by Rachel May
Sharpless, Rebecca. Cooking in Other Women’s Kitchens: Domestic Workers in the South, 1865–1960. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2010.
Smith, Shawn Michelle. American Archives: Gender, Race, and Class in Visual Culture. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999.
Sontag, Susan. On Photography. New York: Picador, 2001.
Sontag, Susan. Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013.
Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher. “Of Pens and Needles: Sources for the Study of Early American Women.” Journal of American History. 77 (1990): 200–207.
Wallace, Maurice O. and Shawn Michelle Smith, eds. Pictures and Progress: Early Photography and the Making of African American Identity. Durham: Duke University Press, 2012.
Washington, Booker T. Up from Slavery. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1995.
Weigman, Robyn. American Anatomies: Theorizing Race and Gender. London: Duke University Press, 1995.
Winn, Patrick. “The slave labor behind your favorite clothing brands: Gap, H&M and more exposed,” 22 March 2015, Salon. https://www.salon.com/2015/03/22/the_slave_labor _behind_your_favorite_clothing_brands_gap_hm_and_more_exposed_partner/.
Chapter 12: Portraits
Notes
p. 374–375 The opening, in which I imagine Juba Simons choosing her outfit for a portrait, and my subsequent imaginings in this chapter about her life post-war, are inspired by the work of Thavolia Glymph, The Transformation of the Plantation Household. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
p. 375, Franklin mentions Moses Browns’ involvement with the family Vol 2, 25; Vol. 4, 108; the story of Ava Harris Vol. 2, 95–99.
p. 376, Franklin’s note, Vol. 2, 199: “For a year, Susan and her daughter Emily now Emily Hasell Crouch has been living in Providence in the household, free to come and go and enjoy her income but holding a tight rein over her father and mother. She lived there till 1902, reaching the age of ninety.” When Emily was born, she was named Emily Harris Crouch, but after her father’s death, Susan changed her middle name to Hasell.
p. 378, Franklin’s note regarding Eliza Williams’ marriage and inheritance, Vol. 2: 9: “Each Abby, Emily, Susan, Sarah received a $1,000 setting out at marriage. Eliza, whose marriage was prevented by the family, received nothing from her father—not even the $1,000 mentioned in his will, for everything had been transferred to Susan and every piece of furniture loaned to Eliza at Cedar Grove was recalled by Susan.” Franklin notes, Vol. 2: 121, that Eliza Williams lived at Cedar Grove with her sister Emily Harris and her family, and continued living with the family after Emily died in 1895; she then moved with the Harris and Cushmans to a “600 acre farm” in Glocester, Rhode Island. Eliza’s life at Cedar Grove is also mentioned in several letters, including: “Abby Elles to Susan,” September 27, 1865, Series F: Franklin Cushman’s notebooks, vol. 2: 123, (Elijah Williams Papers, Rhode Island Historical Society); “Letter from Hilton to Susan,” July 4,1868, ibid, Vol. 4, 66; “Letter from Hilton to Susan,” February 12, 1866, ibid, Vol. 4: 4. “Letter from Fred Elles to Susan,” February 21, 1868, ibid, Vol. 4: 60.
p. 379, Susan kept a notebook of her knitting and sewing jobs and charity work. Jason Williams Papers, MSS 34, C (Eijah Williams Papers, Rhode Island Historical Society).
p. 380, Kay Siebler notes in “Far from the Truth: Teaching the Politics of Sojourner Truth’s ‘Ain’t I a woman?’ “When teaching Truth’s speech, we need to articulate for our students that all its versions are only that: versions. Truth, unable to read or write, could not offer her own rhetoric in the written form. Her words (as we read them today) are never her words but a representation of her words by whoever transcribed them. These secondary rhetors were mindful of audience and purpose, their audience and purpose, which may have been a different audience and purpose from what Truth intended. We also need to help our student analyze why, for contemporary audiences, the Gage version is the one reprinted and performed while the Robinson version is ignored.” For more on Sojourner Truth, see: Melissa Schramm Burnett, “The representation of truth: An interdisciplinary analysis of Sojourner Truth’s Akron, Ohio speech,” The University of Texas at Arlington, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1998.
p. 384, for more on southern cooking, see: Witt, Doris. Black Hunger, Soul food and America. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999; Frederick Douglass Opie, Hog and Hominy: Soul Food from Africa to America, New York: Columbia University Press, 2008; Carrie Helms Tippin, “Defining authentic new southern identity in recipe origin narratives,” Texas Christian University, ProQuest Dissertation Publishing, 2015; Elizabeth S.D. Engelhardt, Mess of Greens: Southern Gender and Southern Food, Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2011.
