Marcus Anthony Allen, 2020–21
Is Poverty Always Poverty?: Understanding Black Capitalism in 19th Century Baltimore
Mellon-HBCU Fellowship, 2020-21
Lecturer of African American History, Department of History and Political Science, North Carolina A&T State University Return to All Fellows
Marcus Anthony Allen is a lecturer of African American history at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, North Carolina. His research and teaching interests include African American history, American business history and the history of American capitalism. Allen is interested in understanding linkages between social relationships and capitalism. His dissertation, “Cautiously Capitalistic: Black Economic Agency at the Savings Banks of Baltimore, 1850-1900,” examined savings accounts of black Baltimoreans in an attempt to answer questions related to the ability of cash, property, and savings to protect blacks from the social strictures found in antebellum and postbellum Baltimore. He is currently working on an article that explores these themes.
Selected Publications
- Allen, Marcus Anthony. “Understanding Poverty and Money in Nineteenth-Century Black Baltimore.” In Progress.
- Allen, Marcus Anthony. “Bankers—Period after the Civil War to 1900.” In A Day in the Life of an American Worker: 200 Trades and Occupations in U.S. History, volume 1, 1607-1914, edited by Nancy Quam-Wickham and Ben Tyler Elliott, 253-55. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2020.
- Allen, Marcus Anthony. “The History of Black Business in Baltimore.” In The State of Black Baltimore. Baltimore: National Urban League, 2019. Forthcoming.
- Allen, Marcus Anthony. “Cautiously Capitalistic: Black Economic Agency at the Savings Bank of Baltimore, 1850-1900.” PhD diss., Morgan State University, 2013.