Manisha Sinha Honored for Outstanding Mentorship and Contributions to African American History Research

Manisha Sinha, the James L. and Shirley A. Draper Chair in American History at the University of Connecticut, has received the 2024 John W. Blassingame Award from the Southern Historical Association.

Dr. Sinha was honored for her outstanding contributions to the field of African American history and her mentorship of African American students. Her research specializes in nineteenth-century American history, specifically the transnational histories of slavery, abolition, and feminism; the history of the Civil War and Reconstruction; political history; African American history; women’s history; and Southern history. She has authored several books, including The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic: Reconstruction, 1860-1920 (Liveright, 2024) and The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition (Yale University Press, 2016).

In addition to her role with the University of Connecticut, Dr. Sinha serves as president of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, co-editor of the Race in Atlantic Series of the University of Georgia Press, and editorial board member for the journal, Slavery and Abolition. Earlier in her career, she taught at the University of Massachusetts Amherst for over two decades.

A native of India, Dr. Sinha earned her Ph.D. from Columbia University in New York.