Transcripts For CSPAN3 African American Life In Philadelphia 20171001

She received her phd from Boston College after teaching for a few years she moved to villanova. That is where she is now a professor. She is the author or editor of numerous books, including most recently sex and the civil war, soldiers, pornography, and the making of american morality. Home Something Like that. That is not right. The diary of a free black woman and philadelphia. Which my scholars just read and discussed, and we all want to know what happened. Sorry. Judie is much more than a academic civil war nerd. Though she is this, which i know because i ran into her family on the memorial day weekend heading to see the graves of black civil war soldiers as the rest of us eight barbecue. She is a devoted public historian having moved from editing to a new digital project, finding families after slavery. This open access database give scholars and students and genealogists a chance to examine thousands of information on lost friends and relatives advertisements that were taken out by former slaves looking for family members lost in the domestic slave trade. In this project, as with the emily davis book and website, she includes her students extra doing research on that makes it available to the public. Along with Everything Else she does, such as editing the civil war era and countless other of and she has written more articles that i can list and spoken at more roundtables and all of us have attended. In all of this she brings a clear and consistent dedication to finding and telling the story of africanamericans as part of the civil war narrative. My favorite moment was on a sunday last april. I came across an ad in the new New York Times touting villanova. It said you should come to villanova because of her digital history project. When i texted her to congratulate her on the notice she had not seen the advertisement and asked if it had been on the style page. Apparently a lifelong ambition of hers. It was not, but i expect we will see her there any day. Tonight, she will be talking about the civil war and civil rights, African Women in civil war philadelphia. Thank you. [applause] judith thanks. That ad by the way i was shocked to discover said Something Like this project is reuniting families. She is reuniting families. Somewhere between the Media Relations people and the New York Times they changed things from the past tense to the present tense. I was shocked to think that people were going to call me to see if i could help them find their brother that they lost at the mall or something. I am glad the project is getting some attention because i think it is going to be very useful it is already turning out to be useful for people trying to find lost family members. We are hearing words of thanks from people who are in that wall of slavery as they put it. Beyond 1870 it is hard to find family members. I will talk about that in just a minute. It is how people get beyond that wall. So, thank you all for coming. And to the Library Company for hosting us. To the neh for funding many important projects like this. Institutes like this all over the country for teachers at all scholars, and doing all of the important work that the neh does. I have been making phone calls and writing letters to remind people how much it has meant to me as a college professor, but i started my career as a High School Teacher. I benefited from the neh when i was a High School Teacher as well. I wanted to thank lori in particular for being part of this threeweek institute that you have all enjoyed. I am a big fan of her work. She is just a little bit older than me. Old enough to wear her where her first book came out and it sort of convinced me that i period andto this study these women. Thank you. She has continued to be that not only for me but for a lot of us who study this time. It is a real pleasure to be able to do anything with her. I dont know how she keeps the energy to do that. Thank you all. I am going to be talking to you today about various groups of women who lived in and around philadelphia during the civil war. To capture the experiences of africanamerican women during the civil war. You will notice some of these projects and i have been working on coming into this talk to if anybody is interested in looking at any of these things. They are all available most of what i have worked on is all available free of charge. On the web, just stop me afterwards, and i am happy to give you the address, so you can go play around on his website more about these extraordinary women. Starting of course with emily davis. That is where we will start. Can everybody hear me . Good. Her extraordinary diaries live right here in philadelphia at the historical society. If you have not yet had a chance pop over to look at these diaries they are quite extraordinary. This is what they look like. They are not that big at all. They are just a blown a picture of her diary. Can everybody see the image . Good. I first saw her diaries years ago. These are three leatherbound volumes, small enough to fit comfortably in a pocket. If you hold them in your hands they are no bigger than a smart phone. They have leather covers, each is a little bit different. They all show a lot of wear and tear of being regularly opened and closed. As a young woman who owned them and carried them with her. Stealing three minutes to record her hopes, fears and to capture something of what it meant to be an africanamerican woman in the city and the nation at war. Emily wrote her name this is to give you a sense of how big they are. They are very small. She filled every inch of space in these diaries. She wrote her name in the front page in the first blank big open letters. As you can see from this image. Looping each end of the e and dotting the i with a flourish. Opening the book it seems to me and this was my first introduction to emily davis. It seemed to be an important act. She took to writing her name very seriously. It was something personal for her and significant for those who want to learn more about the experience of women of color in particular. We do not have a whole lot of diaries by women like her. To find this diary right here at philadelphia was not something you would pass by. In her diaries, she was a young free black woman during the civil war, remarks in the progress of her own education. She was a student at the time. She talks about the challenges of living as a half citizen and the nation, she herself was free but she was also keenly aware of her status in a nation that is still supporting slavery. She earned her living as a seamstress, and she also cared for children of white families. Also cared for the in Ear Institute for colored youth. Through the institute of colored youth and their classrooms civil rights luminaries such as Octavius Catto, jacob white so so too did free blacks like her. She may well have borne a slave. The civil war is everywhere in her diary. Carrying alongside the half realized dream of real freedom and independence. Haunting the pages like a unwelcome visitor. The war took one of her brothers. In it she nearly lost her father. She worried she might lose her father. She did more than survive this war. She is young and unmarried and for all we can tell working class. She scoured the pages of the newspaper for war news. She attended meetings, raised money and supplies for the colored troops. She went here is a image of to help you imagine how a seamstress may have been portrayed during this time. We do not have any pictures of her i am afraid. You will see the diary a few times so you can get a sense of what we are talking about. She listened to Frederick Douglass. She went to listen to him when she could. And a lot of other people as well. She reported those moments when her aspirations for a equal up against a very unequal present. Along with a lot of went thehians she emancipation proclamation came into effect. She cheered in june of 1863 when men of her school boarded a train to go to harrisburg to volunteer to defend the state. From Robert E Lees farming army on their way to pennsylvania. She mourned the news of lincoln s death. She attended his funeral and philadelphia and she worried about what was going to happen next. Fill it up it was on to a vibrant black community and a White Community that was openly hostile. Black philadelphians were excluded from concert halls, public transportation, schools, churches, meeting halls and other public places. They were harassed and assaulted in their own neighborhoods. Their churches and meeting places were attacked. White philadelphians where violently opposed to abolition. In 1863 many met to denounce slavery. People attacked the building as the women spoke. Later on that night they burned it down. Frederick douglass believed that there was not a city to be found in which prejudice is more rapid rampant than in philadelphia. The segregation and the violence, none of that was new in the 1860s. What was new was the willingness of young black philadelphians to confront the prejudice headon. In march of 1860, for example, a group of young activists try to rescue a fugitive who had been ordered to return to slavery. They attacked federal marshals as he was led to a train station. The attack on federal officials signaled a new militancy among activists one generation removed let me try to go forward here. There we go. From the likes of William Still and robert purvis. It happened in the churches in the lyceums, it was nurtured at homes where politically active whonts raised children might have been patiently left to work me back channels to the obstacles that were in their way. This new bold activism was realized in the streets of the city where black women stood alongside men to launch a Civil Rights Campaign in the middle of the civil war. Among the leaders of this movement were men like jacob white. They came together in classrooms at the institute for colored youth. It included those who went on to careers elsewhere. Here we go. Case you do not remember Octavius Catto looks like. I found a teacher image from that time. Word so we can think about that when we think about her. Included those who went on to careers elsewhere. Weple like rebecca call, and think this is an image of her from a sketch at a medical lecture she was attending. Rebecca went on to become a physician after she graduated from the institute of colored youth at the top of her class. These were emilys teachers and fellow parishioners at her andchs and her church, her friends and confidants. I want to talk about these africanamerican women during the war. The battles they waged to support themselves and to dismantle segregation and what they could for the war. I also want to talk to you about those women who worked in philadelphia elsewhere to remake their own families that had been torn apart with slavery. There are three groups of women that we are going to talk about to get an idea of the experience of women during the war. All right. We will start with the teacher. That seems appropriate. Unt is where we will start. We will hear more about her in just a minute. To give you a sense of where these battles are being waged. The battle that she is going to wage against racism is in the streets of the city. Emilie davis records most of her struggles in the diary. We do not know if she took a public stand against racism and segregation that she saw in the city of valdosta, but we can tell by reading her diary that her expectations rise during the war. She becomes increasingly frustrated when she comes up against limitations to her expectations in the city. I will go backwards. I want to show you one of those advertisements before you go too far along. If you see the image on the right, that is one of these information wanted ads that you lori was telling you about. There are hundreds of these. So far we have collected nearly 2000 of these advertisements. These are 2000 unique individuals taking out these ads. They are women and men of color who tried to find family members. Who they had lost with slavery. They told their stories in newspapers where they took out these advertisements, hoping to find those people that they had lost. These ads talked about their private grief and the loss that many had sustained this decades ago. In the papers and as i want to suggest to you at the end these ads stood as public rejections of slaverys shaping and denial of black family life. You will see in just a minute what i mean when we look at some of these advertisements more carefully. Today, these ads served as a serve as a persistent memorial to the bonds of a section of women and men that sustained enslaved women and men through slavery. I will tell you it about each of his years of people and a second. We are starting with carrie lam account. In 1867 caroline a 21yearold teacher and principal of the ohio school one of the citys elite africanamerican schools waived down a street car. The conductor refused to allow her to board. Taunting her by saying, we do not allow negroes to ride. He did not know who he was messing with. Armed with a newspaper about a earlier bythree days the governor outlined segregated public travel caroline left a complaint with the nearest Police Officer. She must have not been surprised when the Police Officer also knew nothing about the law. She produced the proof, she just happened to have it in her day. Bag. The Police Officer arrested the conductor. What else could he do . He finds him 100. A small act. Caroline would have less significance in the history of the civil war until we find out that she was part of a larger movement. It linked to the schoolteacher here in the city of philadelphia with local civil rights leaders who advocated for equal access for public travel. As well as equal Political Rights for africanamericans in the state. Stances principled stands even higher in our estimation. When we realize that by 1867 when she takes a stance against segregated travel in the city of philadelphia she is part of not only a local campaign that has by now exceeded that succeeded succeeded but a nationwide crusade. She stood beside female counterparts in cities like new york, cincinnati, San Francisco, we have one woman on the left who was part of a Similar Campaign in San Francisco. Sarah fossett, described as a hairdresser by the newspaper. Obviously a civil rights leader. Integrating streetcars in those cities. In one sense this story ends in pennsylvania with the antisegregation law that had been passed. By the time they had to confront the remnants of segregation. Enforcement of that law continued. It required educated and vigilant riders like caroline who would get on the streetcars armed with the law to defend themselves and make sure perpetrators were punished accordingly. Of course, she was also willing to injure insult. Lt. Endure insu these women sometimes sustained injury. They had to find lawyers and judges who were willing to award fines to these black women who are injured or insulted on the streetcars. This was something that they have learned the hard way. Let me tell you a little bit more about this campaign. The Campaign Began in 1861. When the right of streetcar companies to deny service to africanamericans in the cities case by aned by the ejected man. The activist and head of the Vigilance Committee will hardly need any