James Grossman is Vice President for Research and Education at the Newberry Library, and senior lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Chicago. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and has taught at the University of California, San Diego. He is the author of Land of Hope: Chicago, Black Southerners, and the Great Migration (U. of Chicago Pr., 1989) and A Chance to Make Good: African-Americans, 1900-1929 (Oxford U. Pr., 1997). He was project director and coeditor of The Encyclopedia of Chicago (with Janice L. Reiff and Ann Durkin Keating; University of Chicago Press, 2004), and coeditor (with Janice L. Reiff and Ann Durkin Keating) of The Encyclopedia of Chicago Online (www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/). He also is the editor of The Frontier in American Culture (U of Calif. Pr., 1994) and coeditor of the series "Historical Studies of Urban America" (U. of Chicago Press, 22 vols. 1992- ). His articles and short essays have focused on various aspects of American urban history, African American history, American ethnicity, and higher education. His book reviews have appeared in the Chicago Tribune and New York Newsday in addition to various academic journals. A frequent participant in the Chicago Humanities Festival, he has also spoken at the Printers Row Book Fair, and a wide variety of universities and cultural institutions locally and nationwide.
Land of Hope received awards from the Gustavus Myers Center for Human Rights and the Illinois State Historical Society. A Chance to Make Good won awards from the New York Public Library and the National Council for the Social Studies. The Encyclopedia of Chicago has won awards from the Scholarly Publishers Division of the Association of American Publishers and the Illinois State Historical Society. Chicago Magazine chose Grossman as one of seven "Chicagoans of the Year" in 2005.
Grossman is responsible for the Newberry's research centers, fellowship programs, educational initiatives, and public programs. His consulting experience includes a broad variety of history-related projects (mostly films and exhibits) generated by the BBC, Smithsonian, Goodman Theater, The Field Museum, New-York Historical Society, Chicago History Museum, Chicago Public Library, American Social History Project, Blackside, and a variety of independent film producers.
Professional service has included elected offices in the American Historical Association and Organization of American Historians, ethics committees for the AHA and the OAH, and Advisory Boards for the AHA, Center for New Deal Studies at Roosevelt University, Illinois Historical Society, City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, and Chicago Public Library. He also has served as Chair of the Board of the Chicago Metro History Education Center and President of the Hyde Park Soccer Club, and serves on the Board of Trustees of the National History Center and Board of Directors of the Black Metropolis Research Consortium. He co-chaired the Program Committee for the Annual Meeting of the Organization of American Historians in 2005.