Michael Nicholls

Biography

Michael Nicholls joined the History Department in the fall of 1970 and retired in 2007. He taught History 170 and later the first half of the American history survey. His upper-division courses primarily focused on American history before 1800, American slavery, and History 499, which he helped develop. For several years he taught the graduate research seminar and served as the department’s director of graduate studies. In 2012 the University of Virginia Press published Whispers of Rebellion: Narrating Gabriel’s Conspiracy which won the Library of Virginia’s 2013 People’s Choice Award for non-fiction. Since retirement he has also published articles in the Journal of Southern History, Slavery and Abolition, and the Virginia Magazine of History. In the fall of 2017 Colonial Williamsburg opened a barbershop in the restored area depicting Caesar Hope, “The famous barber of York,” based on his research.