introduction here, led the campaign at this early date and focus on trying to convince the companies to voluntarily give up segregated cars. Once the u. S. Army began accepting black recruits in 1863 women of color joined this campaign when they went to work collecting supplies for in delivering aid to u. S. Colored troops who were convalescing in and around the city of philadelphia and many different area hospitals. To get to them they run those women rode those segregated cars. Caroline graduated from the institute of colored youth at the top of her class in 1963. She then became a part of the ladies Union Association. She was squarely in the middle of the community of black entrepreneurs and civil rights leaders. They expected their children to work for racial uplift. They did not always want their daughters to be publicly humiliated. For her colleagues at the school it was a matter of principle but also of practicality. In growing numbers as these colored troops were were city,escing around the women needed to get to them. The streetcars were fairly obvious solutions. So they began to ride them. Trading strategy with each other as they met in the black churches, which conductors, which lines made sense. Travel alone for less attention. To dress carefully. Wear a veil. While we do not have the minutes of the strategy meetings we do know that the ladies Union Association had specifically identified segregation policies of the streetcar as an obstacle to their war relief. We know these organizations come out against segregated travel. We know that it was proving difficult for them to do their work. We also have Court Records to prove when all of this discretion in disguise did not work, when they were ejected from these cars they took the streetcar companies to court to sue for damages. I will give you just a couple of examples. One evening in april of 1865, a woman identified in the derry ofs as a mrs. The ladies Union Association colleagues operated a car. After several stops the conductor asked her to leave. She declined. The conductor called two men off of the street to his aid and together they grabbed her and struck and kicked her and dragged her from the car. She decided to take the Streetcar Company to court and sue for damages. The judge ruled in her favor awarding her 50 in damages for injuries that she sustained when she was, as he said, wrongly ejected from the streetcar. If you remember in 1865 it was still legal. There was no law outlawing the kind of segregated travel. He also ruled that as long as africanamericans were serving the nation as soldiers they ought to enjoy their right to citizenship at home. Among these he said was access to public transport or conveyances. A number of women made use of the court and to pressure streetcar companies and their employers to stop deny service denying service to africanamericans. Philadelphias newspapers reported on a number of these cases, women and men being forcefully ejected. Recorder, the official newspaper of the visible church in tilde out yet, described incidents involving several women. Some of those names may sound familiar. They were mentioned several times in these newspaper stories covering these acts. When these cases went to criminal court they found little success. When women took them to the civil court and sued for damages they repeatedly put the streetcar companies on notice for their racism and that it would not be tolerated. As they filed into the streetcars and in the courtrooms of philadelphia, womens actions reverberated outward, not only in philadelphia but to cities throughout the north. Cities decided to test the waters for the Civil Rights Campaign. As caroline took to the courtroom in philadelphia, as i mentioned before, there were women that did so in San Francisco and cincinnati. As well as new york. In cases involving schoolteachers, often hairdressers, they were also widely known in every case for their civil rights activism. The awards in these cases were always quite minimal. The verdicts expanded slowly but surely in space inhabited by black philadelphians. With this streetcar campaign, carolyn lecount was just getting started. Carolyn lecount has a very long career of civil rights activism. This is the opening act. She remains vigilant about defending what had been gained in the war throughout her life. Riding the cars, educating the police, the judges. About what freedom meant, and what they had to preserve. Emilie davis lived in the same city as lecount. She attended classes at the institute for colored youth. Maybe lecount was even her teacher. We dont know. She crisscrossed the city to pick up and deliver her sewing work and to care for white children, one of her other jobs. Emilie davis is 22 years old and 1861, when the war began. Two years later, she began reporting the advance of her life in her diary, opening up a small window into a black community during the war. In these slim, pocketsized diaries, emilie never missed a day. Recounting events big and small. She recorded her sewing work, she kept track of who she owed dresses to and who she was sewing for that week. She talked about social life in the black community a lot. Emilie also used her diary to keep track of her social call for respondents. It was very important for her to write letters to people and call on those to whom she was posted call on. And in her pages, she repeated gossips and rumors about the real courtships, and marriages gone wrong. She also talked about the about vincent, and i wish i knew what happened to vincent we were all devastated to learn at the end of the diary, as some of you who read the book now, were to find, and this is a spoiler alert. She does not marry vincent. Vincent is constant throughout the diary. He is definitely her, sort of, boyfriend. The most significant man in her life. Alas, she does not marry him. What happens to him, we dont know. Who he is, we also dont know. The diaries recount the celebration of the emancipation proclamation. Their nervous excitement about the battle of gettysburg. This is the january 1 entry in the diary. And it says today has been a memorable day and i thank god i have been spared to see it. All the churches had a jubilee. The term jubilee captures that feeling among the black community, not only philadelphia but cities throughout the country, on january 1, 1863. She talks about her nervous excitement during the battle of gettysburg, about what would happen, about who stood in the way of the army of Northern Virginia as they came into pennsylvania, including, among other people, her own father. And their collective morning mourning about president lincoln, when they heard that he had been shot and when they heard that he had died. Those who read her diaries will discover all sorts of things about how the civil war was experienced in philadelphia in this vibrant black community. On that first page that we are looking at, in just a few words she describes that sense of anticipation when the war makes its turn to be a war of emancipation. Later that summer, when the Confederate Army is coming into pennsylvania, she is not only worried about her father, who is living in harrisburg, and who she worries might be kidnapped by the army of Northern Virginia, she also talks about men who she goes to school with, and other men in her life, including vincent and others, who sign up to drive the Confederate Army out of the state of pennsylvania in june of 1863, before pennsylvania is actually ready to accept lack men in uniform to drive out that army. Emilie attends lectures of all sorts. She never misses Frederick Douglass when he is in town. She also goes to hear the poet and former slave when he comes to