HARLEY, Sharon

PERSONAL:

Born in Washington, DC. Education: St. Mary-of-the-Woods College, B.A.; Antioch College, M.A.T.; Howard University, Ph.D. Hobbies and other interests: Labor, gender issues.

ADDRESSES:

Office—African-American Studies Department, 2169 LeFrak Hall, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742. Agent—Neeti Madan, Sterling Lord Literistic, 65 Bleecker St., New York, NY 10012.

CAREER:

Educator and historian. University of Maryland, College Park, associate professor of African-American studies, dean of undergraduate studies, chair of department, 1992-99. Project director at Center for African-American Women's Labor Studies.

MEMBER:

American Historical Association, Maryland Humanities Council, Southern Historical Association.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Rockefeller Foundation fellow; Smithsonian Institution research fellowship; Woodrow Wilson Center fellow, 2002-03.

WRITINGS:

Women in the District of Columbia: A Contribution to Their History, International Women's Year Coordinating Committee (Washington, DC), 1977.

(Editor, with Rosalyn Terborg-Penn) The Afro-American Woman: Struggles and Images, Kennikat Press (Port Washington, NY), 1978, reprinted, Black Classic Press (Baltimore, MD), 1997.

(Editor, with Rosalyn Terborg-Penn and Andrea Benton Rushing) Women in Africa and the African Diaspora, Howard University Press (Washington, DC), 1987.

The Timetables of African-American History: A Chronology of the Most Important People and Events in African-American History, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1995.

(Editor, with Black Women and Work Collective) Sister Circle: Black Women and Work, Rutgers University Press (New Brunswick, NJ), 2002.

Also author of A History of the Preservation of the Frederick Douglass Home, U.S. Department of the Interior. Editor, with John H. Bracey, Jr., of Papers of the NAACP. Supplement to Part 23, Legal Department Case Files, 1960-1972 (microfilm archive), LexisNexis, 2003—. Contributor to books, including Nineteenth-Century Black Leaders, University of Illinois Press, 1988; Gender, Class, Race, and Reform in the Progressive Era, University of Kentucky Press, 1991; Sisters in the Struggle: African-American Women in the Civil Rights and Black Power Movement, New York University Press, 1991; Women and Work: Exploring Race, Ethnicity, and Class, Sage, 1997; Washington, DC, Smithsonian Books (Washington, DC), 1992; A History of Maryland's Lower Susquehanna Region, Maryland Humanities Council, 2001; Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia; Encyclopedia of Southern Culture; Female American: A Selected and Annotated Bibliography of the Autobiographies of American Women Living after 1950; and Gender, Families, and Close Relationships: Feminist Research Journeys. Contributor to periodicals, including Signs, Journal of Negro Education, Journal of Labor History, Journal of Negro History, First Person, and Career Opportunities.

WORK IN PROGRESS:

Dignity and Damnation: The Nexus of Race, Gender, and Women's Work, for Norton.

SIDELIGHTS:

Educator and scholar Sharon Harley has focused her career on the study of African-American women and their role in the American workplace throughout modern history. In addition to her contributions to numerous books and periodicals on gender and labor studies, Harley is the editor of Sister Circle: Black Women and Work, a collection of essays by members of the Black Women and Work Collective that provides readers a "fascinating look at black women in the underground economy," according to Vanessa Bush in Booklist. Formed through a grant by the Ford Foundation, the collective proved to be far more than a "rigidly academic pursuit," maintained Black Issues Book Review contributor Evette Porter, who went on to praise Sister Circle for presenting "thoughtful insight into how black women have experienced work often at the margins and frequently under duress." Another book edited by Harley, The Timetables of African-American History: A Chronology of the Most Important People and Events in African-American History, spans the years from 1492 to 1992, highlighting the many contributions made by black Americans and including a comprehensive index that makes the volume a good resource for scholars.

As a professor and department chair at the University of Maryland, College Park, Harley served as principal investigator in a two-year planning effort to create the Center for African-American Women's Labor Studies. The Center stands as a major accomplishment for Harley; in Black Issues in Higher Education she stated: "Historically, Black women and men were brought here to work, but they (Black Women) have often been marginalized in labor studies and excluded from the history of women and work and even Blacks and work. The center hopes to correct that dearth of scholarship." The center provides scholars with a community in which, Harley hopes, "Working women can come to hear a topic or speech—to hear something that may affect their lives." While Harley works hard to inspire others, she gains inspiration from the work of the women who struggled to make a difference in the past.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American History, April, 1995, review of The Timetables of African-American History: A Chronology of the Most Important People and Events in African-American History, p. 27.

Black Issues Book Review, July-August, 2002, Evette Porter, review of Sister Circle: Black Women and Work, p. 53.

Black Issues in Higher Education, May 10, 2001, "Maryland Academic Center to Focus on Black Women, Work," p. 16.

Booklist, February 15, 1995, review of The Timetables of African-American History, p. 1112; July, 2002, Vanessa Bush, review of Sister Circle, p. 1804.

Choice, February, 2003, C. A. Kanes, review of Sister Circle, p. 1064.

International Journal of African Historical Studies, summer, 1989, Kathleen Staudt, review of Women in Africa and the African Diaspora, p. 557.

Library Journal, March 1, 1995, James Moffet, review of The Timetables of African-American History, p. 62.

Research in African Literatures, summer, 1989, Charlotte H. Bruner, review of Women in Africa and the African Diaspora, p. 308.

Women's Review of Books, September, 2002, Judith Rollins, review of Sister Circle, p. 13.*