African American Studies Commons^™

Critique! Critique! Critique! Black Labor In The Early American Book Trade, John J. Garcia

Criticism

This article pursues two lines of inquiry: first, recovering the presence of Black labor in the history of the book in colonial North America, the British Caribbean, and the early United States, with a second and complementary discussion of why critique must be foregrounded in the field formation of critical bibliography. Free and enslaved Black men and women helped make early American books possible. Their presences are to be found at the edges and vicinities of print cultural production, in roles such as papermaking, wagon driving, and forms of domestic labor that extended to the libraries and reading practices of …

On The Black Book As Durational: Noah Purifoy’S Desert Library, Paul Benzon

Criticism

What happens to a library in the desert? How does it transform as a material object under these pressures, and what might these transformations tell us about its capacity for bearing and registering history? This article considers these questions in relation to the artist Noah Purifoy’s found-object installation Library of Congress, one of approximately thirty works that make up the ten-acre space of the Noah Purifoy Desert Art Museum of Assemblage Art in Joshua Tree, California. The museum consists of a wide range of found-object sculptures, all deeply enmeshed within the space of the desert. The museum, and indeed Purifoy’s …

Margins (I Nvr Needed Acceptance From All U Outsiders), Jahi Lendor

Masters Theses

A comedian said, “American pie isn’t made out of apples, it’s made out of whatever you can get your fucking hands on.”1 With that, my work seeks to provide an honest representation of the infinite value of the everydayness and behavior of blackness ranging from trauma to beauty. Various mediums explore culture, class, collective memory, identity, and erasure. While resisting institutional and systemic boundaries between disciplines my practice actively seeks fluidity between media. The work often translates to (social) poetic-bricolage visualizations that combine gestures of assemblage, sculpture, installation, and painting. The work focuses on reflecting on how I see life …

Aa Ms 29 African American Oral History Collection, Jill Piekut Roy, Lex Lecrone

Search the Manuscript Collection (Finding Aids)

Description

The Center for the Study of Lives was established in 1988 by Robert Atkinson, professor emeritus of human development, multicultural studies, and religious studies at University of Southern Maine. Collection includes recordings and documents related to oral histories conducted by Jill Cournoyer and other students of Joseph Conforti. Interviewees are Eugene Cummings, Rev. Margaret Lawson, Ronald S. Lynch, Leola Marshall, Dana Richardson, and Gerald E. Talbot. Also includes a speech by Eugene Jackson. Interviewees speak about their lives and histories as African Americans in the United States, particularly in Portland, Maine.

Date Range:

1985-1996

Size of Collection:

0.25 Linear …

Does Political Advertising Persuade? A Quantitative Assessment Of The Effects Of Campaign Contact In The Context Of Race, Ethnicity, And Immigrant Origin In New York City Council Primary Elections From 2001 Through 2017, Laura M. Tamman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Through a quantitative analysis of the relationship between New York city council campaigns’ spending and election results between 2001 and 2017, controlling for key factors such as incumbency, I find substantial and statistically significant positive effects for radio advertising on election outcomes. I find small but significant effects for mail, and smaller sized effects for canvassing. My findings underscore the need for further study of the role of ethnic and community media outlets, such as radio, in shaping voter behavior. Moreover, I argue that the fixation of the current persuasion literature on television ads in presidential general elections misses critical …

Ella P. Stewart And The Benefits Of Owning A Neighborhood Pharmacy, Randall K. Johnson

Faculty Works

This Essay is the first to explain how and why Ella P. Stewart, who was among the first Black women to earn a doctoral degree in Pharmacy, used her status as a small business owner to protect the limited set of legal rights that were available to African-Americans in the twentieth century. It also describes how Stewart’s early personal and professional experiences informed her subsequent public service career. Additionally, this Essay highlights the various ways that Stewart expanded the real freedoms that Black Americans enjoyed by guaranteeing they received a fair share of public goods or services. It concludes by …

Myths, Museums, Mothers, And The Power Of Letitia Carson, Hailey Brink

University Honors Theses

Letitia Carson was a trailblazing Black Oregon pioneer woman whose life offered remarkable and unprecedented departures from the white pioneer status quo. Letitia's story presents numerous points at which she could be heralded for her successes; her pregnant journey across the Overland Trail, giving birth in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains, cultivating and maintaining two separate homesteads, challenging and conquering two lawsuits against administrator Greenberry Smith, her midwifery and community involvement, and lastly, becoming the first Black woman to own land in Oregon in 1862. And yet, her story fell to obscurity, only to be revived nearly a century …

The Gilded Tropics: Winslow Homer And John Singer Sargent In Florida, 1886-1917, Theodore W. Barrow

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the Floridian works of Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent in the context of tourism, race, and the environment as perceptions of the tropics in an Anglo-American context. Both artists sojourned in Florida and produced a number of watercolors and related oils that not only testify to a rapidly-expanding tourist industry to the Sunshine State, but also update the Romantic myths of the tropics with a more sober, ironic Realist take. While Homer and Sargent continue to be popular subjects for studies and exhibitions on their own, this dissertation is the first to consider how their shared …

