Beloved Sisters and Loving Friends: Letters from Rebecca Primus of Royal Oak, Maryland, and Addie Brown of Hartford,... |
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You Are Here: Home > History Books > Connecticut History > Item 187
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Beloved Sisters and Loving Friends: Letters from Rebecca Primus of Royal Oak, Maryland, and Addie Brown of Hartford,...
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by Farah Jasmine Griffin
Sales Rank: 1379147
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List Price: $26.00
$0.58
At Amazon
on 6-19-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Hard Cover with 320 pages
Published by: KnopfEdition: 1st Edition May 18, 1999
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0679451285
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0679451280
Book Dimensions:
9.5 x 6.6 x 1.2 inches
Weighs: 1.4 pounds
From Publishers Weekly
An extraordinary historical find, the letters of these two 19th-century African-American women from radically different class and educational backgrounds offer a rare glimpse into the lives of black women during Reconstruction. A professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania, Griffin adds a meticulously researched and helpful explication of the historical context of the romantic friendship between the two women. Rebecca Primus left her comfortable life amid her prominent black family in Hartford, Conn., to teach freed slaves in Maryland. Over a 14-year period, she received 150 letters from Addie Brown, a laundress and seamstress in Connecticut and New York. While Brown's letters to Primus are included, Primus's correspondence to Brown has been lost; what appears here are sixty letters she wrote to her family. Primus took her duty to educate and be a role model to the newly freed slaves seriously. Her letters carefully document Reconstruction political activity by Maryland blacks and how those she taught built the Primus Institute in her honor. Meanwhile, Brown wrote to Primus of the black community's efforts to raise funds for the New York Colored Orphan Asylum, which was burned in the 1863 draft riots. More of Brown's letters were devoted to her courtship of Primus. That both women later married men Griffin attributes to the fact that the "Victorian heterosocial and homosocial worlds were complementary." She persuasively concludes that documents such as these demand a rewriting of American history. Agent, Loretta Barrett.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
What makes this collection of letters unique is that both Brown and Primus are African American women. Primus, the daughter of a prominent black Connecticut family, went South after the Civil War to teach freedmen. Brown was a domestic servant working first in New York, then in Connecticut. Their correspondence chronicles their close friendship over 14 years and also gives the reader a first-hand account of what it meant to be a black lady in mid-19th century America. The bulk of the letters in the collection are those written by Addie to Rebecca. They provide an intimate glimpse at the life of a black domestic worker during this time and also hint at a relationship that was more than just platonic, providing a complex view of these two women. Recommended for academic libraries.ARoseanne Castellino, Arthur D. Little, Cambridge, MA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Reader Reviews
this book was very interesting in that one could explore the eIvertyday goings on of a time that we're so far removed from.I would like to have seen many more photos. You can identify much more with the characters in this way. from a historical point of view it was quite enlightening to see how black americans took a hand in their own destiny what with all the odds staked against them. we can see the format that is used even to this day. another interesting point is that there is noting new under the sun. It seems some of the everyday occurencess still prevail today under different circumstances. Though at times the letters were a little boring and written without prpoer punctuation, it helped to bring out the true personality of the writer. All in all for me it was a trip back into time.
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Beloved Sisters and Loving Friends: Letters from Rebecca Primus of Royal Oak, Maryland, and Addie Brown of Hartford,...
Available from Amazon
Price: $0.58
Updated on 6-19-2008.
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