p. 389, After the war, Winthrop writes, “…We have one of the old servant women that used to belong to the Taylor Estate, who cooks and washes, and an old man of Dr. Trezevant’s who is a capital waiting man and does all we have to do indoors and out so that Cassie is greatly relieved of the trouble of the house though she still has the chambers to look after but she makes the boys make up their own beds and in that way we get along better. . . . Cassie is in desire to leave here on account of the insubordination of the negro and I may be compelled to go from starvation, we are bound to have trouble in the South soon and it will be long years trial to get rid of the negroes. I consider the question settled as to their fate, it can be none other than that of the Indian in extermination and much more rapid than that of the Indian…”
Franklin notes that, “As Dr. Crouch’s executor and administrator, Hilton Williams had never closed the estate and given an account to Susan tho thirty years would end in 1866. He invested the proceeds from time in southern property and sent enough money north to pay for clothing of Susan and the child Emmy and trips to Charleston or N.Y.” Hilton noted that he and Harriet had noticed that Susan lived with few wants. When Susan sent a cloak down for Harriet and her daughter, Hilton encouraged her to also buy one for herself. He said if she needed anything, she could borrow money from her brother-in-law, Mr. Harris, and Hilton would reimburse him. Dec. 30, 1865, Vol. 3, 152–3.
The connections between family members in the north and south continued over many decades and were also evident in an anecdote from Hilton, in which notes that a woman of color came to his door in Charleston, saying that she knew Susan and Emmie (Emily) in Providence and was seeking a way home with her daughter; she explained she was destitute. She told Hilton she and Susan belonged to the same church in Providence. Hilton seems to have ignored her plea, blaming her plight on “our beautiful Radical government.” December 27, 1876, Vol. 5, p. 56. Susan and Emily continued to spend time in Charleston with her relatives. Franklin notes: “From 1836 to the period just before the war, Susan and Emily Crouch lived at the old house unaided with the work, going South when they felt inclined.” In the years after the war, Emily traveled south to visit with her relatives and maintained correspondence with her cousins until her death. Vol. 5, p. 60 Franklin notes that “More than forty (40) years later after World War I Henry Williams still went annually to Flat Rock N.C. He was a widower for many years. His five daughters were brought up by their Grandmother. . . .Both sons are graduates of Yale University. [William’s] wife was E. Middleton Henry and his wife ‘Fan” live in Charleston restoring the Sword Gate House to which portraits, paintings and many articles of ancient days have been sent from this house relics of old George St. The marriage of Alice to a Northerner was not approved by the Charleston people. The girls lived for many years at one of the famous old houses on the Battery. Vol 5, p. 85. Whether the Sword Gate House contained—and still holds—items from the Williams family’s George Street house is not yet known.
Primary Sources
“Abby Elles to Susan,” September 27, 1865, ibid, vol. 2: 123.
Forten, Charlotte. “Life on the Sea Islands,” May 1864, The Atlantic Monthly, https://www .theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1864/05/life-on-the-sea-islands/308758/.
Godey’s Lady’s Book, The Online Books Page, University of Pennsylvania’s Serial Archive Listings. http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/serial?id=godeylady1830–1838, Hathi Trust via Princeton University. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008920204.
Hathi Trust, 1874, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.30000111678110;view=1up;seq=11.
“Letter from AC & KC Elles to Susan,” October 19, 1837, Series F: Franklin Cushman’s notebooks, vol. 8: 146–148, (Elijah Williams Papers, Rhode Island Historical Society).
“Letter from Winthrop to Eliza Williams,” July 29, 1839, ibid, Vol. 2: 139–140.
“Letter from Hilton to Susan,” July 4, 1868, ibid, Vol. 4: 66.
“Letter from Hilton to Susan,” February 12, 1866, ibid, Vol. 4: 4.
“Letter from Fred Elles to Susan,” February 21, 1868, ibid, Vol. 4: 60.
“Letter from Winthrop to his sister,” October 10, 1865, ibid., Vol. 2, 129–130.
“Letter from Winthrop to Susan,” November 23, 1865, ibid., Vol. 2, 138–139.
“Letter from Hilton to Susan,” August 27, 1868, ibid., Vol. 4, 72–74.
“Letter from Winthrop to Susan,” November 13, 1865, ibid., Vol. 2, 135–136.
McGill, Denise, dir. “the Gullah Project, a documentary film” 2014, https://thegullahproject .org/team/.
Note by Franklin R. Cushman, ibid., Vol. 2, 136.
Outlaw, Penny and Elizabeth Ammons, introductions, and Tammy Denease, storyteller, “Giving Voice: ‘Compelled to Servitude,’ The Story of Belinda,” Royall House and Slave Quarters, June 7, 2015.
“Paul Revere’s Engraving of Crispus Attucks,” The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/road-revolution/resources /paul-revere%E2%80%99s-engraving-boston-massacre-1770.
The Penn Center, 1862, St. Helena, SC, www.penncenter.com.
