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xi acknowledgments It gives me great pleasure to thank the many institutions, colleagues, friends, and family members who have supported and encouraged me during the research and writing of this book. Many of them are as happy as I am that I have arrived at this stage. When I was a University of Virginia undergraduate, Reginald Butler and Patricia Sullivan were engaging mentors who helped me understand that I could turn my love for history into a career that I had not imagined possible. In graduate school at Princeton University, I benefited from both the African American studies and women and gender studies programs. I am grateful for the support of fellow graduate students Shalanda Dexter-Rodgers, Andrea Morris, Crystal Feimster, and Keith Mayes. I learned what it meant to be a scholar-teacher in the history department at Williams College. I received significant support in many different ways from the college and my colleagues. I am particularly indebted to Kenda B. Mutongi, Craig S. Wilder, Shanti Singham, Regina Kunzel, and William Wagner. In 2007, I joined the University of North Carolina at Charlotte’s history department, which provided a wonderfully collegial environment for me as I completed manuscript revisions. Outside of the department, I am especially grateful for the supportive friendships of Julia Robinson-Harmon and Sonya R. Ramsey. Frank Bravo, from the technology support department, deserves special thanks for his assistance with many of the book’s images. I am indebted to the various institutions, organizations, and seminars that have supported this project. I began writing this book with a Chancellor ’s Minority Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Working with Dianne Pinderhughes in the Department of African American Studies and James Barrett in the Department of History was instrumental in helping me think through the revision process. I had the pleasure of presenting my first set of ideas at the University of Houston’s Black History Workshop with Linda Reed and Richard Blackett. When I joined the University of Maryland’s “Meanings and Representations of Work in the Lives of Women of Color” Interdisciplinary Research Seminar , directed by Sharon Harley, I had a wonderful opportunity to present xii Acknowledgments my work, receive feedback, and learn from an inspiring set of junior and senior scholars. As a resident scholar at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, I really began to understand the book through the incredible collections, support staff, and engaging fellow scholars. I thank Diana Lachatanere for her assistance with logistics and questions. I learned so much from Colin Palmer, who showed an impressive commitment to the program and scholars. As a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Virginia’s Carter G. Woodson Institute for Afro-American and African Studies I benefited in numerous ways from working with Reginald Butler and Scot French, from the intellectual community of fellows, from Alderman Library’s interlibrary loan service, and from Deborah McDowell’s hospitality as well as penetrating, constructive criticism of my research. Joseph Miller also deserves special thanks for helping me to choose the appropriate book title. Presenting ideas at the University of Mississippi’s Porter L. Fortune, Jr., History Symposium, the Center for Africanamerican Urban Studies and the Economy at Carnegie Mellon University, and Drexel University ’s Africana Studies also enriched my work. I am also grateful that the New York State Historical Association awarded Talk with You Like a Woman the 2007 Dixon Ryan Fox Manuscript Prize. I have been extraordinarily lucky to have been inspired by the scholarship and the thoughtful responses and positive criticism of those scholars whose work has shaped so many disciplines. At various phases of writing and research, my thinking has been influenced by feedback from and conversations with Elsa Barkley Brown, Joy Damousi, Doreen Drury, Estelle Freedman, Kevin Gaines, Evelynn Hammonds, Nancy Hewitt, Robin D. G. Kelley, Regina Kunzel, Jacqui Malone, Nicole Hahn Rafter, Nayan Shah, Kimberly Springer, Craig S. Wilder, and Francille Wilson. I am particularly grateful to Tera Hunter, Patricia Schechter, Timothy Gilfoyle, and Gunja SenGupta, who read the entire manuscript and whose engaged comments and critical suggestions have improved the book immeasurably. I also received invaluable feedback on conference papers from Barbara Ransby, Kathy Peiss, and Marlon Ross. I have benefited from the many people who graciously shared ideas and sources regarding the profession, research, and writing. They include Nichole Rustin-Paschal, Lisa Levenstein, Crystal Feimster, Mary Ting Yi Lui, Deborah Thomas, Ginetta Candelario, Sandy Alexandre, Judith Weisenfeld, Heather Williams, Jerma...

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