Deborah E. McDowell was born and raised in Bessemer, Alabama. She wrote about her childhood in her memoir
McDowell founded the African-American Women Writers Series at Beacon Press, and was its editor from 1985 to 1993, overseeing the re-publication of 14 novels from the late-19th and early-20th centuries. She spent eight years as an assistant professor and associate professor in the English department of Colby College and was briefly a visiting professor in English at Duke University before accepting an associate professorship in the Department of English at the University of Virginia in 1987. She became a full professor in 1991. In 2008 she was named director of the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies and was the longest serving director of the Institute when she left the position in 2021. During her time as director, the African American and African Studies program became a department and expanded its curriculum and faculty roster; she established a Study-Abroad program in Ghana and a certificate in Africana Studies; and she secured the endowment of the fellowship program.
McDowell is currently director of the Julian Bond Papers Project, which began in 2013 as "The Movement in the Archive." With funding from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), the project is making available to students, scholars and the public nearly 50,000 documents Bond bequeathed to the University of Virginia. The project work completed to date is freely available at https://bondpapersproject.org/.
McDowell's publications include
McDowell has been the recipient of various grants, including the Mary Ingraham Bunting Fellowship (Radcliffe), the National Research Council Fellowship of the Ford Foundation, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center Fellowship. She was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters by Purdue University in 2006.
This collection consists of the personal and professional papers of Deborah E. McDowell, scholar of African American/American literature, and the Alice Griffin Professor Emerita of Literary Studies at the University of Virginia. She is internationally recognized as one of the major scholars in the field of African-American literature as well as a leading figure in the development of black feminist critical theory in the early 1990s.The collection includes scrapbooks, photographs, correspondence, writing drafts, and lecture notes. Materials date from 1968 – 2024 and are arranged into 7 series.
Series 1, PERSONAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL, 1968 – 2011, includes photographs of professional events, a scrapbook from McDowell's high school years, and rolodex contact cards. This series is arranged alphabetically by record type then by topic.
Series 2, CORRESPONDENCE, 1976 – 2024, includes personal and professional correspondence. Correspondents include Toni Cade Bambara, Karen Gaston, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Opal J. Moore, Toni Morrison, Andrea Rushing, Hortense J. Spillers, and Cheryl A. Wall. This series is arranged by general topic, then chronologically, then alphabetically by correspondents' last name.
Series 3, ADMINISTRATIVE FILES, 1983 – 2018, includes correspondence, event planning materials, and grant applications. Events include "Choreographing Abraham Lincoln: A Conversation between Deborah McDowell and Bill T. Jones," "Does Reparations Have a Future? Rethinking Racial Justice in a 'Color Blind' era," and the "Julian Bond Memorial Symposium." Materials are primarily related to McDowell's work at the Carter G. Woodson Institute at the University of Virginia. This series is arranged alphabetically by institution then by record type.
Series 4, CONFERENCE MATERIALS, 1997 - 2023, primarily contains programs from conferences McDowell attended or participated in. Conference titles include "African American and African Studies at Work in the World: A Multi-Disciplinary Symposium," "Celebrating the Life, Legacy, and Leadership of Julian Bond, a Human Rights Icon," "Imagining the Raced Space of Freedom: A Symposium in Honor of Thadious M. Davis," and "The Problem of Punishment: Race, Inequality, and Justice: A Multidisciplinary Symposium." This series is arranged alphabetically by conference title.
Series 5, TEACHING MATERIALS, 1978 – 2023, is arranged into 2 sub-series.
Series 5, sub-series 1, TEACHING MATERIALS BY CLASS TITLE, 1979 – 2016, includes syllabi, typed and handwritten lecture notes, and annotated readings for various classes taught by McDowell. Class titles include "Framing the Civil Rights Movement," "The Harlem Renaissance," and "Introduction to African American Writing." This sub-series is arranged alphabetically by class title then by record type.
Series 5, sub-series 2, TEACHING MATERIALS BY SUBJECT, 1978 – 2023, includes typed and handwritten lecture notes and annotated readings for subjects McDowell taught in various classes. Subjects include "Briton Hammon," "Claude McKay," the Harlem Renaissance, "Jean Toomer," "Malcolm X," "Phillis Wheatley," and "Toni Morrison." Note that all folder titles in quotations were created by McDowell, all other folder titles were created by the processor. This sub-series is arranged alphabetically by topic.
Series 6, WRITINGS AND RELATED, 1982 – 2022, includes typed and handwritten drafts of articles, books, edited books, and talks, as well as related correspondence. Titles include "Must Have Been Love: Sexualities' Attachments in Faulkner," "Turning Southward: Sons Journeying Home,"
Series 7, PRINT MATERIALS, 1978 – 2023, includes books, flyers for talks by McDowell, and event programs. Of particular note is a program from Toni Morrison's 70th birthday party in which Morrison, Ann duCille, and Hortense J. Spillers, (among others) wrote notes to McDowell. This series also contains two uncorrected proofs of Toni Morrison's books,
All researchers seeking to publish materials from the collections of the John Hay Library are requested to complete a Notice of Intent to Publish, available on the John Hay Library website or by request, prior to reproducing, quoting, or otherwise publishing any portion or extract from this collection. Although Brown University has physical ownership of the collection and the materials contained therein, it does not claim literary rights. It is up to the researcher to determine the owners of the literary rights and to obtain any necessary permissions from them.
Deborah E. McDowell papers, MS-2025-012, Box [#], Folder [#], Pembroke Center Archives, John Hay Library, Brown University.
This collection is arranged into 7 series.
There are no restrictions on access, except that the collection can only be seen by prior appointment. Some materials may be stored off-site and cannot be produced on the same day on which they are requested. Advance notice is required to view any audiovisual media or born-digital records that may exist in this collection. Audiovisual media and born-digital records in this collection may not have been reformatted yet. Researchers may request access to copies by contacting the John Hay Library with the collection name, collection number, and a description of the item(s) requested. Access to original physical audiovisual or born-digital media is restricted.
Gift of Deborah E. McDowell beginning in 2024.