my new book addresses how we become "city people"

My new book arrived this week as I have by now said in virtually every social media site I have - except this one. That lapse is interesting given that so much in this book pivots on how southern white male slaveholders essentially played some role, whether they intended to do as much, in the "urbanization" of freedwomen and children. Certainly antebellum Cincinnati, as shown on a map in the page above, was ground zero for the resettlement of such women and children partly because of its position on the Mississippi-Ohio river waterway. It was easy to get them out of slave territory on this important river network. These were obviously people in whom such men had invested themselves emotionally and financially.

Via letters, business and legal documents, I carefully try to tell this difficult story that brings to light new ways of thinking about "intimacy" across the races. To say "intimate" is to go beyond the obvious and think about how people connect despite obvious power differentials that show up in everyday life. I think the city space is one place we have done this across time.

As the students in this class will learn, ghettoes are something that began to appear after the Civil War as Americans were increasingly separated on the basis of race. While there were communities like the so-called "Little Africa" and "Bucktown" where people of African descent congregated more often that not, they generally lived in clusters alongside of "native" whites as well as the German and Irish immigrants who began arriving as the century matured.

It takes real work to realize that city life as we know it today, even with the kind of gentrification that finds many white Americans returning to urban areas long populated by African Americans, is a historical development. We began to see it in this country between 1830 and 1910, give or take a decade.

That emerging urban life is something that can be studied and seen as something that is still with us. It's an abstraction, historian Gunther Barth tells us, in that it's essentially a way that people with very different backgrounds learn to share the same space and learn to find a "common humanity" despite their differences. Some do as much via sports. In other words, new immigrants learned how to be American by rooting for the baseball team in their town. They learned how to speak English by reading the metropolitan newspaper. They learned to see themselves and others by laughing in vaudeville houses.  Indeed, we learn how to be "city people."

I'll keep driving this point again and again as we use Tuscaloosa and Birmingham as a laboratory. Yes, we will leave the classroom more than once to see this emerging urban phenomenon that has changed, but remains the same via landscape - many buildings in the 1830-1910 window still stand - but also in how we interact. Stay tuned.

revisiting Barth via an antebellum hairdresser

Cincinnati circa 1846, Courtesy Perry Castaneda Map Collection, University of Texas

Potter's memoir was published in 1859.

As we turn to Eliza Potter, an antebellum hairdresser of mixed race for next Wednesday's class, we should keep what we have learned about emerging urban life via Gunther Barth's important study in mind.

How does Potter adhere to Barth's shaping cities as a place where we can see a "common humanity"? Who are the "city people" she meets? What are her impressions of them? How might she have encountered the watermen in David Cecelski's study?

Are the people she meets experiencing the "civilizing process" required of urban dwellers? Is Potter experiencing this process? If so, how do we explain her willingness to "tell all" in a book that was seen as scandalous in her day?

Is she a part of the "feminine public" that found women shopping and working in department stores and attending or performing in shows in vaudeville houses before the century closed? Why or why not?

What do we make of her wanderlust, or her desire to see a "Western" world? What does she mean when she says this? What accounts for her restlessness? How do we situate her against ongoing debates favoring the frontier, or open spaces, against the crowded city. As we start thinking about the final exam, it is worth it to think about these debates and which historical actors and historians figure into them. A review of previous Powerpoints will certainly help in this regard.

In the meantime, we should come to class prepared to talk about the woman who loved to move through space, but also enjoyed her own home under her own vine and fig tree in a particular city. Which city?

pondering the nineteenth century urban space via the daily newspaper

My own research relies partly on looking at nineteenth century newspapers.

In tomorrow's class we will look at the ways in which baseball and the "metropolitan press" contributed to emerging urban life. In light of last Saturday's field trip, which was canceled, Dr. Richard Megraw will join us to lead a discussion on the former.

I will draw on my own knowledge of the sport to make connections to the metropolitan press. To be sure, I will try to approach the lecture with new eyes. Indeed, I was a newspaper journalist for the better part of a decade, having started as a high school intern before working as a staff copy editor, reporter and assistant editor for three newspapers once owned by Knight-Ridder (now The McClatchy Company), a large chain once based in my hometown. By 2000, I could see the decline of daily newspapers with the public's growing attention to the Internet and left the company. After working as a freelancer for a bit, I applied to graduate school. Eleven years later, I'm teaching and have more time to tell a story as an academic.  I sometimes miss the adrenaline rush from running after after a good story. I miss, too, having a copy editor (So does my husband who once jokingly said - I hope - of one of my academic typescripts, "If I never see this again, it won't be too soon").