town. In her diary. She talks about the lectures that she goes to, and also mentions the ones that she misses. William kelly, pennsylvania congressman comes to philadelphia and she wants to go but she ends up not going. William kelly, like a lot of congressman, tended to be longwinded, and perhaps that is why she didnt go see William Kelly but she wouldnt miss Frederick Douglass or the poet, francis harper. Although she could not vote, emilie also keeps track, in her diary, of political news. She reports on elections. She likes to predict their outcome. In this entry in november, 1864, she predicts lincoln will win the election. She was right. She also takes care not to go out in the city of philadelphia on election day. She talks about that in her diary as well because there is oftentimes violence in the streets of philadelphia on election day, and she says that in her diary, i did not go out today because it was election day, and that was a wise choice on her part because there was often violence, that she avoided by not going out. Emilie attended concert as well. Attended concerts, as well. It wasnt all war, it was a distraction. She learns how to play the guitar. Thats what it sounds like she is doing in the diary. She frequents the performances of celebrities, such as a former slave from natchez, mississippi, who was known popularly as the black swan. She was Frederick Douglass favorite. She would open for him, singing in anticipation, to warm up the crowd. Greenfield moved to philadelphia where she was freed, and raised by quakers. She apparently had an enchanting voice and classical repertoire. No wonder she was a favorite of Frederick Douglass. Emilie also went with a friend to see a performer called blind tom, or thomas wiggins. A former slave who toured concert halls performing songs by memory. Tom was an incredible talent, performing two songs on two different pianos at the same time. And also, capable of singing a third song at the same time. Raise your hand if you can do that. Emilie declared herself much pleased with the performance, except that we had to sit upstairs, which made me furious. She had to shuffle up to the balcony at the same venue where she had attended lectures by Frederick Douglass and francis harper, and it was too much for emilie, who expected more from whites in philadelphia in 1865. The prejudice against blacks extends to every class, an article explained, and in leisure and business, at theaters and concerts, lectures and churches, the negro is restricted to the remote gallery. Emilie was wellpositioned to remark on the changes that war had brought to the city, and also what had stubbornly not changed, what had remained the same. Reading her diary, i think, will open up your eyes and give you insight into what the world was like for africanamerican women living in the city of philadelphia. What the civil war was like. In may of 1888, and aged Millie Walker made her way from her home in south philadelphia to the offices of the christian recorder, near mother bethel church. Maybe she had a 15 to 20 minute walk from where she lived to where she was going. Millie took out an ad looking for members of her scattered family. Although the war had ended years ago, millie remembered details as if they happened yesterday. As you can see by this ad, millies sister cintha, was sold from North Carolina to tennessee sometime before the war, from i have not heard anything of her whereabouts since that time, she explained. Millie also hoped to find her sisters children, anne, robert, and gilbert. An extraordinary hope compelled millie to take out that ad more than 20 years since the war ended, and even longer since she had seen those loved ones, whose names she still remembered. Other details had faded, and she was certainly not alone. 25 years after she was sold away from her children, lydia, william, alan, and parker, mrs. Elizabeth williams still held out hope of finding them again. She, too, took out an ad similar to millies. The end of slavery rekindled her hopes of reconstructing her family. She admits in her ad that she had been sold twice, changed her name, and moved thousands of miles away from where she had last seen anybody who she was looking for. The memory of her children, nonetheless, was still vivid in her mind. And here are some of the details she mentions in the ad. She refers to herself, in the ad, in the third person. She says, the author was formerly owned together with her children, lydia, william, alan, and parker, in woodberry, tennessee. She talks about various moments how family members were sold away. She talks about the sale to mr. Marshal stroud of arkansas. And she has never seen the above named mentioned children since. And here is the one that will get you. Any information will be gratefully received by one whose love for her children survived the bitterness and hardships of years spent in slavery. This is one of the first ads that we collected in this effort to try to get all of these in one place and get them accessible to people who are studying this period. What is extraordinary about this is how well she remembers all these details, and how she just fills the ad. Every word has meaning, and every detail she includes in the ad, and the hope that somebody is going to respond to this informationwanted ad. She says in the ad that she wants in particular preachers in woodbury, tennessee and hopes that the preachers will read the ad to their congregations, and that way more people will be enlisted in her effort to find her family members. And this prose is really vivid. She captures that heady anticipation of a mother who had never given up hope, but also, the stark realities. Is she going to find them . Freed men and women, hoping to reconstruct their families. Especially the last line there. These mothers, like millie and elizabeth, are not alone. We have, as i said, to date, we have almost 2000 of these ads. Were just getting started. Most of those ads were just from one newspaper. We have many more to do. So we are in the midst of this project, trying to figure out what the ads can tell us about expectations that people of color had, former slaves had, of family life after the war. When we had about 400 of them we went through them to get a sense of what these ads mean and what we can learn about family life after the war, we coded the ads to figure out who was the most likely to have taken out an ad, and who they were looking for. There are some things that are not surprising at all. We found out, in order of frequency, mothers are looking for their children in these ads, in our first 400 ads they were the most frequent people. I dont know if you can see this here, but the mothers are the first bar here. And then of course, children look looking for mothers and fathers are next most frequent. Sisters and brothers, looking for each other. Fathers also looking for children and husbands and wives show up as well. We also coded them, or who they were looking for. And again, this is not super surprising, that the most frequent, the blue tower that you see there, is mostly mothers but also fathers looking for children, looking for daughters and sons. They will say one of the other or all of them. That is the most common. The nextmost frequent is sisters and brothers looking for each other. These are not necessarily surprising, but we wanted to get a sense before we get started of what we were looking at. These ads tell us about women millie living in philadelphia and women and men living in other places, well after the civil war, something we likely already knew. That is, formerly enslaved women and men continued to hold out hope for finding their children. Women seem