“Profile: Sojourner Truth’s famous speech, ‘Ain’t I a Woman?’.” News & Notes, National Public Radio, Feb. 9, 2005. Academic OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A161910171 /AONE?u=lom_nmichu&sid=AONE&xid=8dfde641.
Vigil Reburial Celebration publication handout. Stand in Honor of Those Forgotten. May 20–23, 2015. The Portsmouth, New Hampshire African Burying Ground.
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Ahmed, Sara. Willful Subjects. Durham, NC: Duke University Press Books, 2014.
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Coddington, Ronald S. African American Faces of the Civil War: An Album. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012.
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Finefield, Kristi. “Profiling Portraits: Occupational Portraits of the 19th Century,” Library of Congress, Oct. 5, 2017. https://blogs.loc.gov/picturethis/2017/10/profiling-portraits -occupational-portraits-of-the-19th-century/ Accessed Nov. 10, 2017.
Flint, Kate. The Victorians and the Visual Imagination. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
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Additional Image Credits
Any unattributed photos are copyright of the author and cannot be reproduced without permission.
All images of the Crouch quilt top are courtesy of the Historic Textile and Costume Collection, University of Rhode Island. Photos taken by the author. All reproduction is prohibited without permission. Images found on pages: 1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 13, 22, 27, 31, 33, 55, 89, 139, 244, 251, 301, 389, and 399.
Page 6: Images courtesy of Samarra Khaja.
Page 9: Courtesy of the Historic Textile and Costume Collection, University of Rhode Island.
Page 23: From The Seaman’s Friend by Richard Henry Dana Jr.
Page 35: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Page 37: Courtesy of Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo.
Page 45: Anna Williams (American, 1927–2010). Quilt, 1995. Cotton, synthetics, 76 ¼ × 61 ½ in. (193.7 × 156.2 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift in memory of Horace H. Solomon, 2011.18.
Page 49: Courtesy of the Division of Home and Community Life, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.
Page 53: Courtesy of Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division.
Page 56: Courtesy FCIT.
Page 67: Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Page 80: Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Rogers Fund, 1942.
Page 108: Photo by C. C. Jones/U.S. Geological Survey.
Page 110: Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Page 131: Anatomy full body. Courtesy of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto.
Page 145: Illustration of Dr. J. Marion Sims with Anarcha by Robert Thom. Courtesy of Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, Pearson Museum.
Page 149: Portrait File, PR 052, “Sm”; image #74638. Photography © New-York Historical Society.
Page 150: Courtesy of Drexel University College of Medicine.
Page 153: Courtesy of Drexel University College of Medicine.
Page 156: Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Page 160: Creative Commons license, Copyright © Michel Royon/Wikimedia Commons.
Page 162: Courtesy of the Wellcome Library.
Page 197: Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York/Gift of Mrs. William R. Witherell, 1953.
Page 198: Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Mrs. Alvah E. Reed.
Page 199: Courtesy of The Charleston Museum, Charleston, South Carolina.
Page 202: Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Page 207: Harriet Powers, American, 1837–1910, Pictorial quilt, American (Athens, Georgia), 1895–98, Cotton plain weave, pieced, appliqued, embroidered, and quilted, 175 x 266.7 cm (68 7/8 x 105 in.). Credit: Bequest of Maxim Karolik, 64.619. Photograph © 2018 Museum of Fine Arts Boston.
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p; Page 211: Courtesy of the Division of Home and Community Life, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.
Page 217: Detail of one of the squares of Harriet Powers’ Pictorial quilt. Powers’ description of this square is: “The falling of the stars on Nov. 13, 1833. The people were frightened and thought that the end had come. God’s hand staid the stars. The varmints rushed out of their beds.” Copyright © Bequest of Maxim Karolik. Photograph © 2018 Museum of Fine Arts Boston.
Page 236: Courtesy of the Collection of the Newport Historical Society.
Page 242: Courtesy of the British Library.
Page 243: Courtesy of the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence.
Page 248: Courtesy of Redwood Library and Athenaeum, Newport, Rhode Island.
Page 254: Courtesy of University of Texas Libraries.
Page 298: Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Page 314 Copyright © World History Archive/Alamy Stock Photo
Page 316: Copyright © World History Archive/Alamy Stock Photo.
Page 331: Courtesy, American Antiquarian Society.
Page 342 (top): Courtesy of The Art Institute of Chicago / Art Resource, NY.
Page 343: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of the Garrison Family in memory of George Thompson Garrison.
Page 344: Copyright © Wikimedia Commons/Daderot.
Page 345 (top): Photograph by Baldwin Coolidge, Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library.
Page 345 (bottom): Copyright © Metropolitan Museum of Art/Gift of Mrs. Russell Sage.
Page 346: Courtesy of Underwood & Underwood Glass Stereograph Collection, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.
Page 347: Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
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