During my newspaper days, I had no knowledge of how newspapers contributed to nineteenth century urban dwellers sharing a "common humanity," as Gunther Barth writes. On the basis of my own research on the migration of freedwomen and children to Ohio, it certainly appears true. In the pages of archival newspapers I've seen hints of a rapidly changing world. Take for example,  Jourdan Anderson, a former enslaved man and Dayton, OH-resident whose 1865 letter to his former master was printed in the New York Daily Tribune. Apparently his master wanted him to return to the South after the Civil War and work for him. Anderson worried about the impact of such a move on his two daughters Milly and Jane. He wanted them to be safe from sexual abuse. Anderson also wanted back-pay from his earlier days of working as an enslaved person.

I recall, too, reading about Cincinnati white man of means who published a notice alerting area merchants that he'd no longer be paying the bills of his wayward wife; the African American domestic worker who avoided conversation with the abolitionists  knocking on the door of the house in which she worked, lest her employer hear her doing as much(these visitors were in search of signatures for their cause; she was trying to keep her job); and numerous newspaper advertisements for school books, which evidently unveiled the growing access to education some people had by mid-century. It is a topic that the students and I have discussed. I've seen, too, many advertisements from people in search of property in an increasingly crowded Cincinnati.


In the years leading to the Civil War, and prior to the formation of ghettoes, African Americans were by and large dispersed throughout Cincinnati’s white residents, among them, Irish and German immigrants fleeing a famine and a failed revolution in their homelands, respectively. Between 1840 and 1850, Cincinnati’s population increased from 46,338 to 115,434. It was third behind only New York and New Orleans in volume of commerce.

How do such individuals from varying backgrounds find the "common humanity" via the metropolitan press?  How do issues like entertainment, leisure and language figure into this conversation from the perspective of readers? How does honesty figure in from the perspective of newspaper businesssmen? What practical purposes did newspapers serve? The students should be curious about the answers to these questions and  come to class prepared to have a productive conversation on these and other issues.

"There was yet another room that had lots of plants and windows and was in the shape of an octagon"

The students recently visited the Jemison-Van de Graff Mansion.

This week, the students pondered what Eliza Potter, an antebellum  mixed race woman, might have heard or seen if she had visited the Jemison-Van de Graaff Mansion here in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, The mansion was built between 1859-1862 by Robert Jemison Jr., who held many titles, among them bridge builder and mill operator. He also owned more than 500 enslaved people. Interestingly, he was against secession and reportedly allowed his bondsmen and women to learn how to read and use the indoor toilet in this mansion which was his “town home” (his plantations were located in the more rural parts of Tuscaloosa). The Italianate-styled mansion is  located at 1305 Greensboro Ave in Tuscaloosa.

What might have the opinionated Potter felt or said upon entering this structure? Eight students in this class provided answers after completing a tour of the facility this past Wednesday. All of their responses were fill-in-the-blank sentences. Some of the sentences required them to make something up. No one went out on any imaginative limbs. They generally stuck to factual information about the building and the people who resided there. Their answers have been woven together below:

Hear Potter's life in Cincinnati.

My name is Eliza Potter and I was born in 1820 in New York. I have traveled to many places including France and Canada. My uncle told me not to visit Alabama, but I decided to do so anyway. I traveled by railway to Tuscaloosa where I had a chance to visit the Jemison Mansion. Let me tell you about this place. Where do I begin?  I most remember a particular room that had a Belvedere that was used for heating and cooling purposes. There was also a room that had vibrant carpeting and bright color walls. There was yet another room that had lots of plants and windows and was in the shape of an octagon. These rooms and the house brought back memories of my travels to many places including Saratoga and New Orleans, places where I saw many fine buildings. I also encountered many interesting people and observed many expensive things that made me feel very uneasy. Imagine arriving here at Jemison encountering something similar.  While visiting here I also saw priceless pieces of furniture that had been brought here from abroad via steamboat. I also observed fine craftsmanship and the way these things displayed Jemison’s wealth. I also saw Mrs. Jemison in her study managing the household. She also received visitors including society women. I also saw slaves tending to the conservatory and later heard someone playing piano as the breeze traveled through the house as night. All of these things help me see just how complicated the human condition is. Oh, lest I forget I also wanted to share that I met the ancestors of Michael, Evelyn, Aaron, Ryan, Regan, Lauren, A.J. and Anne Marie, eight students taking “The Nineteenth Century City” at the University of Alabama in 2013. They told me these young people will someday study buildings in the area. Those buildings are Woods Hall, Bryce Hospital, Hunter Chapel, Manly Hall, the campus Guard House and President’s Mansion. These are structures to which I may travel and learn more about this area. For now, I must return to Cincinnati to my own home under my own vine and own fig tree.

