Cory James Young
@coryjamesyoung.bsky.social
assistant professor of history at UIowa | personal account | northern slavery, legal history, Black America | i ♥️ WNY
Pinned
Project MUSE - Hereditary Term Slavery and the Pursuit of Restitution in Antebellum Pennsylvania
This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Without cookies your experience may not be seamless.
muse.jhu.edu
I contributed this article to a special issue of the Journal of the Early Republic on "Free State" slavery. It previews one of my book's principle interventions: the concept of hereditary term slavery during the age of gradual abolition.
It is a privilege to appear in print with my co-contributors.
It is a privilege to appear in print with my co-contributors.
I have examined hundreds of advertisements for refugees from slavery--many of which sheepishly acknowledge Black surnames--but I have never seen one before that explicitly states it was Black people who insisted on using them.
From the 15 July 1807 Virginia Argus. fotm.link/a/3e54788f-6...
From the 15 July 1807 Virginia Argus. fotm.link/a/3e54788f-6...
December 4, 2025 at 2:57 PM
I have examined hundreds of advertisements for refugees from slavery--many of which sheepishly acknowledge Black surnames--but I have never seen one before that explicitly states it was Black people who insisted on using them.
From the 15 July 1807 Virginia Argus. fotm.link/a/3e54788f-6...
From the 15 July 1807 Virginia Argus. fotm.link/a/3e54788f-6...
I taught my undergraduates the word “monograph” to try to give them an alternative to “book” that wasn’t “novel,” but all I’ve done is create a weirder, more pretentious problem.
December 2, 2025 at 10:40 PM
I taught my undergraduates the word “monograph” to try to give them an alternative to “book” that wasn’t “novel,” but all I’ve done is create a weirder, more pretentious problem.
Reposted by Cory James Young
"While other universities report that the humanities are shrinking, at Berkeley, the opposite is true. The music major is the fastest-growing major on campus. We are finding bigger classrooms because film is exploding. English is back to the numbers we saw 15 years ago. We are hiring" bit.ly/4ohKuOe
"The humanities really are a resource — a confidence for living in our times.” Dean Sara Guyer on the modern utility of humanities degrees
This interview originally appeared on the Division of Arts
bit.ly
November 23, 2025 at 3:38 PM
"While other universities report that the humanities are shrinking, at Berkeley, the opposite is true. The music major is the fastest-growing major on campus. We are finding bigger classrooms because film is exploding. English is back to the numbers we saw 15 years ago. We are hiring" bit.ly/4ohKuOe
Reposted by Cory James Young
Henry Box Brown would be proud
A U.S. postal worker on Long Island is accused of trying to help a man escape from ICE custody earlier this month, according to a federal criminal complaint: https://gothamist.visitlink.me/YNagDp
US postal worker charged with breaking man out of ICE custody on Long Island
Police arrested the worker and the man she tried to free.
gothamist.visitlink.me
November 21, 2025 at 2:45 AM
Henry Box Brown would be proud
Reposted by Cory James Young
Reposted by Cory James Young
Always great to see my friend and fellow historian Scott Hancock reminding Gettysburg residents during its annual Remembrance Day Parade that Confederates "fought for slavery." 🗃️
November 15, 2025 at 9:19 PM
Always great to see my friend and fellow historian Scott Hancock reminding Gettysburg residents during its annual Remembrance Day Parade that Confederates "fought for slavery." 🗃️
Reposted by Cory James Young
‘We don’t even know all of what we have.’ Howard University fights to preserve Black newspapers. www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/... Last year, during a move, workers found two whole boxes of Frederick Douglass’s’ The North Star’s first year of publication.
‘We don’t even know all of what we have.’ Howard fights to preserve Black newspapers.
Across the United States, scholars are working to preserve the history of the Black press before the brittle pages are lost forever. In a basement at Howard University, uncovered treasures have includ...
www.csmonitor.com
November 15, 2025 at 12:58 PM
‘We don’t even know all of what we have.’ Howard University fights to preserve Black newspapers. www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/... Last year, during a move, workers found two whole boxes of Frederick Douglass’s’ The North Star’s first year of publication.
Reposted by Cory James Young
Administratively, they‘ll regret that requirement
COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) — Texas A&M adopts policy requiring professors to get OK from school president to discuss certain race and gender issues.
November 13, 2025 at 11:24 PM
Administratively, they‘ll regret that requirement
Come on down to the "new Legislature-imposed University of Iowa Center for Intellectual Freedom."
Legislature-imposed intellectual freedom.
Legislature-imposed intellectual freedom.
New UI intellectual freedom center airs plans for first meeting, inaugural event, spring courses
The first meeting of a new Legislature-imposed University of Iowa Center for Intellectual Freedom advisory council has been set for next week, on Tuesday, over Zoom — meaning the half who live outside...
www.thegazette.com
November 13, 2025 at 3:23 PM
Come on down to the "new Legislature-imposed University of Iowa Center for Intellectual Freedom."
Legislature-imposed intellectual freedom.
Legislature-imposed intellectual freedom.
