Janette Gayle

Janette Gayle is an Associate Professor of History at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, where she has been a faculty member since 2016. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, an M.A. from UCLA, and a B.A. from Antioch University of Southern California.

• Position: Associate Professor of History
• Institution: Hobart and William Smith Colleges
• Department: Department of History
• School: College of Arts and Sciences

Her research and teaching focus on the historical intersections of race, gender, and labor in the United States, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic world during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She is particularly interested in the experiences of African-descended peoples, Black migration, and the formation of political consciousness.

Her scholarly work includes the book project Sewing Change: Black Dressmakers and Garment Workers and the Struggle for Rights in Early Twentieth Century New York City, which explores how Black women contributed to the development of Black middle-class identity, the industrial working class, and civil rights activism. She is also the lead researcher on the Mapping Harlem Digital Project, which uses U.S. census data to visualize Black migrant settlement patterns in Harlem during the first half of the 20th century.

Her publications include entries in the Encyclopedia of Free Blacks and People of Color in the Americas, focusing on Black individuals in the Caribbean. Her recent presentations cover topics such as Black dressmakers in the ILGWU, sartorial politics, and transnational migration. The research trends reflect a strong emphasis on gendered labor, migration, and the cultural politics of Black identity in urban settings.

• Research Themes: Black labor history, transnational migration, gender and citizenship, digital history
• Methodologies: Archival research, digital mapping, transnational analysis

Janette Gayle teaches a range of courses including:

• HIST 111: Labor, Race, & Gender in the Making of America
• HIST 227: African American History I
• HIST 228: African American History II
• HIST 348: Black Women and the Struggle for Rights in America
• HIST 345: Race-ing America – The Great Migration

She is an active member of several professional organizations, including the American Historical Association, Association for the Study of African American Life and History, Labor and Working-Class History Association, and the Association of Caribbean Historians. She is involved in community education through the Community Education for Transformation (CET) initiative.

There is no mention of formal advising of graduate students, grant funding, or scientific awards in the provided text. No lab or research team is explicitly named, though the Mapping Harlem Digital Project implies collaborative digital scholarship.