State ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ of New York Press, 2024)
(Chicago: ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ of Chicago Press, 2022)
“Networks of Resistance: Floria Pinkney and Labor Interracialism in Interwar America,” Journal of African American History 105, 4 (Fall 2020): 567-592.
(ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ of Pennsylvania Press, 2012)
(Chapel Hill: ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ of North Carolina Press, 2001)
“Radical Nonviolence, Interracial Utopias and the Congress of Racial Equality in the early Civil Rights Movement,” in The Journal of Civil and Human Rights, 4, 2 (Fall/Winter 2018): 31-61
“Recreation and Race in the Postwar City: Buffalo’s 1956 Crystal Beach Riot,” Journal of American History (June 2006): 63-90.
“The Culture of the Informal Economy: Numbers Runners in Inter-War Black Detroit,” The Radical History Review (Fall 1997): 46-75.
Awards
- Co-PI on Mellon Grant, “Communities of Care,” $2,527,000.00, 2023-2026
- Elise M. Boulding Prize in Peace History for Living in the Future: Utopianism and the Long Civil Rights Movement, June 2023
- New Deal Book Award for Living in the Future: Utopianism and the Long Civil Rights Movement, June 2023
- Humanities Institute Fellowship, ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½, Spring 2020
- National Endowment for the Humanities, Fellowship, Spring 2016
- Distinguished Lecturer, Organization of American Historians, 2014-present
- Susan B. Anthony Institute Research Grant, ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ of Rochester, Spring 2010
- Abraham J. Karp Award for Excellence in Teaching, ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ of Rochester, Spring 2005
- Beveridge Grant, American Historical Association, 2002