Entity | Benjamin Arthur Quarles

Benjamin Arthur Quarles (January 23, 1904 – November 16, 1996) was an American historian, administrator, educator, and writer, whose scholarship centered on black American social and political history. Major books by Quarles include The Negro in the Civil War (1953), The Negro in the American Revolution (1961), Lincoln and the Negro (1962), and Black Abolitionists (1969). He demonstrated that blacks were active participants in major conflicts and issues of American history. His books were narrative accounts of critical wartime periods that focused on how blacks interacted with their white allies and emphasized blacks' acting as vital agents of change rather than receiving favors from whites. Quarles was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1904. His parents were Margaret (O'Brien), a homemaker, and Arthur Benedict Quarles, a subway porter. As a boy, Benjamin went to local public schools.