Dr. Millward is the author of Finding Charity’s Folk which highlights the experiences of enslaved Maryland women who negotiated for their own freedom, many of whom have been largely lost to historical records. Based on more than fifteen hundred manumission records and numerous manuscript documents from a diversity of archives, Dr. Millward skillfully brings together African American social and gender history to provide a new means of using biography as a historical genre.
“If the story of Charity Folks and other enslaved women is any indication, what we do matters. The stories of enslaved women and black women more generally are crucial to our understanding of the long arc of the fight for freedom.”— Jessica Millward
Select Writings: