Napoleon Bonaparte Marshall and William Taylor Burwell Williams: African American Educators and Harvard Graduates (Class of 1897)

Napoleon Bonaparte Marshall and William Taylor Burwell Williams: African American Educators and Harvard Graduates (Class of 1897)

In their own words: Two Black alumni from the Harvard College class of 1897.

Read More
Comment
Print Friendly and PDF

Frederick Douglass and the Fifth of July

Frederick Douglass and the Fifth of July

What to the slave is the Fourth of July? asked Frederick Douglass to a Rochester audience. What indeed?

Read More
Comment
Print Friendly and PDF

Northeast North Carolina Underground Railroad: Sea, Swamp, Solidarity

Northeast North Carolina Underground Railroad: Sea, Swamp, Solidarity

Consider the challenge of an escape from slavery via the watery depths.

Read More

Augusta Browne, 19th-century American female composer

Augusta Browne, 19th-century American female composer

Have you heard of 19th century composer Augusta Browne? Biographer Bonny Miller sheds some light, and sound, on what Browne achieved amidst a lot of constraints.

Read More
Comment
Print Friendly and PDF

Freedmen's Bureau in Washington: Need Help? Move.

Freedmen's Bureau in Washington: Need Help? Move.

The post-Civil War work of the Freedmen’s Bureau was curtailed from the start.

Read More
Comment
Print Friendly and PDF

Vaccines!

Vaccines!

As I get vaccinated for COVID-19, I remembered that a Civil War smallpox vaccination campaign had its hiccups.

Read More
Comment
Print Friendly and PDF

The "Scribbling Women" at Pfaff's

The "Scribbling Women" at Pfaff's

In this second post about Pfaff’s, a 19th century Bohemian hang-out in New York City, I look at five women who wrote.

Read More

The Women at Pfaff's

The Women at Pfaff's

For about five years, in the last 1850s and early 1860s, Pfaff’s was the place to be. Who were the women there?

Read More

Semi-Intersecting Lives in mid-1840s New York City: Margaret Fuller, Mathew Brady, and Edgar Allen Poe

Semi-Intersecting Lives in mid-1840s New York City: Margaret Fuller, Mathew Brady, and Edgar Allen Poe

The lives of Margaret Fuller, Mathew Brady, and Edgar Allen Poe—in a compressed bit of Manhattan and a compressed bit of time.

Read More
Comment
Print Friendly and PDF

Renaming Army Bases: Long Overdue, On the Cusp

Renaming Army Bases: Long Overdue, On the Cusp

Will the 10 remaining Army bases named for Confederates finally be renamed? As of mid-December, the bill awaits the president’s signing or veto.

Read More
Comment
Print Friendly and PDF

Harriet Jacobs, Teacher

Harriet Jacobs, Teacher

Harriet Jacobs started a school in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1864. It wasn’t easy.

Read More
Comment
Print Friendly and PDF

Back to School--in the 1840s and 1850s

Back to School--in the 1840s and 1850s

Starting the school year—the 1844-45 school year, that is.

Read More
Comment
Print Friendly and PDF

Frederick Douglass and the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society

Frederick Douglass and the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society

The Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Society, the group that sponsored Frederick Douglass’s famous July 4 speech, raised money, held lectures, hid fugitives—and remembered to serve refreshments at their monthly meetings.

Read More
Comment
Print Friendly and PDF

Women in the Civil War: Two Books and a Zoom Talk

Women in the Civil War: Two Books and a Zoom Talk

When I moderated a History Author talk on Zoom, I spoke with two authors with very different ways to approach the topic of women in the Civil War.

Read More

Harriet Jacobs in Edenton, North Carolina

Harriet Jacobs in Edenton, North Carolina

Harriet Jacobs hid in an enclosure 9 feet by 7 feet in Edenton, NC, which we visited last week.

Read More
Comment
Print Friendly and PDF

William Cooper Nell and Lydia Maria Child: Two Bostonians Who Helped Harriet Jacobs

William Cooper Nell and Lydia Maria Child: Two Bostonians Who Helped Harriet Jacobs

Connecting Bostonians William Cooper Nell and Lydia Maria Child with Harriet Jacobs.

Read More
Comment
Print Friendly and PDF

Contraband and Freedmen's Cemetery Memorial

Contraband and Freedmen's Cemetery Memorial

A presentation by Fran Bromberg about the creation, forgetting, and rededication of the cemetery on South Washington Street

Read More
Comment
Print Friendly and PDF

Steamboats Across the Potomac

Steamboats Across the Potomac

Fortunately, a much calmer boat ride to Nats Park from the Alexandria waterfront last week than in October 1862.

Read More
Comment
Print Friendly and PDF

The Black Military Experience in the Civil War

The Black Military Experience in the Civil War

A fascinating talk by Leslie Rowland, director of the Freedmen & Southern Society Project, on the Black Military Experience during the Civil War—drawn from National Archives documents.

Read More
Comment
Print Friendly and PDF

Soldiers' Graffiti (and Julia Wilbur) at Historic Blenheim

Soldiers' Graffiti (and Julia Wilbur) at Historic Blenheim

Stories behind Civil War graffiti at Historic Blenheim in Fairfax, VA.

Read More
Comment
Print Friendly and PDF