Reinvest In Us: Reimagine The Role Of Police In The U.S., Jamil Davis

College Honors Program

In America, we must question and understand what is “law and order.” Over centuries, America developed a racialized slave-class politically and socially through power and force. Police are the foot soldiers of maintaining law and order as Slave Patrols evolved into the State Police. In my thesis, I discuss how their efforts in traffic enforcement enable a dominant class to target and enslave the oppressed class. Traffic control leads to 18 million interactions a year which is 34 people a minute. The numbers of interactions along with persistent practices regarding discrimination cause police to be a social liability. When bad …

Reproduction: The Ultimate Enemy Of Racial Passing In Harlem Renaissance Literature, Veronica Kordmany

Student Theses

"In this essay, I examine three texts that consider the repercussions of passing for Black Americans. Nella Larsen’s Passing (1929) serves as a namesake for this general idea, as two light-skinned African American women represent the divisionary approach to racial passing. In George S. Schuyler’s Black No More (1931) we see a passing Black man’s virility being tested as he enters an ‘alternate universe’, in which a scientific invention grants him full access to the wondrous white world he’d always dreamed of entering. Finally, in the middle of this textual spectrum is Angelina W. Grimké’s 1919 short story, “The Closing …

Woman Flytrap, Brianna Jo Hobson

Student Theses and Dissertations

Woman FlyTrap is a short story zine collection that explores the topic of sexual violence through the perpetrator and victim relationship with an explicit lens. Replete with cultural and entomological themes and motifs, Woman Flytrap seeks to remind survivors that we are not alone. In our bodies or in our lives. Neither in the world. There are over a million insects to every human, proving that there is strength in numbers. All five stories in the collection present different abstracts: revenge, transformation, justice, healing, body image, self-harm, mourning, etc. There is also a playlist and a section about the author. …

Dance/Movement Therapy Used As An Intervention To Heal Racial Trauma Within The Black Community: A Literature Review, Jennifer Noboise

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

The history of dance within the black community has served an important role while living through a racist and discriminatory society. Dance has been used to express anger, grief, and joy during hardships and moments of rejoicing from the black experience. African American people have endured years of trauma and abuse from oppressive systems. Research has been conducted to demonstrate that dance/movement therapy has been effective in treating those who have experienced a form of trauma since the trauma is stored in the body. Examining trauma symptoms such as anxiety, depression, and substance use, the research found these symptoms diminished …

Green, Robert - Estate Administration Record, Louis Bingamon For Robert Green, Deceased, Chancery Court Of Adams County

Historic Natchez Foundation

Account of Louis Bingamon Administrator on the estate of Robert Green, deceased. Includes a reference to the delivery of one unnamed enslaved boy.

Green, Robert - Inventory And Appraisment Of The Personal Property Of The Late Robert Green, Deceased, Chancery Court Of Adams County

Historic Natchez Foundation

Inventory of the personal property of the late Robert Green, deceased, appraised by Robert Moore, John B. Taylor and Adam Bingamon 28th April 1812. 1 Negro Boy $400 1 Negro woman + child $450 2 Horses $70 1 Table $4 1 Bedstead $4 [total] $928 Due the estate 310.74 [final total] 1238.74

Green, Robert - Power Of Attorney Of William Green Of Henry County, Kentucky, Granted To Son Joseph Green, Chancery Court Of Adams County

Historic Natchez Foundation

Power of attorney of William Green of Henry County, Kentucky, granted to son Joseph Green, in order to transact any business in which he may be concerned in Mississippi, and in particular to obtain whatever he might be entitled to as the father of Robert Green, deceased.

Bruner, Michael - Record Of Charges For Goods And Services, Michael Bruner To James Tobin, Chancery Court Of Adams County

Historic Natchez Foundation

Record of charges for goods and services, Michael Bruner to James Tobin, 1802-1810

Green, Robert - Estate Of Robert Green, Deceased, With Louis Bingamon, Admr., Chancery Court Of Adams County

Historic Natchez Foundation

Envelope for probate records of Robert Green, deceased.

Bruner, Michael - Inventory And Appraisement Of The Estate Of Michael Bruner, Chancery Court Of Adams County

Historic Natchez Foundation

A true and perfect Inventory and appriasement of all the goods and chattels and personal property or estate of Michael Bruner late of Adams County deceased as shewn to us by the administrator this 18th day of May 1814. The property of the copartnership of Bruner + Swayze was appraised at the prices opposite to each article[.] [List of stock of leather, as well as cutting and tanning tools, folows.] Also this day is shewn to us by the administrators, as not of the copartnership, the Goods and Chattels and Personal Property of the Estate of Michael Bruner deceased appraised …

Bruner, Michael - Estate Administration Record For The Estate Of Michael Bruner, Deceased, Chancery Court Of Adams County

Historic Natchez Foundation

Record of credits and expenditures on behalf of the estate, by Ebeneezer Hpwell. Includes a reference to an enslaved woman named Beck, who is recorded as being appraised but not sold.

Bruner, Michael - Estate Administration Record For The Estate Of Michael Bruner, Deceased, Chancery Court Of Adams County

Historic Natchez Foundation

Ebenezer Hpwell and Gabriel Swayze in right of his wife as executor of the estate of Michael Bruner. Record of expenditures on behalf of the estate. Also includes a note that an enslaved woman named Beck was claimed by Mrs. Bruner the mother of the deceased by a proper bill of sale.