to have been much more likely to take up these ads, and they were likely to do it longer. Decades after the war, they are still taking out ads looking for family members. Hannah cole is an example. She ran at least two different ads, looking for a son separated from her when he was just 12. Let me see if i have it written down here. There is the original one. Her first ad in february of 1865, the one you are looking at on the left, in which she describes the nine long and dreary years that passed since she had seen him last. Cole also requested information about her own mother. She then took out another ad in june of that year. By that time, she notes the passing of an anniversary. By that time it had been 10 years since she had been separated from john. In that ad, she says nothing about her mother. Maybe that means she found her mother. But she is Still Holding out hope, she is looking for her brother. She says in the ad, this is the only child i have, and i desire to find him much. In these ads, women chose their words carefully, deciding what information to share with the public and what to keep to themselves. Ads seem to be describing fugitives. Or they are originated by men and woman who had been fugitives themselves. We can guess at that because of some of the words they use, coded words they used, in the ads. Especially those taken out during the civil war and in the immediate aftermath. Such as when a father refers to a son, in one of the ads, as son left the premises. Or a wife who wanted a husband who said who she said, or a wife who wanted a husband disappeared. In 1870, Francis Parker took up an ad that was very Frank Frances parker took out and add looking for her two brothers, that was very frank. It said they escaped on the underground railroad. From whom she had been separated in a place called ally white. She says later on in the ashes carried back to the plantation by those union troops, and that is when she was separated from them. They likely were in the process of running away when they ran into the union troops. Many ads simply describe loved ones who left, they use that term. 17yearold James Haskins farm to join the union army. Brothers and sisters, in 1858. Hannah willis spann did the same thing, looking for brothers left in kentucky. These ads serve as important evidence. These ads, in particular, when they are using a coded language of how enslaved people are more often than not responsible for their own emancipation. These terms like left, and escaped, on the underground railroad. And the ads leave clues for genealogists and historians today. For instance, the ads name slaveowners. This is an important piece of information. And these are critical breadcrumbs in the historical record which can help families, and can help us put Families Together in time and place. Interestingly, in a number of ads for making 66 and 1867, former slaves actually put the words owned by in quotation marks. Catherine mason, searching for her children lewis, lizzie, and kate mason, whom i last saw in owensboro, kentucky. They were the property of thomas painter. Any information would be gratefully received by their mother, catherine mason. And she gives information that she is also from philadelphia. It seems unlikely that this is an editor at the newspaper adding these quotation marks. We dont know that, but there is some variety in the way they use these quotation marks. Perhaps these marks caught on among readers who sought to establish the legitimacy of their claims, while discounting those of their former masters. Catherine mason, whose ad we are looking at here, looking for her three children. And then adding 1866, again uses the word own in quotation marks. 1867, here is a another use of that term, the use of quotation marks. Catherine rhodes took out they said, searching for her two sons, jeremiah and william. With the emphasis on belonging, catherine sought to establish that jeremiah and william were hers, and not caleb dorseys. And perhaps as more important, that she was theirs. Catherine hoped to enjoy the company of these boys who had been taken from her. As an aged mother, she describes herself that she hoped to count on their support. Four catherine rhodes, freedom meant belonging. Here is one from lewis blackwell, who expresses that same sentiment. I am an old man, lewis says in his ad, and i need in companionship of my son. Blackwell, writing from virginia, and expressing that sense of longing, and belonging. The company of ones own children. These ads express the desires of africanamerican women and men come after the war. Having lived to see the end of slavery and experience freedom, what they wanted is family. These ads serve as short, powerful family histories im going to leave this one up here. They commemorate, for us loved ones who were lost and in some cases, as in these twin ads, here, they allowed families to be united. The ad on the left is taken out in october of 1895 it seems a generation removed from the end of the civil war and bettie is looking for various members of her family and then she takes out an ad to say she found them, or some of them. We do have some of those, we found a number of those as well, not 2000 as, but we do have some. Emilie davis and her husband had at least six children. Jacob and george, maria, emily, carrie and julia. When she died in 1889 at the age of 50, the younger children were still at home, likely, and the older ones seem to have stayed in the city. Emlie had lived long enough to see the end of slavery, and to chafe at the racism after the war, and to be married and have her own family into have them on hand when she had her final illness. It is nice to imagine emilie riding an integrated streetcar. If she did, she most certainly would have recorded that in her diary. We dont have her diary from that time frame, but it is nice to imagine that for emilie and people like her. Carolyn lecount talked until 1911. According to my favorite source from this time. Tasting freedom in her long life she continued to fight for civil rights on streetcars, and, among other places, the citys School System where she defended black teachers and advocated for them in front of the board of education. In her more than 30 years of teaching in the citys black schools, lecount touched the lives of thousands of people, recounting her years growing up in civilwarera philadelphia. Where africanamerican women worked for freedom and to give freedom meaning. And finally, the women and men who took out these as we have been looking at, their families sought that same thing. To give freedom meaning. They bequeathed to the generations who followed them, who would open the newspapers and read these ads that failed postwar newspapers, these stories of postwar survival, during slavery and its aftermath. And we are just now starting to recover those of stories and tell those stories. So, that is where i stopped talking and thank you all, for your attention. [applause] judith and i get to handle questions with this microphone, i think. There is a microphone, over here . This one. Ok. We have a question, over here. I think what they would like is, when you ask the question, for me not to come to you. You go to the microphone. My first question, carolyn lecount. Wasnt she octavius caddos fiance . And my other question, how much more are you finding out about literacy during this time . Because all of these ads required someone to write, to take pen to paper. Were they pastors themselves . Themselves, pastors . Judith that is a good question. We are not sure if anyone is helping to write the ads, if people are writing the ads themselves. We are not sure. Some of the as clearly invoked the help