Spencer Crew


Spencer Crew is an American professor, museum director, curator and writer.

Education

Crew received a PhD degree from Rutgers University in 1979. In 2003 he was named to the Rutgers Hall of Distinguished Alumni.

Career

Crew's career in museums began in 1981 when he was hired to work as a historian at the National Museum of American History. In 1986 he curated his first exhibition at the museum, Field to Factory: African-American Migration, 1915–1940. In He became the first African-American director of the NMAH in 1994.
In 2001 he became the director of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.
In 2019, Crew was appointed as the interim director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Crew is the Robinson Professor of U.S. history at George Mason University.