Robert S. Shelton joined the faculty in the fall 2001 after earning his Ph.D. from
Rice University in Houston, Texas. He teaches courses in 19th-century American history,
including Slavery, Abolition, & Politics, 1820-1860, the Civil War and
Reconstruction, and Comparative Emancipation. 

Shelton has published articles on race, slavery, and labor in respected academic journals
such as Journal of Social History and Slavery & Abolition. His article "Built By
the Irishman, Negro and the Mule:' Labor Militancy Across the Color Line in Post
Reconstruction Texas," won the C.K. Chamberlain Award for the best article to appear
in the East Texas Historical Journal in 2008. His current work examines ethnicity and
race in antebellum America.

Articles

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On Empire's Shore: Free and Unfree Workers in Galveston, Texas, 1840-1860, Journal of Social History (2007)

In Galveston, Texas-the small but thriving seaport that served as the state's commercial emporium-poor whites...