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