{{Short description|American historian (born 1947)}} {{Infobox academic | name = Barbara J. Fields | image = Barbara J. Fields 2013 (cropped).png | caption = Fields in 2013 | birth_name = Barbara Jeanne Fields | birth_date = {{birth year and age|1947}} | alma_mater = Harvard University (BA)<br>Yale University (PhD) | workplaces = Columbia University<br>Northwestern University<br>University of Michigan<br>University of Mississippi | awards = John H. Dunning Prize (1986)<br>Lincoln Prize (1994) }}
'''Barbara Jeanne Fields''' (born 1947) is an American historian. She is a professor of history at Columbia University. Her focus is on history of the Southern United States and 19th century social history.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |date=31 August 2016 |title=Fields, Barbara |url=https://history.columbia.edu/faculty/fields-barbara/}}</ref>
==Life and education== Barbara Fields was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1947,<ref>{{Cite web |date=1992-07-01 |title=Barbara J. Fields |url=https://www.macfound.org/fellows/class-of-1992/barbara-j-fields |access-date=2025-09-26 |website=MacArthur Foundation |language=en}}</ref> and was raised in Washington, D.C., where she attended Morgan Elementary School, Banneker Junior High School, and Western High School.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Barbara J. Fields |url=http://library.buffalo.edu/exhibits/ForeverFree/bio_fields.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110411054403/http://library.buffalo.edu/exhibits/ForeverFree/bio_fields.htm |archive-date=2011-04-11 |access-date=2010-04-14 |website=University Libraries - University at Buffalo}}</ref> She received her B.A. from Harvard University in 1968, and her Ph.D. from Yale University in 1978.<ref name=":2" /> At Yale, she was a doctoral student of historian C. Vann Woodward.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Fields |first=Barbara |date=2011-03-08 |title=Racecraft and Southern History |url=https://egrove.olemiss.edu/gilder-jordan/13 |journal=Gilder-Jordan Lecture in Southern Cultural History}}</ref>
== Career == Fields was the first African-American woman to earn academic tenure at Columbia University. She has also taught at Northwestern University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Mississippi.
She is widely known for her 1990 essay, "Slavery, Race and Ideology in the United States of America".<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Fields|first=Barbara Jeanne|date=1990|title=Slavery, race and ideology in the United States of America|url=https://newleftreview.org/issues/I181/articles/barbara-jeanne-fields-slavery-race-and-ideology-in-the-united-states-of-america|journal=New Left Review|volume=181|pages=95–118}}</ref>
She co-authored the 2012 book ''Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life'' with her sister Karen Fields, a sociologist.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Denvir |first=Daniel |date=17 Jan 2018 |title=Barbara and Karen Fields discuss their new book, "Racecraft" |url=https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/168044 |access-date=2020-10-06 |website=History News Network}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Magubane |first=Zine |date=2022 |title=Exposing the Conjuror's Tricks: Barbara Fields's Sociological Imagination |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/23326492221136165 |journal=Sociology of Race and Ethnicity |volume=9 |pages=128–132 |language=en |doi=10.1177/23326492221136165 |s2cid=253342715 |issn=2332-6492|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Heideman |first=Paul |date=2022 |title=Racecraft as a Challenge to the Sociology of Race |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/23326492221136164 |journal=Sociology of Race and Ethnicity |volume=9 |pages=119–123 |language=en |doi=10.1177/23326492221136164 |s2cid=253326167 |issn=2332-6492|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Torres |first=Mo |date=2022 |title=Against Race, Toward the Abolition of Racism |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/23326492221136168 |journal=Sociology of Race and Ethnicity |language=en |volume=9 |pages=124–127 |doi=10.1177/23326492221136168 |issn=2332-6492 |s2cid=253329204 |url-access=subscription}}</ref> The book argues that race is a product of racism, that racism is an ideology and a way of misunderstanding social reality, and that racecraft in American society serves to obfuscate the actual dynamics of inequality.<ref name=":1" />
Fields appears in Ken Burns' documentary series ''The Civil War'' and ''The Congress''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Barbara Fields |url=http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2719095/ |access-date=2020-10-06 |website=IMDb}}</ref><ref name=":0" />
