The Emancipation Proclamation: A Brief History with Documents

Exploring the complexity of the process by which African-Americans gained freedom, Emancipation Proclamation hones in on the struggle over its meaning through more than 40 documents and images, which give voice to the range of individuals who participated in this vital drama.

Michael Vorenberg (Ph.D., Harvard University) is associate professor of history at Brown University where he teaches courses on antebellum America, the Civil War and reconstruction, race and law, and American legal and constitution history. Vorenberg s research interests lie at the intersection of three fields in American history: the Civil War era, legal and constitution history, and race and emancipation. He is author of Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment (2001), a finalist for the Lincoln Prize in 2002, as well as numerous essays and articles on topics ranging from Lincoln s plans for the colonization of African Americans to the meaning of rights and privileges under the Fourteenth Amendment. "