Historian, Curator, & Writer
Curator
I have been curating and co-curating public exhibitions for museums, historical societies, and other venues since 1993. Their subject matter has ranged from Dutch colonial settlement to the history of slavery, from the experiences of 19th-century immigrants to the struggles of 21st-century working people. Here you can view highlights from a sampling of twelve of those projects.
Writer
When I write I think visually, seeing in my mind’s eye some semblance of the people and events I’m writing about. So I guess it’s not surprising that I’m also a curator, or that my published work often uses images as integral to the message of the printed page. Here are links permitting you to learn about my books (and to buy them), as well as links to some of my book reviews, essays, and online articles.
Speaker
I speak publicly about my work in a variety of settings, including museums, historical societies, walking tours, radio and television broadcasts, video documentaries, and podcasts. The formats of these presentations range from formal lectures and panels to teacher trainings, tours for school and professional groups, and interviews. Below you can view or listen to some of my talks.
Photographer
Over the past two decades I have embraced photography as an avocation, and as a means for documenting people and things that seem to say something about who we are or where we might be going. To put it another way, the digital camera revolution has freed me to indulge an obsessive-compulsive tendency to take pictures of every possible thing at all possible times. And if you take hundreds of thousands of photos, odds are that a few of them will be worth looking at. Click below to see some examples.
Mr. Jaffe incontrovertibly establishes New York as “the capital city of social activism” by recounting a litany of provocative flash points.
— Sam Roberts, New York Times
