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About Scott
Scott Gac is Professor of History at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, and the author of works examining violence, race, and the contested meanings of freedom in American life. His research and teaching ask how people have challenged the boundaries of political belonging and how those struggles continue to shape the present.
His scholarship connects histories of slavery and Indigenous dispossession with reform movements, cultural expression, and state power. His current project on Black Hartford recovers the institutions, communities, and intellectual life that Black residents built during the era of gradual emancipation. Across these subjects, he considers how historical inquiry can deepen our understanding of the responsibilities we carry in the present.
Teaching and mentorship are central to that work. His courses range from American violence and the history of whiteness to historical methods and Trinity’s relationship to slavery. He guides students from close reading of primary sources to original research, helping them develop questions, evaluate evidence, and build historical arguments. In fall 2026, he leads the American Studies Seminar at the American Antiquarian Society, bringing undergraduates from colleges across Worcester into sustained work with the Society’s collections.
As co-founder and co-director of the Primus Project, Scott brings students, scholars, and community partners together to investigate slavery and its legacies in Hartford and at Trinity. This work joins archival research with public history, including partnerships with the Stowe Center for Literary Activism and the Primus Project podcast.
From 2013 to 2023, Scott directed Trinity’s undergraduate and graduate programs in American Studies. His leadership encompassed curriculum development, faculty searches, graduate education, and public programming. He holds degrees from Columbia University, The Juilliard School, where he studied double bass, and The Graduate Center at CUNY.
A first-generation scholar and former Pell Grant recipient, Scott comes from an immigrant family with a long history of military service. Outside the classroom and archives, he is a longtime endurance athlete who has competed at national and world triathlon championships. Originally from Long Island, he lives in Glastonbury, Connecticut, with his family.