of others. They describe themselves and then they also name a pastor to whom they would like the information directed. It is also important, when they talk about wanting these things to be read in churches, not only because of the literacy, but because of access to the newspaper. Who would have access to the newspaper . The christian reporter was widely distributed. People have studied the newspaper and it was widely circulated by u. S. Colored troops who moved through philadelphia and took it with them. And they had many subscribers from outside the city. But that is just the beginning. That is just the first newspaper. There are shortlived newspapers that popped up throughout the south, and many run similar columns. So, that tells us a few things. We hope that that is also a sign that there is more literacy, in the postwar south then we talked before. Some people have talked about that. Stephen hahn, who studies this. Who studies this era, says he counted Something Like 50 newspapers following the war. Most of them are shortlived. But that also, has to be seen as an indication of the desire to access this stuff, but also, probably, as an extension of literacy that these papers around. People are subscribing and they are reading them. Good question. Other questions . Yes, here in the front. They went to to go over there. They want you to go over there. Can you tell me the first piece of information you found that made you cry . Judith Elizabeth Williams ad. A long time ago before i started any of these projects, when i ran into one of these ads, and Elizabeth Williams was one of the first i ever saw, in the christian reporter. I wasnt looking for these ads i was looking for Something Else, and i came across this ad, and it just gets you. She describes the 30 long years of slavery. I dont think you even have to be a mom to get that sense. But being a mom, you can just sort of imagine, but never lose hope that you might. And that gets you. There are lots of those moments, in these ads, when they say things like, alike every parent does, last time i saw him, he was just crawling. Or when they say things like, how they tried to imagine what they would look like, and its like something that they want to be saying to their own child. I am sure he is tall now, and handsome, it shows you that they stay alive in their memories, and it is really hard to read. Yes . Could you say a little bit more about the institute for color lose institute for colored youth that she graduated from . And can you tell us how we find the colored ads, the website or whatever . And thirdly, you talked about streetcars being segregated, but you kept saying they were ejected. Were they segregated from writing them, or segregated in the cars . Judith good question. How about if i do them in reverse order . Great questions. The various streetcar lines had different rules. Sometimes on these streetcars, segregation meant that you, as a black rider, had to stand outside next to the conductor. That was a particularly dangerous place, and uncomfortable for all sorts of reasons. So taking a seat inside a streetcar, as a person of color, was breaking segregation orders on those lines. Other lines ran an infrequent colored car that you have to wait for. And other lines, black riders were not allowed. So, getting on the streetcars, you did is covertly. You did it carefully and discreetly in hopes that the conductor might just ignore you, or not notice that you are a person of color. Did i answer the first question . Another thought that occurred to me was the Training Camps where the colored troops were, were way out. Judith at camp william penn . Yes. You couldnt get there, unless you hired a private carriage. A private car. Thats precisely the issue. And we know that women of color are frequently going out to camp william penn to visit relatives or to bring supplies. Because we know the military administrators of the camp are complaining that there are civilians around, and passing orders prohibiting these women from coming to the camps. And we know that they are there, and certainly streetcars provided some of them access. The other two questions were how we find the ads on the website and something about the institute for colored youth. Judith you can find the ads by going to informationwanted. Org. We have 1965, by todays count. So if you go to informationwanted. Org, they are crowdsourcing transcriptions. You all are transcribing them. We have Something Like 800 people who signed on to transcribe them. Lots of people are starting to find them and post them. You can do all of that on the site. If you want to help in the effort, you can go on the site and sign up to transcribe. One caveat, i am the technical expert on this project. So, if it takes a few days for us to get back to you, just remember that. I have people working with me on it, but their first job is to be students. And, your last question, the first thing i would say to finding out more information about the institute for color youth is to read tasting freedom, which is the best study and is now available in paperback. Oh, sorry. Not yet. In september. But you can preorder it. You can preorder tasting freedom. Dont lend out your copy because you wont get it back. We at villanova also did an archiving project. We were trying to tell a history of the school, which is now cheney university, it becomes chaining it becomes cheney university. So, we reached out to archivists at cheney and tried to find as many documents as we could, documenting the history of the school. And we created a website with everything you could find on the institute for colored youth, for people who want to go back and study the school. That is at villanova. And that is a longer web address but if you just do institute for colored youth at villanova university, you will find it. It is a huge archive of everything we could find at the school. We do profiles of the first 40 graduates. We try to find out as much as we can about the first 40 people who graduated from the school. And we put everything we can about the school, on the website, so people can study the school. Two things, i guess. How did the equal Rights League, because i hear civil rights always, especially related to the streetcars, but i recognize there was an Organization Called the equal Rights League. And a lot of people were involved, and as a relates to women, i think that connotation fits more during that time frame, so i wanted to know more about the equal Rights League. And also, judges, because it is interesting to year of these judges who best rulings in favor of. Is there any research on those judges, i am assuming they were different types with different backgrounds, in the most segregated city in the north, to pass these rulings. So, who are these judges . Judith that is a really good question. I wish i had a better answer for that question. There were a couple of judges that i found, when i was studying the streetcar battle in philadelphia, who made those connections very clearly. This is exactly why we are fighting this war, so this is a nobrainer. Some of these guys i think had been tapped earlier in some of these rendition cases, or cases involving fugitives in the city of philadelphia. My guess is, they had enough advance knowledge of what lawyers they could go to, and how the lawyers might be able to manage these cases, where they wound up in front of judges who might be sympathetic. At least in a couple of cases, you see judges appear more than once. So, they must have already had a list of people who had already sort of worked with them, originally, before the war. And then, what was the other question . The equal Rights League. They