Dr. Paul Lawrie is a historian of Afro-America whose research examines the intersections
of race, labor, disability, urbanism, and time in modern America. He is the author of Forging
a Laboring Race: The African American Worker in the Progressive Imagination (NYU Press,
2016), which details how evolutionary science and industrial management crafted taxonomies of
racial labor fitness in early 20th century America. His article, “Mortality as the Life Story of a
People: Frederick L. Hoffman and Actuarial Narratives of African American Extinction,” won
the 2014 Ernest Redekop prize for Best Article in the Canadian Review of American Studies. He
was also a contributor (“Race, Work and Disability in Progressive Era America”) to the Oxford
Disability Handbook (Oxford University Press, 2018), winner of the 2021 George Rosen Book
prize from the American Association for the History of Medicine. His current SSHRC funded
project, The Color of Hours: Race, Time and the Making of Urban America traces how time -as
both lived experience and a category of analysis- mediated racial difference and identity in the
American city from the time-work management of the factory floor to the vagrancy statues of the
streets.

Research Interests

• SSHRC Insight Grant - 2019-2022

Current Research Projects

Current Courses

Upcoming Courses

Dr. Paul Lawrie is a historian of Afro-America whose research examines the intersections
of race, labor, disability, urbanism, and time in modern America. He is the author of Forging
a Laboring Race: The African American Worker in the Progressive Imagination (NYU Press,
2016), which details how evolutionary science and industrial management crafted taxonomies of
racial labor fitness in early 20th century America. His article, “Mortality as the Life Story of a
People: Frederick L. Hoffman and Actuarial Narratives of African American Extinction,” won
the 2014 Ernest Redekop prize for Best Article in the Canadian Review of American Studies. He
was also a contributor (“Race, Work and Disability in Progressive Era America”) to the Oxford
Disability Handbook (Oxford University Press, 2018), winner of the 2021 George Rosen Book
prize from the American Association for the History of Medicine. His current SSHRC funded
project, The Color of Hours: Race, Time and the Making of Urban America traces how time -as
both lived experience and a category of analysis- mediated racial difference and identity in the
American city from the time-work management of the factory floor to the vagrancy statues of the
streets.

Degrees

Research Interests

Awards

• SSHRC Insight Grant - 2019-2022

Current Courses

Upcoming Courses