Notes from a Colored Girl: The Civil War Pocket Diaries of Emilie Frances Davis

Notes

notes Editorial Methods 1. Diaries of Emilie Davis http://www.libraries.psu.edu/psul/digital/davisdiaries.html (Accessed 7 January 2013); “Memorable Days: The Emilie Davis Diaries.” Villanova University . http://davisdiaries.villanova.edu (Accessed 20 July 2013). 2. Sterling, Speak Out in Thundertones, 61–65; Diaries, February 17, 1863. 3. Du Bois The Philadelphia Negro 4. Diaries, January 2, 1863. 5. Diaries, January 3 and July 13, 1863; and Miscellaneous 1863. Introduction: A World Discovered 1. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich writes that the process of moving from invisibility to visibility occurs when women’s work moves from the household into the marketplace. I submit that the same process takes place when a nineteenth-century working-class free black woman makes a conscious decision to record and preserve her experiences, particularly since “far more women were accustomed to using needles than pens.” “Of Pens and Needles,” 202, 205. 2. Motz, “Folk Expression of Time and Place,” 138. 3. Nash, Forging Freedom, 251. 4. Decosta-Willis, Memphis Diary, 9. 5. In 1997, Education World noted that over fifty-five books had been published about the Civil War, an average of one a day since the War ended in 1865. Education World. 6. For more on immortality, Afrocentric womanism, and the focus on preservation, see Temple, “The cosmology of Afrocentric womanism.” 7. This idea that language was a cultural artifact and had social value was first expanded on by Pierre Bourdieu, who argued that the greater amounts of linguistic capital a person possessed then the more power they had within their society, because linguistic fluency translated into social advantage. Bonfiglio, Race, 12. 8. Lorde, “Poetry Is Not a Luxury,” 38. 9. Hull, “Researching Alice Dunbar-Nelson, 318; Marwick, “Two Approaches to Historical Study, 9; McCarthy, “A Pocketful of Days,” 277n5. 10. Panniers were undergarments that were used to extend the width of the skirts at the side while leaving the front and back flat. 11. Ulrich, “The Ways of Her Household,” 53. 12. McCarthy, “A Pocketful of Days,” 283–84. 230 Notes to Pages 6–16 13. In addition to providing instructions on how to keep a daily record, Cobbett also gives advice for the lover, the husband and father, the youth, and the citizen. McCarthy, “A Pocketful of Days,” 87. 14. Prior to 1863, lead pencils were manufactured exclusively in Germany. It was not until 1865, with the adoption of a U.S. tariff and the creation of automatic machinery, that pencils were manufactured in America. “History of the Lead Pencil”; beginning in 1850, fountain pens—which consisted of iridium-tipped gold nibs, hard rubber, and free-flowing ink—were widely produced and distributed throughout the U.S. 15. Sterling, We Are Your Sisters, 237. 16. “Peter Wood on Inheriting Mother’s Slave Status.”; Given that this law that shifted inherited status from the father to the mother ran counter to the English law, one wonders how many mixed race children were being born every year that would necessitate this type of change. Giddings, When and Where I Enter, 33–35; Hine, African-American History, 79. 17. Sterling, We Are Your Sisters, 242–43. 18. Diaries, January 1, 1863. 19. Hershberg et al., “The ‘Journey to Work,’” 142; Weigley, “The Border City,” 379, 381. 20. Du Bois, Philadelphia Negro, 58–59. 21. Salvatore, We All Got History, 19; R. Lane, William Dorsey’s Philadelphia, 72. 22. The information about Emilie and her family has been compiled from the 1850 and 1860 U.S. Census, the McElroy’s Philadelphia Directory for 1860, and Emilie’s 1863–65 pocket diaries. 23. Connolly, “The Disappearance,” 33. 24. Diaries, January 22, 1863, May 6, 1863, May 9, 1863; Gambler, The Female Economy, 11–13. 25. Du Bois, Philadelphia Negro, 6–7. 26. D. Newman, “Black Women,” 289. 27. D. C. Hine, Hine Sight, 7. 28. Lapsansky, “Friends, Wives, and Striving,” 5–6, 11–13. 29. Lindenmeyer, Ordinary Women, xvii–xix. 30. Lorde, “Poetry Is Not a Luxury,” 38. 31. King, “Out of Bounds, 128; Berlin, Slaves without Masters, xiii. 32. Quoted in Gilbert, Narrative, i–xxvi. 33. Stevenson, Journals; Hull, Give Us Each Day; Decosta-Willis, Memphis Diary. 34. Quoted in Gutman, Black Family, 36. 35. In “Rape and the Inner Lives of Black Women,” D. Hine uses the phrase “culture of dissemblance” to describe how enslaved women collectively created and maintained alternate self-images that helped them to function and bear the weight of racial and sexual oppression in mainstream America. I suggest that this type...