Doing some work today in LancasterHistory's digitized Black History Collection. This 1789 doc reveals that while a woman named Ruth was emancipated in 1780 "for want of Being Recorded," her former enslaver claimed her daughter as his property anyway.
Gradual abolition preserved logics of slavery.
Gradual abolition preserved logics of slavery.
![Screenshot of a yellowed eighteenth-century document with neat-if-slanty black cursive script:
I David Breading of the Township of Little Britain
in the County of Lancaster yeoman do hereby return
(That to the Best of Knowledge) Jane a Negro Famale
Child Daughter of Ruth Formerly a Famale Negro Slave
but now Liberated for want of Being Recorded was
Born on the twentieth Day of June in the year of our
Lord one thousand Seven Hundred and Eighty three
And that the afforsaid Negro Child is to be registered
pursuant to an Act of General Assembly of Pennsylvania
For the Gradual Abolition of Slavery and which Child
is my property and Liable by the Act aforesaid
to serve untill she arrive to the age of twenty
Eight years -- Witness my hand this
Second Day of March one thousand seven
Hundred Eighty Nine 1789
To John Huble Esqr
Clerk of the peace for
the County of Lancaster
David Breading
[text obscured by LancasterHistory watermark]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:rwzl23zkrni3ee7j7qngpm7u/bafkreifszbezqjshfgwjb67zve2crsyz7jsd2jygzclndxqxty6v7oxfeu@jpeg)
November 13, 2025 at 12:54 PM
Doing some work today in LancasterHistory's digitized Black History Collection. This 1789 doc reveals that while a woman named Ruth was emancipated in 1780 "for want of Being Recorded," her former enslaver claimed her daughter as his property anyway.
Gradual abolition preserved logics of slavery.
Gradual abolition preserved logics of slavery.
Reposted by Cory James Young
For some reason, I just thought of this scene.
November 10, 2025 at 3:42 AM
For some reason, I just thought of this scene.
Reposted by Cory James Young
David Drake was an Enslaved Man in South Carolina who Made Thousands of Ceramic Pots. Now, a Boston Museum Has Returned Two of Them to His Descendants www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/a... "Artworks by enslaved Black Americans are often absent from repatriation conversations in the United States"
An Enslaved Man Made Thousands of Ceramic Pots. Now, a Boston Museum Has Returned Two of Them to His Descendants
Many of David Drake's large vessels featured his signature and inscriptions, even though he created them during a time when literacy among enslaved laborers was illegal
www.smithsonianmag.com
November 9, 2025 at 1:04 PM
David Drake was an Enslaved Man in South Carolina who Made Thousands of Ceramic Pots. Now, a Boston Museum Has Returned Two of Them to His Descendants www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/a... "Artworks by enslaved Black Americans are often absent from repatriation conversations in the United States"
Reposted by Cory James Young
In the only election in my small city, which tends to lean Republican, especially for local politics, the GOP candidate did not include party affiliation in any of his advertising, & still couldn’t get even 39% of the vote.
November 5, 2025 at 10:57 AM
In the only election in my small city, which tends to lean Republican, especially for local politics, the GOP candidate did not include party affiliation in any of his advertising, & still couldn’t get even 39% of the vote.
Thinking of banning the word "complex" from my classroom. Will report back.
November 4, 2025 at 10:10 PM
Thinking of banning the word "complex" from my classroom. Will report back.
THE ANDREW FORMERLY KNOWN AS PRINCE. DID I GET IT IN TIME? IS IT TOO LATE?
Andrew stripped of 'prince' title and will move out of Royal Lodge
He will now be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor - Buckingham Palace says
www.bbc.com
October 30, 2025 at 7:55 PM
THE ANDREW FORMERLY KNOWN AS PRINCE. DID I GET IT IN TIME? IS IT TOO LATE?
Reposted by Cory James Young
As a fun sidenote, Wendy's marketing reported that the word "Frescata" was "totally made-up", and meant to evoke "freshness" in a vaguely European way. However, it turns out that it's actually a real Italian term, roughly meaning "a blast of cold air that causes illness"
October 30, 2025 at 4:13 PM
As a fun sidenote, Wendy's marketing reported that the word "Frescata" was "totally made-up", and meant to evoke "freshness" in a vaguely European way. However, it turns out that it's actually a real Italian term, roughly meaning "a blast of cold air that causes illness"
I have a friend in tech who said to me over the weekend “I don’t know how to solve the problem of student consumers who want to pay for a degree but who do not want to, or are incentivized not to, learn,” and while it obviously doesn’t describe all students, it sure seems like a big problem.
Cheating with an LLM is the easiest thing in the world for a student to do, but it creates a massive, laborious headache for a prof, if you intend to take it seriously. There’s meetings, emails, discussions, moral dilemmas. It’s just incredibly burdensome, on top of everything else right now.
I had 9 meetings about students using Chat GPT/LLMs on their papers today.
If you want to know why professors burn out, ask anyone trying to teach critical thinking and writing skills to Freshmen....
