Michelle R. Scott

Dr. Michelle R. Scott joined the History Department at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) after earning her B.A. at Stanford University and her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees at Cornell University. Professor Scott is also professor at UMBC’s Africana Studies and Gender, Women’s + Sexuality Studies departments, as well as the Language, Literature, and Culture Doctoral Program. Her research interests include Black musical and entertainment culture, Black women’s studies, African American history, 20th-century United States history, and civil rights activism. Professor Scott's book, Blues Empress in Black Chattanooga: Bessie Smith and the Emerging Urban South was published by the University of Illinois Press in 2008 and influenced the screenplay of HBO’s Bessie. Scott has also published work in academic journals as well as Tennessee Women: Their Lives and Times, the Columbia Guide to African American History, 1939-Present, and the 2nd edition of Black Women in America. Dr. Scott’s forthcoming book, T.O.B.A. Time: Black Vaudeville and the Theater Owners Booking Association in Jazz Age America, (University of Illinois Press, 2023) is a study of the origins and economic ramifications of a 1920s national black vaudeville theater circuit that trained Cab Calloway, Count Basie, Bessie Smith, and the Nicholas Brothers, among many others, during the Jazz Age.