Fields was critical of ''The New York Times''{{'}} 1619 Project for ignoring indentured servitude in Virginia in 1607 and failing to understand the economics behind slavery.<ref>{{cite web |last=Levin |first=Kevin M. |date=2 May 2023 |title=Barbara Fields on the 1619 Project |url=https://kevinmlevin.substack.com/p/barbara-fields-on-the-1619-project |website=Civil War Memory}}</ref>
Bard College awarded Fields an honorary doctorate in May 2007. Thavolia Glymph named Fields as one of the nation's greatest historians.<ref>{{cite web |last=Glymph |first=Thavolia |date=2024-01-16 |title=Deeply Rooted |url=https://www.historians.org/perspectives-article/deeply-rooted-meet-thavolia-glymph-the-2024-aha-president-january-2024/ |website=American Historical Association}}</ref>
==Awards== * 1992 MacArthur Fellowship<ref name=":0" /> * 1986 John H. Dunning Prize for ''Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground''<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |title=Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground |url=https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300040326/slavery-and-freedom-on-the-middle-ground/ |access-date=2025-09-26 |website=Yale University Press |language=en-US}}</ref> * Confederate Memorial Literary Society Founders Prize for ''The Destruction of Slavery''<ref>{{Cite web |last=Illingworth |first=James |title=The Destruction of Slavery |url=https://freedmen.umd.edu/dospg.htm |access-date=2025-09-26 |website=Freedmen and Southern Society Project}}</ref> * Society for History in the Federal Government's Thomas Jefferson Prize for ''The Destruction of Slavery<ref name=":3" />'' * 1994 Lincoln Prize for ''Free At Last'' (as co-editor)<ref>{{Cite web |title=Previous winners of the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize |url=https://www.gettysburg.edu/lincoln-prize/previous-winners/ |access-date=2025-09-26 |website=Gettysburg College}}</ref> * Philolexian Society award for Distinguished Literary Achievement<ref>{{Cite web |last=West |first=Rebecca L. |date=2025-01-03 |title=Awards, Prizes, and Honors Conferred at the 138th Annual Meeting |url=https://www.historians.org/perspectives-article/awards-prizes-and-honors-conferred-at-the-138th-annual-meeting/ |access-date=2025-09-26 |website=American Historical Association |language=en-US}}</ref> in 2017{{Citation needed|date=September 2025}}
==Works== *[https://newleftreview.org/issues/I181/articles/barbara-jeanne-fields-slavery-race-and-ideology-in-the-united-states-of-america "Slavery, Race and Ideology in the United States of America"], ''New Left Review'', No. 181, May/June 1990 *[https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-labor-and-working-class-history/article/whiteness-racism-and-identity/A8F3312D36B18881DD8B91635B3800CA "Whiteness, Racism and Identity"], ''International Labor & Working-Class History'', No. 60, Fall 2001 * "[https://www.jstor.org/stable/3070245 Origins of the New South and the Negro Question]", ''Journal of Southern History'', Vol. 67 No. 4, November 2001 *[https://historycooperative.org/journal/of-rogues-and-geldings/ "Of Rogues and Geldings"], ''American Historical Review'', Vol. 180 No. 5, December 2003 * ''Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground: Maryland during the Nineteenth Century'' (Yale University Press, 1985), {{ISBN|0-300-04032-6}} * ''The Destruction of Slavery: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861–1867'' (Cambridge University Press, 1985), eds. Ira Berlin, Barbara J. Fields, Thavolia Glymph, Joseph P. Reidy, Leslie S. Rowland, {{ISBN|978-0-521-13214-5}} * ''Slaves No More: Three Essays on the Emancipation and the Civil War'' (Cambridge University Press, 1992) {{ISBN|978-0-521-43102-6}} * ''Free At Last: A Documentary History of Slavery, Emancipation, and the Civil War'' (The New Press, 1992) {{ISBN|978-1-56584-015-7}} * ''Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life'' (Verso, 2012), with Karen Fields, {{ISBN|978-1844679942}}
==References== {{reflist}}
== External links == *[https://web.archive.org/web/20031005153705/http://www.pbs.org/race/000_About/002_04-background-02-02.htm "Presentation given by historian Barbara J. Fields at a "School"], ''RACE'', March 2001 *[https://www.c-span.org/video/?299061-1/cared-states-rights 2011 C-SPAN talk by Barbara Fields]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Fields, Barbara Jeanne}} Category:Columbia University faculty Category:African-American historians Category:Harvard University alumni Category:Historians of the United States Category:Living people Category:Northwestern University faculty Category:University of Michigan faculty Category:University of Mississippi faculty Category:Lincoln Prize winners Category:Yale University alumni Category:MacArthur Fellows Category:Writers from Charleston, South Carolina Category:Writers from Washington, D.C. Category:American women historians Category:20th-century American historians Category:20th-century American women writers Category:1947 births Category:21st-century African-American academics Category:21st-century American academics Category:20th-century African-American academics