If you want to know why professors burn out, ask anyone trying to teach critical thinking and writing skills to Freshmen....
October 28, 2025 at 2:32 PM
I have a friend in tech who said to me over the weekend “I don’t know how to solve the problem of student consumers who want to pay for a degree but who do not want to, or are incentivized not to, learn,” and while it obviously doesn’t describe all students, it sure seems like a big problem.
Reposted by Cory James Young
DC friends!! Join us on this Sunday on the National Mall for a teach-in in defense of history and museums, ft. an all-star line-up! We’ll be there from sun-up to sun-down. More info here: linktr.ee/historyteachin
October 21, 2025 at 3:28 PM
DC friends!! Join us on this Sunday on the National Mall for a teach-in in defense of history and museums, ft. an all-star line-up! We’ll be there from sun-up to sun-down. More info here: linktr.ee/historyteachin
Reposted by Cory James Young
Georgetown students stand in solidarity with the Black Lung Association, Appalachian Voices, the United Mine Workers of America! As miners and their supporters rallied together last week, out students showed up in solidarity after making signs and posters
October 21, 2025 at 12:54 AM
Georgetown students stand in solidarity with the Black Lung Association, Appalachian Voices, the United Mine Workers of America! As miners and their supporters rallied together last week, out students showed up in solidarity after making signs and posters
Reposted by Cory James Young
The AWS outage exposes again that “the cloud” isn’t magic, it’s infrastructure. The issue isn’t a cyberattack, it’s architectural over-reliance on a handful of cloud giants. We centralized the internet and then made our entire lives dependent on it.
October 20, 2025 at 4:34 PM
The AWS outage exposes again that “the cloud” isn’t magic, it’s infrastructure. The issue isn’t a cyberattack, it’s architectural over-reliance on a handful of cloud giants. We centralized the internet and then made our entire lives dependent on it.
"If my ancestors, as slaves, could lead the greatest general strike in the history of this country, taking it to the ultra-rich and big corporations, we can do the same today."
so here's the bit where he says it - notable that he explicitly links it to the General Strike interpretation of Civil Wars history
xcancel.com/BTnewsroom/s...
xcancel.com/BTnewsroom/s...
BreakThrough News (@BTnewsroom)
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson calls for a general strike against the “tyranny” of Trump and the greed of the ultra-rich. An estimated 300,000 filled the streets for the “No Kings” march, powerfully re...
xcancel.com
October 20, 2025 at 1:28 AM
"If my ancestors, as slaves, could lead the greatest general strike in the history of this country, taking it to the ultra-rich and big corporations, we can do the same today."
Reposted by Cory James Young
Had I think about 300 people here in Sioux City, Iowa for the No Kings Protest! #NoKings
I'm proud of my city for those that came out in protest.
Even made my own homemade cardboard sign too!
@thebulwark.com @podsaveamerica.crooked.com @briantylercohen.bsky.social @laurarbelin.bsky.social
I'm proud of my city for those that came out in protest.
Even made my own homemade cardboard sign too!
@thebulwark.com @podsaveamerica.crooked.com @briantylercohen.bsky.social @laurarbelin.bsky.social
October 18, 2025 at 10:10 PM
Had I think about 300 people here in Sioux City, Iowa for the No Kings Protest! #NoKings
I'm proud of my city for those that came out in protest.
Even made my own homemade cardboard sign too!
@thebulwark.com @podsaveamerica.crooked.com @briantylercohen.bsky.social @laurarbelin.bsky.social
I'm proud of my city for those that came out in protest.
Even made my own homemade cardboard sign too!
@thebulwark.com @podsaveamerica.crooked.com @briantylercohen.bsky.social @laurarbelin.bsky.social
Reposted by Cory James Young
Polk State College drops Intro to African-American Studies course to align with new state law www.fox13news.com/news/polk-st...
Polk State College drops African-American Studies course to align with new state law
An African-American studies course is no longer being taught at Polk State College because, according to officials there, it didn't comply with state law.
www.fox13news.com
October 17, 2025 at 11:14 AM
Polk State College drops Intro to African-American Studies course to align with new state law www.fox13news.com/news/polk-st...
I just tried using a six-digit Duo Mobile code to unlock my phone three times before I realized what I was doing. Help, my brain is melting.
October 16, 2025 at 6:55 PM
I just tried using a six-digit Duo Mobile code to unlock my phone three times before I realized what I was doing. Help, my brain is melting.
I shared a draft book review I wrote with my Intro to the Major students who are writing their own book reviews.
One of my students told me I write like I speak and I'm still beaming.
What good classroom news do y'all have to share from this semester?
One of my students told me I write like I speak and I'm still beaming.
What good classroom news do y'all have to share from this semester?
October 16, 2025 at 3:59 PM
I shared a draft book review I wrote with my Intro to the Major students who are writing their own book reviews.
One of my students told me I write like I speak and I'm still beaming.
What good classroom news do y'all have to share from this semester?
One of my students told me I write like I speak and I'm still beaming.
What good classroom news do y'all have to share from this semester?