Join Lois Leveen, the Newberry’s 2013 Arthur and Lila Weinberg Fellow, for a discussion of the research behind The Secrets of Mary Bowser, her novel based on the true story of a former slave who became a Union spy in the Confederate White House.

Dr. Leveen will provides insight into the lives of free and enslaved blacks in urban, industrialized Richmond; into the thriving black community in antebellum Philadelphia; and into how blacks and whites worked together in the pro-Union underground that operated in Richmond during the war. The author will also explore what it means to teach—and learn— African American history through fiction. What happens when ordinary people do extraordinary things?

Award-winning author Lois Leveen earned degrees in history and literature from Harvard, the University of Southern California, and UCLA, and taught at UCLA and at Reed College. She is a regular contributor to Disunion, the New York Times coverage of the sesquicentennial of the Civil War.

Co-sponsored by the A.C. McClurg Bookstore, a branch of the Seminary Co-op Bookstore, a booksigning with the author will follow the talk.

More information about this event here.