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William G. Thomas III

William G. Thomas III Profile Photo

William “Will” Thomas is the Angle Chair in the Humanities and Professor of History at the University of Nebraska. He was co-founder and director of the Virginia Center for Digital History at the University of Virginia. A Guggenheim Fellow and a Lincoln Prize Finalist, Will has collaborated across disciplines to create imaginative forms of history.

He is the author of A Question of Freedom: The Families Who Challenged Slavery from the Nation’s Founding to the Civil War (November 2020, Yale University Press). With partners Michael Burton and Kwakiutl Dreher, Will is a co-founder of Salt Marsh Productions, LLC, and Animating History.

Sept. 27, 2021

Freedom Suits in Maryland & DC, 1790-1864

Slavery was legal in Maryland until November 1, 1864, when a new state constitution prohibited the practice of slavery. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation the year before had declared slaves in the Confederate states to be …