Notes from a Colored Girl: The Civil War Pocket Diaries of Emilie Frances Davis
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
In Notes from a Colored Girl, Karsonya Wise Whitehead examines the life and experiences of Emilie Frances Davis, a freeborn twenty-one-year-old mulatto woman, through a close reading of three pocket diaries she kept from 1863 to 1865. Whitehead explores Davis's worldviews and politics, her perceptions of both public and private events, her personal relationships, and her place in Philadelphia's free black community in the nineteenth century.
Although Davis's daily entries are sparse, brief snapshots of her life, Whitehead interprets them in ways that situate Davis in historical and literary contexts that illuminate nineteenth-century black American women's experiences. Whitehead's contribution of edited text and original narrative fills a void in scholarly documentation of women who dwelled in spaces between white elites, black entrepreneurs, and urban dwellers of every race and class.
Notes from a Colored Girl is a unique offering to the fields of history and documentary editing as the book includes both a six-chapter historical reconstruction of Davis's life and a full, heavily annotated edition of her Civil War-era pocket diaries. Drawing on scholarly traditions from history, literature, feminist studies, and sociolinguistics, Whitehead investigates Davis's diary both as a complete literary artifact and in terms of her specific daily entries.
From a historical perspective, Whitehead re-creates the narrative of Davis's life for those three years and analyzes the black community where she lived and worked. From a literary perspective, Whitehead examines Davis's diary as a socially, racially, and gendered nonfiction text. From a feminist studies perspective, she examines Davis's agency and identity, grounded in theories elaborated by black feminist scholars. And, from linguistic and rhetorical perspectives, she studies Davis's discourse about her interpersonal relationships, her work, and external events in her life in an effort to understand how she used language to construct her social, racial, and gendered identities.
Since there are few primary sources written by black women during this time in history, Davis's diary—though ordinary in its content—is rendered extraordinary simply because it has survived to be included in this very small class of resources. Whitehead's extensive analysis illuminates the lives of many through the simple words of one.
Related to Notes from a Colored Girl
Related ebooks
Stormy Weather: Middle-Class African American Marriages between the Two World Wars Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsColored Travelers: Mobility and the Fight for Citizenship before the Civil War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTalk with You Like a Woman: African American Women, Justice, and Reform in New York, 1890-1935 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Archives of Desire: The Queer Historical Work of New England Regionalism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Brother's Keeper: African Canadians and the American Civil War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Caribbean Contribution - Stories from Notting Hill Methodist Church Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Early African American Print Culture Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOroonoko Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSharecropping, Ghetto, Slum: A History of Impoverished Blacks in Twentieth-Century America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBlack Rebellion Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBurnin' Down the House: Home in African American Literature Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGale Researcher Guide for: African Americans in Reconstruction Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStraighten Up, America: Why New Generations of African-Americans Must Change America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsContinually Working: Black Women, Community Intellectualism, and Economic Justice in Postwar Milwaukee Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBlack Newspapers and America's War for Democracy, 1914-1920 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIncidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, written by herself Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDavid Ruggles: A Radical Black Abolitionist and the Underground Railroad in New York City Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGullah Statesman: Robert Smalls from Slavery to Congress, 1839-1915 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5African Americans of Lower Richland County Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOntario's African-Canadian Heritage: Collected Writings by Fred Landon, 1918-1967 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPullman Porters and the Rise of Protest Politics in Black America, 1925-1945 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5African American Writers and Classical Tradition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAssault at West Point, The Court Martial of Johnson Whittaker Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Narrative of Sojourner Truth Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of Annette Gordon-Reed's On Juneteenth Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSlave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States. From Interviews with Former Slaves / Kentucky Narratives Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBad Men: Creative Touchstones of Black Writers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMiss Chloe: A Memoir of a Literary Friendship with Toni Morrison Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnbought and Unbossed Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJim Crow Wisdom: Memory and Identity in Black America since 1940 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Ethnic Studies For You
The Wretched of the Earth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All About Love: New Visions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Life Sentence: The Brief and Tragic Career of Baltimore’s Deadliest Gang Leader Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rock My Soul: Black People and Self-Esteem Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Black Rednecks & White Liberals Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Self-Care for Black Women: 150 Ways to Radically Accept & Prioritize Your Mind, Body, & Soul Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Blackout: How Black America Can Make Its Second Escape from the Democrat Plantation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5100 Amazing Facts About the Negro with Complete Proof Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heavy: An American Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Things That Make White People Uncomfortable Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Red, White, and Black: Rescuing American History from Revisionists and Race Hustlers Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Black Like Me: The Definitive Griffin Estate Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Spook Who Sat by the Door, Second Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Black Boy [Seventy-fifth Anniversary Edition] Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Salvation: Black People and Love Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Survived the End of the World: Lessons from Native America on Apocalypse and Hope Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHow We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Blood of Emmett Till Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Geisha: A Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Notes from a Colored Girl
0 ratings0 reviews