Dr. Edward Rugemer

Biography

Edward Rugemer is a historian specializing in slavery and abolition. He grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, and graduated from Fairfield University in 1993. He obtained his doctorate in History from Boston College in 2005 and joined the faculty at Yale University in 2007. His book, 'The Problem of Emancipation: Caribbean Roots of the American Civil War' (Louisiana State University Press, 2008), examines how the abolition of slavery in the British Caribbean influenced the American Civil War. The book received the Avery Craven Award from the Organization of American Historians and the Samuel Ronnie Heyman Prize from Yale University, and he was also co-winner of the Francis B. Simkins Award from the Southern Historical Association for his original work on the Civil War era. His subsequent work, 'Slave Law and the Politics of Resistance in the Early Atlantic World' (Harvard University Press, 2018), explores how organized slave resistance influenced the development of Atlantic slavery, with a focus on Jamaica and South Carolina during the colonial period in the 1830s, and it won the Jerry H. Bentley Book Prize from the World History Association and the Gustav Ranis International Book Prize from the Yale MacMillan Center. Rugemer has published articles in 'William and Mary Quarterly,' 'Journal of Southern History,' 'Slavery and Abolition,' 'Reviews in American History,' and 'Journal of the Civil War Era.' At Yale, Professor Rugemer teaches courses at both undergraduate and graduate levels on slavery and abolition in the Atlantic World from 1500 to 1888. His career also includes service as a Jesuit volunteer, teaching at St. George’s College, a Jesuit high school for boys in downtown Kingston, Jamaica, from 1994 to 1996. He continues to work with youth as a Little League baseball coach in New Haven.

Research Interests