Melissa Hope Ditmore’s most recent book is Unbroken Chains: The Hidden Role of Human Trafficking in the American Economy (Beacon Press, 2023). She edited the Encyclopedia of Prostitution and Sex Work (Greenwood Press, 2006), and co-authored over a dozen academic papers about health and human rights based on her work in Africa, Asia, and the United States. Her popular writing has appeared in The Nation, The Daily Beast, The Guardian, Huffington Post and other publications.
While at MacDowell, Ditmore wrote sections of her manuscript Incorrigible Girls, focusing on the reform organization the Committee of Fourteen, their 1911-1912 correspondence with W.E.B. DuBois, and their unraveling in the aftermath of a judicial scandal during the Great Depression. She also wrote recollections of her family. Ditmore also collaborated with Fellow Lydia Marie Hicks on a film scene and presented to students at Mountain Shadows as part of MacDowell in the Schools while in residence.
Portrait by Benjamin Green