were lobbying for the passage of the law. Members of the equal Rights League were in harrisburg lobbying for the passage of the street car integration law. They were essential. They were doing the work in harrisburg at the same time the grassroots stop was happening in the cars. I think the combination of those two things seemed to work magic. Having the stuff appear in the newspapers, and you cant ignore this issue when it appears in the newspapers. And white riders complained about the violence they saw in the streetcars, and wrote to the newspapers and said, we dont want to ride streetcars with our children and have summit he get beat up in front of them. So the combination of the lobbying of the equal Rights League and these tactics of nonviolent resistance, we might call it, in the streetcars, i think were critical to the success of the law. Other questions . I was curious about the geographic distribution of these ads that were coming out. You mentioned a lot were originally from the question christian recorder. Judith we are in the process of mapping the ads. We have enlisted people with skills to map them. The ads are coming from all over the place, in laymans terms, that is what i can tell you right now. What is going to be interesting is to sea, over time, if it changes. That is what we are going to be doing with these maps. So even in christian recorder, the ads are not just coming from philadelphia, they are coming from people writing in, when they cant deliver these ads in person. When the ads start disappearing when the ads start appearing in 18 63, 1864, 1865, how do those as differ and what they look like in say, 1869. And we have ads coming from the west indies, from canada, so that is another project that we will have to figure out, where they are coming from. And if there is a pattern there. Other questions . I guess we are done. Oh i am sorry, barbara. Last week, i was at the smithsonian s new museum of African American history. And to me, and many people, the most touching thing there is the casket of emmett till and the story of his mother, and her bravery. And there was a statement from rosa parks that said, she was only able to do what she did after that happened, after she saw the bravery of his mother, standing up for civil rights. And this inspired her to do what she did, with the bus boycott. I wonder if any of the people you looked into had similar moments. Generally, i understand you were saying that they were going to do good for the troops. But did anybody say, i cant take it anymore and i am going to risk whatever it is to write that streetcar . Judith thanks for that story. I got the next available tickets, i think for november. So, i cant wait to go. There was at least one example in new york city, that got a lot of coverage, of a woman who was mourning the death of her husband who was a soldier in the u. S. Colored troops. He was removed from a streetcar in new york city. And the image of this woman in morning woman in mourning, leg given her husband to the cause, who had given her husband to the cause and then couldnt ride the streetcars, it was a cathartic moment for people to watch. These were very public spaces that this is happening in. If you are sitting in the streetcars, nobody is not being watched by many other people at the same time. You are sitting across from each other. You can see everything that is happening. So, you can imagine there were these moments when white people saw this and thought that same thing. This has got to stop. And, tried to help or at least wrote these letters to the editor, saying this is it. This is got to stop. A comment. One of the first ads, i think you showed, was somebody looking for charles forg in fairfield. And my maternal grandfather was orphaned and grew up in an orphanage in the fairfield district. I didnt know my grandfather. He died in 1920. My mother was born in 1912. My mother was only 12. What she told me that he struggled very hard to try to find two sisters, from whom he was separated right after the time of enslavement. He eventually found to woman two women who we felt were these sisters, and reconnected with them. They were my mothers aunts, and they rebounded as family. There was always seemingly a question, as to whether they really were those two sisters, but they all claimed one another. Judith it didnt matter. And the second question. Given that a number of churches in philadelphia, particularly the historic black churches, do have records. Like the african of marriages, baptisms, burials. Have you been able to undertake, particularly with regard to the ads that are local, whether any of those people seeking to find individuals belong to any of those churches . And, the last question, has there been any collaboration with dr. Heather williams who wrote, help me find my people. Judith thank you, for all three of those. Thanks, first, for your familys story. The answer to your second question is no, we have not taken that next step and tried to find any of these people. What we have done in some select cases, and i make my villanova students do this every semester, is, i give them an added to them to find out as much as they can about these people. And that usually means they go to ancestry, which is good. I will take that. Invariably they say, oh yes, they found each other, i have the evidence that they found each other. And that is what we all want to find out. That they found each other. But, we have not gone into the archival records to look for people. We have on the site is an invitation for anybody to add any additional things they know, about any of these people. We are starting to get some of that. People will say, i found Something Else about this person from someplace else, and maybe that is of use to you. We have to figure out how to have all of that available on the site. Sort of like ancestry does, we can create family trees. But we have started getting people who either have some documents, or think they might know Something Else about people mentioned in it. So that is something we certainly hope will become part of this project. Oh, yes. She is on the Advisory Board for the project, is the answer to that question. Also, the novel underground railroad, is that what it is called . Yes, i think he uses the ad. I have not read the book. It is on my reading list. It is the first thing i will do when i have my Summer Reading list time. He uses the ads, or least talks about them someplace. I have seen them online. He used the ads to write that novel. So maybe we will get him on our Advisory Board, too, if anybody knows him. Yes, maam . Thank you, very much for this vital information. Im definitely going to use it. I want to ask you, have you come across more Success Stories of, you showed the one where she found her relatives. Have you found more Success Stories . Judith yes. And it is always a big deal, when we found them. We post them on the site. The answer is probably, we have documented in the newspapers the turkish people have to take out the follow up bad to say, i found that person. And i had that doesnt happen very often. They used their money to take out the ad to find family, but we do have some of those. I think we have maybe eight or 10 people who took out a followup ad. Which is great. I might have exaggerated. It might have just been six or eight. And they are on the site, so you can go on the site and search by keyword, search by found and you will find some of those at. Some of those ads. I have a graduate student back there, who is one of the students working on the ads. Bonnie, if i forgot something you can speak up. We have great news. We are getting a new microfilm reader, which is very fantastic