James Grossman

Author of Land of Hope: Chicago, Black Southerners, and the Great Migration and A Chance to Make Good: African-Americans, 1900-1929, Grossman was project director and coeditor of the Encyclopedia of Chicago. He is editor emeritus of the University of Chicago Press book series “Historical Studies of Urban America” (50 volumes). Articles and short essays have focused on urban history, African American history, ethnicity, higher education, and the place of history in public culture. Short pieces have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Time, New York Daily News, North Shore Magazine, Chronicle of Higher Education, The Hill, Inside Higher Ed, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Columbus Dispatch, and elsewhere.

Grossman is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Society of American Historians, and the American Antiquarian Society.

Consulting experience includes projects generated by BBC, Smithsonian, Library of Congress, and various theater companies, filmmakers, museums, libraries, and foundations. He has served on governing boards of the American Council of Learned Societies, Association of American Colleges and Universities, Center for Research Libraries, National Humanities Alliance, Vivian G. Harsh Society, and Chicago Metro History Education Center.