She received her BA from the University of Pennsylvania and her MA and Ph.D. from Columbia University. Her first book is A Fragile Freedom: African American Women and Emancipation in the Antebellum City (Yale University Press, 2008). She has recently participated in several documentaries, including "Philadelphia: The Great Experiment" and an upcoming episode of "American Experience" on PBS. In 2011, Professor Armstrong Dunbar was appointed the first director of the Program in African American History at the Library Company of Philadelphia. She has been the recipient of Ford, Mellon, and SSRC fellowships and most recently has been named an Organization of American Historians Distinguished Lecturer. Professor Dunbar's newest book project is entitled "Never Caught: The Life of Oney Judge Staines."