and very exciting. We also have this bunch of ads that came to us from a user who found them in white newspapers. And they are not ask, so much, as reporting on reunited families. And i dont know what to do, i dont know how to deal with those. But apparently that was a whole genre of things that were covered in white newspapers in the late 19th century. Heres a great, heartrending story of how this former slave woman found her children. I dont know if you all have an idea, or have seen these before, they were news to me. We havent been looking at white newspapers for these ads, because we know they are in black newspapers and there are plenty of those, and we have plenty to do. But what this user has been sending us is, all of these ads, all of these stories run in white newspapers about these happy reunions. I dont know what to do with them yet. I have not put them on the site because i need to know more about that. Im a little suspicious. I want them to be true stories, just like, every time a villanova student comes to me and says, they found each other, it is so exciting. I want that to be the case, but it wants to know more about that before we put those up on the site. But when people who took out original ads, take up take out followup ads, theres no reason not to. Those are on the site. What is the site, again . Judith informationwanted. Org. Sign up. We need transcribers, all the time. [indiscernible] great idea. He was free. [laughter] he lived in philadelphia. We are looking for vincent. We have had people log on to the emilie davis site, and nominate people who they think might be vincent. So, we hold out hope. All right, well thank you all. Thank you very much. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] . Interested in American History tv visit our website. ,ou can preview the schedule watch college lectures, museum tours, archival films and more, American History tv at www. Cspan. Org history. American history tv is on cspan 3 every weekend, featuring museum tours, archival films, and programs on the presidency, the civil war, and more. Here is a clip from a recent program. We are looking out in our last of president ial vehicles and this is a 1972 Lincoln Continental belt for president next in and used by every subsequent president of through george h. W. Bush, the first president bush. This represents the final step in the evolution of president ial transportation. We went from the carriage with Teddy Roosevelt to the sunshine special to the kennedy lincoln. This is a car built from the ground up as an Armored Vehicle parent it was designed from the getgo go to provide maximum protection to the president. You have armored plating behind the doors, bulletproof grass and reinforced tires with steel inside. So if the tire gets punctured, the tire can the vehicle can still just to safety. It is most often associated with president reagan. He was shot in 1981. But itived, of course, was more dangerous than we realized at the time. This was the car he was getting after he made that speech at the washington hilton when he was shot. A most ironic. As the president was getting into the car, properly being pushed into the car by secret service agents, he was hit not by a direct bullet, but a bullet that ricocheted off of one of the panels of the armored car. The ricochet went through the gap between the door in the body. He had moved a fraction of an inch one way or the other, he may not have in hit at all. He was whisked to the hospital and made it recovery. Something we dont think about your we think of these cars as being glamorous, but they did live rough lives. A were bumped and pushed around in airplanes all the time, getting banged up, scratched. Hit rightalso getting paint and rocks by protesters. It is part of the american life. We are free to speak our minds andthese and protest these cars would have been in the front lines. The secret service had a garage where they could repaint them and wash them and change the oil and all that kind of thing and keep them in top shape. Even with that, the cars aged after a certain point. They fell out of fashion. The psy was too out of day. The front and looks different than what it looks like today. They changed the front and to make it look more current. Whenever they could, they tried to do that to keep the cars fresh. But then they looked to dated as this one did in the early 1990s. Some of these cars were not just associated with the president , but with the passengers. Would haveeader ridden in these cars. Sunshines daschle had Winston Churchill in it. Queen elizabeth wrote in that car, both as princess elizabeth and later as queen. And any number of dignitaries would have been in any of these more recent cars. Being in the president ial car is a real perk and point of pride for folks, anyone from perhaps a big city mayor to someone in the congress whom the president is trying to woo to get legislation issed, just as air force one treated as a perk today. This is the most recent car we have an hour collection, even though it was built in 1972. It is several decades old. The cars arent going to museums anymore, not the primary car. They are not. Building just one primary car, but several copies of the primary prey car. So there are more of them out there. And these cars are really destroyed at the end of the service life. That is probably perhaps to keep the technology from falling into the wrong hands, but the test the effectiveness of the armor against different and more modern weapons. It is read to see them in museums anymore. We mean i get anymore either. We got these we may not get anymore either. We got these from the lincoln house, by lincoln. Lincoln took the cars back and turned around and gave them to us. We are very grateful. Now the cars are provided by cadillac and they are purchased by the white house. They remain the property of the government as they see fit. You can watch this and other American History programs on our website where all our video archive. history. W. Cspan. Org monday night on the communicators. 5g will open up a completely new way of communication on the market and you will be able to use a hundred times what you use now on your smart phone or your tablet. Kathy grillo talks about competition in the wireless industry, Net Neutrality and 5g deployment. She is interviewed by Margaret Harding miguel. You think the u. S. Has the right, regulatory the right regular tory framework in getting it out there Regulatory Framework in getting it out there . It has opened up highfrequency millimeter spectrum for the industry. We have done a pretty good job on fiber. We could do some work on the infrastructure part. ,n order to get 5g to the homes we will need to put a lot of different small cells across the country, many more than we have today. Once we do that, we will be in a good position. Watch the communicators on cspan 2. Up next, Indiana University history professor Edward Leventhal discusses his book sacred ground, americans and their battlefield, using little the ussbattlefield and as the in pearl harbor background as examples, the Easter National cohosted this hourlong event, marking the 150th anniversary of Antietam National cemetery. It is my great pleasure to introduce our speaker this evening. Edward linenthal is professor of history at Indiana University in bloomington. He served as editor of the procedures journal of American History from 2005 to 2016. Dr. Linenthal is wellknown for his studies of historical memory and the memorialize asian, particularly memorialization particularly the modern ground. He has a number of books like sacred ground, americans and their battlefield. The struggle to create americas