In All That She Carried, historian Tiya Miles
tells the story of a cotton sack embroidered with this story: “My great
grandmother Rose mother of Ashley gave her this sack when she was sold at age 9
in South Carolina [1853] it held a tattered dress 3 handfulls of pecans a braid
of Roses hair. Told her It be filled with my Love always she never saw her
again Ashley is my grandmother Ruth Middleton 1921”
Because there is little in the historical
record of the enslaved people, this cotton sack is important. It hangs in the Smithsonian
National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), in
Washington, D.C. The author tells the story behind this artifact.
This book recounts the experience of African Americans whose lives
were mostly under-recorded or misunderstood.
Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years Women,
Cloth, and Society in Early Times by Elizabeth Wayland Barber is a wonderful
book about the history of textiles—spinning, weaving, and sewing. All That She
Carried continues the history of fiber arts.
Fabric is a special category of thing to
people—tender, damageable, weak at its edges, and yet life-sustaining. In these
distinctive features, cloth begins to sound like this singular planet we call
home. Cloth operates as a “convincing analogue for the regenerative and
degenerative processes of life, and as a great connector, binding humans not
only to each other but to the ancestors of their past and the progeny of their
future,”
Since the historical record contains so
little, the author augments the story of Rose, Ashley, and Ruth with stories of
other people in similar situations whose story has survived.
In unfolding the story of these women, the
brutality of life for African Americans both before and after the Civil War is
presented in excruciating detail.
Over and over the authors highlights how
African American are excluded and missing from the historical record. For
example, plantations had stores, which were often the only place enslaved
people could spend what little money they acquired. The ledger books from this
store document how they spent their money (almost 2/3 on cloth, clothing, and
sewing supplies) and, thus, what was important to them. How many of these books
that were maintained for centuries across the South survived? Six!
“[South] Carolina “planter-politicians”
presided over the most undemocratic society ever sustained in this country.”
African American economics following the Civil
War. “In a context in which schoolteachers measured among the elite, domestic
servants with steady employment could be counted in the Black middle class.
Those with steady employment and strong moorings in organized community life
enjoyed a kind of stability that contrasted greatly with the hand-to-mouth
lifestyles of many unemployed and poverty-stricken Black Philadelphians.”
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Deaf Child Crossing by Marlee Matlin: Megan is
nine years old and deaf. She has no
friends until Cindy moves onto her block. They become instant BFFs. They
confess secrets to each other, and Cindy learns sign language. When they go to
overnight camp together their friendship is put to the test.