If you wish to hear an audio version of Potter’s memoir, which was written in 1859, click here. As an aside, in less than two weeks, the students will turn in short essays about Tuscaloosa structures that existed during the nineteenth century with the exception of one, which is a new structure for a church that existed in the area during this century. Their findings will figure into a short movie that will be presented at 4 pm December 4, 2013 in Room 118 tenHoor, University of Alabama. Katherine Richter, Executive Director of the Tuscaloosa County Historical Society will speak. For now, we want to thank Ian Crawford, who runs the Jemison House, for conducting our recent tour. His assistance (as well as that of Tim, another employee) is greatly appreciated. If you would like to visit the mansion, it is opened Monday through Friday from 10 am to 5 pm. Call 205-758-2906 for more information.

"she, like many city people, is simply trying to find herself"

Hotel view: Old slavery-freedom border.

Call it seredipity, but I was on my way to the Historians Against Slavery conference in Cincinnati while the students in this course were studying the life of Eliza Potter. Born in New York, Potter, an antebellum woman of mixed race, moved to Cincinnati in 1840. She is best known for traveling to many places including London and Paris. The assigned readings for three weeks is her memoir, A Hairdresser’s Experience in the High Life, which reveals many details about her experiences with the upper class in many places including Cincinnati, where, as she tells us, she lived in her own house under her “own vine and own fig tree.”  Given her cosmopolitan worldview,  I asked the students whether they thought she was one of the “city people” that Gunther Barth describes. All of the students generally said she was though some were able to see the degree to which she was an outsider as a woman of color. Said A.J., “She is always kind of sneaking around to see what’s going on around her, almost as if she wants to know what the high life is like without being able to be a part of it.” Added Lauren, “Barth talks about city people’s search for identity in the new city structure and Potter’s eclectic experiences  is her way of trying to find herself as a mulatto woman in a society that didn’t really have a place for her.” Lewis wrote, “She recounts endless stories that were shared by people not because she was their friend, but because she was their hairdresser.” David added, “She travels around, but she is only a hairdresser.” Anne Marie maintained, “She seems to be easily bored. Being in a city as opposed to a rural area is able to hold her attention far longer.” Aaron offered, “One aspect of Eliza that I thought made her appear very ‘modern’ as Barth describes it was her ability to be critical of those around her…White women’s vanity is something with which she has issues.” Evelyn stated, “She is so ‘forward-thinking’ even though she is a mulatto woman. She is very independent and strongly opinionated. She has no problem telling a wealthy, white child that she will not call him ‘master.’” Bryon said, “Although her situation is very unusual at the time, she, like many  in the city, is simply trying to find herself. She describes the joys of walking around beautiful promenades and gardens in cities. She is very self-conscious of her appearance.” Finally, Michael said, “She is a city person like the people in Barth’s book who are constantly moving.” In their ongoing attention to city life during the nineteenth century as it existed in many places including Tuscaloosa, the students will visit the Jemison Mansion next week. I am very interested in the ways in which they might see this mansion in the manner Eliza Potter might have if she ever had a chance to visit this structure. She tells us pointedly that she wanted to visit Alabama, but her uncle advised her not to do as much. But what if she had? What if she had been invited to style the hair of a white woman who resided in the Jemison Mansion? What would she have seen and found worthy of sharing with others? As an aside, I return to Alabama greatly inspired by efforts to spread the awareness about human trafficking and the ways in which we can make linkages between it and slavery in the United States. Given Potter's low opinion of slavery as it existed in her lifetime, I suspect were she living, she would be inspired, too.

Adrian College students address human trafficking.