Hall, Gwendolyn Midlo, 1929-2022

Dates

• Existence: 1929-

Biographical Statement

Dr. Gwendolyn Midlo Hall was a historian whose work has largely focused on the historical connections between Louisiana, the Caribbean, and Latin America. She taught at the University of New Orleans and Rutgers University, and been recognized by numerous professional awards. She was a prolific writer of articles and books, most of whose subjects deal with African-American and Afro-Creole Culture.

Gwendolyn Midlo Hall was born in 1929. She earned both her Bachelor's degree in History (1962) and her Master's degree in Latin American History (1963) at the University of the Americas in Pueblo, Mexico. In 1970, she earned her Ph. D. in Latin American History from the University of Michigan.

Dr. Hall authored the published books Social Control in Slave Plantation Societies: A Comparison of St. Domingue and Cuba (1971), Africans in Colonial Louisiana: The Development of Afro-Creole Culture in the Eighteenth Century (1992, which won various prizes from American Studies, Southern History, and other Minority History associations), Slavery & African Ethnicities in the Americas: Restoring the Links (2005), as well as edited the book Love, War, and the 96th Engineers (Colored): The World War II New Guinea Diaries of Captain Hyman Samuelson (1995). She composed a musical entitled "Black Swamp," which was produced in the winter of 2001 in New Orleans. She appeared in various public broadcasts across the country, and published the "Database for the Study of Afro-Louisiana History and Genealogy" on CD-ROM. Her "Afro-Louisiana History and Genealogy 1719-1820" is now an online database.

Dr. Hall received numerous awards, including the John Hope Franklin Prize from the American Studies Association (1993), the Myers Center Award for the Study of Human Rights (1993), and the Distinguished Public Service Award from the Organization of American Historians (2004). Her awards have ranged from local, including her receiving the George W. Lucas Service Award from the New Orleans Chapter of the NAACP in 1997 to international, with her 1997 appointment as Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters by the Ministry of Culture of France. Other honors bestowed upon Dr. Hall have included: Humanist of the Year Award from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities (1994) and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship (1996). In 1997, she was elected leader of the African Heritage Studies Society, and she was included in Jennifer Scanlon's book, American Women Historians from 1700 to the Present, and 2,000 Outstanding Scholars of the 20th Century (2001).

Dr. Hall was a Professor Emerita of History, Rutgers University, where she taught Latin American and Caribbean History, as well as a former consulting Research Professor at University of New Orleans.

Dr. Hall died August 29, 2022.

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