Elsie M. Lewis: Difference between revisions

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Elsie M. Lewis (1912-1992) was a scholar, history professor, and consultant. She was one of the first Black women who was formally trained as a historian and served as the chair of the History Department at Howard University from 1964 to 1969.

Education

Lewis attended Fisk University for her undergraduate education. The next step in her educational career involved the University of Southern California, where she earned her MA in History. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1946, distinguishing her as one of seven African American women to earn a doctorate in history in the 1940s. Her dissertation on From National to Disunion: A Study of the Secession Movement in Arkansas, 1850-1861 marked the beginning of her noteworthy academic career. She conducted rigorous research on African Americans in the South for the Civil War and Reconstruction era.

Professional Life

In 1955, Lewis’ article, “The Political Mind of the Negro, 1865-1900,” was published in The Journal of Southern History (JSH), making her the first African American woman to have an article published for JSH. The essay was also distinguished as the first article written by an African American about African American content. Lewis also had her work published in Carter Woodson’s Journal of Negro History. Lewis began her career as a history professor at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, then at Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial State University, where she was the head of the graduate department of history. In 1956, Lewis began working with the history department at Howard University, and in 1964, she became the chair of the department. Dr. Lewis implemented substantial changes during her five-year term as the chair. She propelled changes in the department that granted graduate students more diverse course options. Lewis contributed to a complete revision that allowed undergraduate students to concentrate on history. In 1970, Lewis took a sabbatical from serving as an associate professor of history at Howard University to write a book. Lewis also taught at George Washington University and Hunter College of the City University of New York.

Professional Membership Associations

Lewis was a member of several different historical associations, including the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, American Association of University Women, and she was one of the first African Americans to be involved with the Southern Historical Association.  

Public Engagement

In 1968, the National Park Service Washington D.C. office extended an invitation to Lewis to review material on African American history for their new American Museum of Immigration exhibit plans. She accepted their offer to provide her historical expertise and became a member of the Historians Committee for the future museum, located at the base of the Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island, New York.  

When Lewis was the chair of Howard University’s history department in 1969, she was hired to be the historical consultant for Pepsi’s third record in their Black history marketing series. Lewis helped produce Adventures in Negro History, Vol. III The Afro-American’s Quest for Education: A Black Odyssey.

College Campus Voting Rights Leader

In the late 1930s when Lewis was a professor at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, she encouraged the freedom dreams of students through hosting campus-wide mock elections for the governor of Louisiana. Students were highly engaged in the event. Lewis did not stop with political action on campus with the mock election. She also created a quarterly campus bulletin, the Observer, with many of the articles focusing on politics and voting rights.

Civil Rights Movement Participation

On March 7, 1965, Lewis participated in the historic march from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama that was led by Martin Luther King Jr. to fight for Black voting rights. She marched with a group of 40-50 other distinguished American historians as the march approached Montgomery. The group was organized by Dr. Walter Johnson, Preston and Sterling Morton professor of American history at the University of Chicago.

Personal Life

Lewis was born in Little Rock, Arkansas on May 12, 1912. Her mother, Mary Frances Moore, was from Rose Dale, Mississippi, and her father, Napoleon Lewis, hailed from Monroe, Louisiana. Elsie Lewis was married to Joseph F. Makel, who was a Washington businessman. Dr. Elsie M. Lewis passed away in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, on November 7, 1992.