Peter H. Wood papers

Collection

Identifier: AMN 1131

Staff Only

Collection Overview

The collection is divided into two series:

1. Correspondence contains letters between Wood and fellow historian St. Julien R. Childs regarding the chapter review and comments of Woods proposed book.

2. Literary Productions: Essays and Manuscripts includes thesis abstract and full typed written manuscript of "Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion." Also includes Wood's 1964 journal essay regarding disease in colonial New England.

Dates

Creation: 1964-1974
Creation: Majority of material found within 1973-1974

Access Restrictions

No restrictions

Copyright Notice

The nature of the Avery Research Center's archival holdings means that copyright or other information about restrictions may be difficult or even impossible to determine despite reasonable efforts. The Avery Research Center claims only physical ownership of most archival materials.

The materials from our collections are made available for use in research, teaching, and private study, pursuant to U.S. copyright law. The user must assume full responsibility for any use of the materials, including but not limited to, infringement of copyright and publication rights of reproduced materials. Any materials used for academic research or otherwise should be fully credited with the source.

Biographical Note

Peter Hutchins Wood (1943-), the son of Barry and Mary Lee Wood, grew up in St. Louis, Missouri and Baltimore, Maryland. Wood was educated at the Gilman School in Baltimore, receiving his scholarly training at Harvard University (Boston, Masschusetts), and at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar in 1964. He returned to Harvard to obtain his Ph.D. in history.

Wood wrote the original version of "Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion," as his PhD dissertation, which was published in 1974. In demonstrating that Africans contributed their advanced knowledge and skills to the building of America, and not solely by their physical labor, Wood established a new tone in Southern historiography and widen the area of study. Black Majority... has been in print since it's first publication and gave rise to a tradition of scholarship on African roots of rice cultivation in colonial America. The book has influenced the writings of other scholars, including Daniel C. Littlefield's Rice and Slaves, Charles Joyner's Down by the Riverside, Amelia Vernon's African American at Mars Bluff, South Carolina, Julia Floyd Smith's Slavery and Rice Culture in Low Country Georgia, Judith A. Carney's Black Rice, and Edda Fields-Black Deep Roots.

Wood was a Humanities Officer for the Rockefeller Foundation before teaching Colonial American history at Duke University from 1975 to 2008 where was named Professor Emertius of History. Professor Wood was a Guggenheim Fellow, an Andrew Mellon Senior Scholar, and a elected member of the Harvard Board of Overseers. He has received the American Historical Association's Asher Distinguished Teaching Award.

In addition to writing "Black Majority" and "Strange New Land," Wood has also co-authored, "Created Equal," a United States survey text. In 1988, Wood worked with art scholar, Karen Dalton on the book and exhibition, "Winslow Homer's Images of Blacks: The Civil War and Reconstruction Years. Based on his 2009 Huggins Lectures at Harvard University, Woods wrote "Near Andersonville: Winslow Homer's Civil War."

SOURCES: Kolchin, Peter. "The world the historians made: Peter Wood's 'Black Majority' in historiographical context" (http://www.jstor.org/stable/27570404), South Carolina Historical Magazine, Vol. 100, No. 4, Oct 1999, accessed 14 May 2014

Extent

0.5 linear feet (1 archival box)

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Abstract

Peter Hutchins Wood (1943-), is a American historian who authored, "Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion." Wood was a Humanities Officer for the Rockefeller Foundation before teaching Colonial American history at Duke University from 1975 to 2008, where he was named Professor Emertius of History. Wood wrote the original version of "Black Majority" as his PhD dissertation at Harvard University, which was published in 1974.

The collection holds correspondence regarding the book publication; thesis abstract, and full typed written manuscript of "Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion."