Cory Young

Cory James Young is a postdoctoral associate in the History Department and project manager for Dr. Katrina Jagodinsky's NSF-funded grant, "Petitioning for Freedom: Habeas Corpus in the American West." He received his BA in History from the State University of New York, College at Geneseo, and completed his MA and PhD in History at Georgetown University. His work has appeared in The Activist History Review, the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, and the Magazine of Early American Datasets.

Cory's book manuscript, For Life or Otherwise: Pennsylvania Slavery in the Age of Gradual Abolition, contends that the first US state to enact an abolition program implemented a slavery regime as well as an emancipation scheme. It examines how enslavers refashioned bondage in the early republic, describes the material consequences of their actions, and discusses how Black communities responded to these ongoing and novel forms of oppression. A companion digital history project, A Just and True Return, will transcribe, preserve, and contextualize Pennsylvania's surviving county slave registries.