May 8, 2017 2 min read

WAYNESBURG – A history professor at Waynesburg University will be in Philadelphia next week to be interviewed by an Emmy-winning crew for an upcoming documentary film.

Karen Fisher Younger, chairwoman of the department of humanities, will appear in “The Daring Women of Philadelphia,” produced by the Emmy-winning studio History Making Productions.

“I’m excited about it,” Fisher Younger said. “It really validates me as a historian.”

Fisher Younger said she was asked to be the first interview in the documentary after the writers read her scholarly article published in Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography in July 2010. Her article was about women’s roles in the American colonization movement in Philadelphia in the 1830s and ’40s.

Fisher Younger, who researched the movement for her doctoral dissertation, said colonization was led by elite conservative women. It predated abolitionism, and they believed that slaves should be freed and resettled in Liberia, Africa.

“These conservative women believed that women should not be engaged in the political sphere, but that they should also do good in some ways and in connection to religion,” she said. “They truly believed that they were going to right the wrong of slavery by sending Christianized black people to Liberia.”

Fisher Younger called the movement complicated and said that it was a gradual emancipation plan. She said this colonization movement was popular in New York City and Philadelphia, but the documentary will focus on women in Philadelphia who participated in anti-slavery movements beginning in the 19th century.

One of the women Fisher Younger will be interviewed about is Beulah Samson, a leader of the movement.

“You get to know these characters – these people who have been forgotten,” Fisher Younger said. “I can’t wait to share her story.”

Fisher Younger said she’s not sure if the movie will air on television or where it will be available for purchase, since it’s still in the early stages of production. Her interview will be held May 15 in a historic home in Philadelphia.

“Often I feel like people are unaware of what I do,” she said. “Usually, historians’ work gets published in places that the public doesn’t really read and only other historians read. But with this movie, my obscure research is going to be made more visible.”