Theodore Rosengarten

Historian Class of 1989
location icon Location
Durham, North Carolina
age iconAge
45 at time of award
area of focus iconArea of Focus

About Theodore's Work

Theodore Rosengarten is an independent historian whose work focuses on the lives of slaves and freedmen in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

His work involves fieldwork and archaeological reconstruction of the slave entry and holding sites on islands off the coast of South Carolina.  Rosengarten is the author of two books, All God’s Dangers: The Life of Nate Shaw (1974) and Tombee (1986).  All God’s Dangers chronicles the remembrances and philosophy of an Alabama sharecropper and has been adapted into a dramatic monologue, which has toured the country.  Tombee, his follow-up book, tells the story of the life of an unsuccessful South Carolina plantation owner.  His historical portraits demonstrate sensitivity to the nuances of language and character.  He is also the co-author of Art and Landscape in Charleston and the Low Country (1998) and A Portion of the People: Three Hundred Years of Southern Jewish Life (2002).

Biography

Rosengarten teaches in the Jewish Studies Program and the Department of History at the College of Charleston.  He has served as a senior research associate in documentary studies at Duke University and has taught previously at Harvard University and the University of South Carolina. 

Rosengarten received an A.B. (1966) from Amherst College and a Ph.D. (1975) from Harvard University.

Last updated January 1, 2005.

Published on August 1, 1989

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