... was a populist product that commodified the art of excerpting, condensing, and recasting easi... more ... was a populist product that commodified the art of excerpting, condensing, and recasting easily assimilated ... minstrelsy studies: Hans Nathan's pioneering Dan Emmett and the Rise of Early Negro Minstrelsy ... of tem-perance and anti-slavery, singing the latter with a spirit as well ...
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History, 2020
Emancipation celebrations in the United States have been important and complicated moments of cel... more Emancipation celebrations in the United States have been important and complicated moments of celebration and commemoration. Since the end of the slave trade in 1808 and the enactment of the British Emancipation Act in 1834 people of African descent throughout the Atlantic world have gathered, often in festival form, to remember and use that memory for more promising futures. In the United States, emancipation celebrations exploded after the Civil War, when each local community celebrated their own experience of emancipation. For many, the commemoration took the form of a somber church service, Watch Night, which recognized the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. Juneteenth, which recognized the end of slavery in Texas on June 19, 1865, became one of the most vibrant and longstanding celebrations. Although many emancipation celebrations disappeared after World War I, Juneteenth remained a celebration in most of Texas through the late 1960s when it disappeare...
As is the case in every such project, this thesis greatly benefitted from the aid of others. My a... more As is the case in every such project, this thesis greatly benefitted from the aid of others. My advisor, Leisa Meyer, carefully read and comm ented on this paper in its various forms and has helped shape this paper on many levels. Her guidance has introduced me to new historical methods, refined my writing, and nurtured my ideas. The other two members of m y committee, Ron Schecter and Kim Phillips have also been enormously helpful. Both have show n me new w ays of looking at my topic and have helped me to shape this thesis as som ething more than a sim ple reconstruction of black w om en's lost history. If I have suceeded in incorporating these w om en into their historical context, it is largely due to their input. Thank You. In my wonderful year at William and Mary, I was fortunate enough to interact w ith faculty and collegues w ho helped expand m y mind. Leisa
IN 1783, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts pronounced Quock Walker-and all other slaves... more IN 1783, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts pronounced Quock Walker-and all other slaves in the commonwealth-free. In that stroke, the court transformed Massachusetts from the first colony to legalize slavery into the first state immediately to deny its citizenry ...
During the Revolutionary era, two slaves, one named Leander from South Carolina and another named... more During the Revolutionary era, two slaves, one named Leander from South Carolina and another named Caesar from Massachusetts, legally verified their new free status after long battles to become free. These two cases expose some similarities in the slave systems of ...
rising in value as European and American investors as well as states themselves began buying fede... more rising in value as European and American investors as well as states themselves began buying federal securities. New York and Pennsylvania both became net creditors of the Confederation government, while other states assumed the interest payments on federal securities owned by their citizens. The impost whether under the Constitution or soon to be enacted (I would argue) under the Confederation would bring in the necessary revenue, especially when international trade burgeoned in the 1790s. Federalists, in fact, argued that, except for emergencies, the tariff revenue would be more than sufficient to finance the federal government. Johnson stresses the importance of the tax power as the first listed power in the Constitution. At least as important, however, are the very first three words-"We, the People"-which enunciated a complete change from a confederation to a consolidated national government-something a small group of nationalists had desired since 1776-well before any "righteous anger" existed because of the states' failure to pay their requisitions or adopt a federal impost. Most Americans were not angry with their states. They admired their states for trying to combat the inevitable postwar depression that hit America in the mid-1780s. If there was any animosity by the people toward government, Americans felt contempt for and suspicion of Congress. Their residual fear of the far-off imperial government in London carried over to their loathing for a new, stronger central government resident in Philadelphia or New York City with potentially even stronger-perhaps despotic-powers over the states and their citizens. It is not that Johnson is wrong in highlighting the tax issue-it was extremely important. It is that everything else in his judgment was unnecessary-the change to a consolidated government, the need for a bill of rights, the need for Congress to regulate commerce, the separation of the three branches of government. The Constitution was not a unilateral tax document. It revolutionized the entire federal government.
torical detail, as it highlights more than ever Dickinson’s profound difference in a context of l... more torical detail, as it highlights more than ever Dickinson’s profound difference in a context of likeness, seems to increase rather than diminish the mystery of Dickinson. Petrino’s explanation for Dickinson’s difference rests in the politics of the famous decision not to print. In a chapter devoted to the rigid publishing constraints for women, Petrino demonstrates why discretion was demanded when women did challenge convention. Dickinson’s private forms of publishing, likened to the tradition of portfolio writing, are seen as a radical gesture. Because she would not have her artistic conception violated, she would not publish; thus, she turned another convention, that of women’s inherent privacy, to her own unconventional ends. This is a familiar argument inDickinson studies. Although it may explain how Dickinson got to keep her ‘‘Snow,’’ it shies away from explaining what and why this Snow might be. Petrino’smethodology is thematic. She readsDickinson’s poems in terms of what they say, comparing Dickinson’s ideas with those of her female contemporaries. And yet when we see her poems contrasted with those of others, the most glaring difference resides in their language. Nobody wrote like Dickinson—ever. Her challenge to convention is as verbal as it is ideological, and the two cannot really be separated. To bypass the words may help Petrino recuperate other writers who lack such ‘‘linguistic superiority’’ (207), but the omission leaves the mystery intact: if Dickinson’s ‘‘life story is in many respects a classic example of the nineteenth-century American woman writer,’’ how do we account for the ‘‘poetry that transcends her age and ours’’ (210)?
Emancipation celebrations in the United States have been important and complicated moments of cel... more Emancipation celebrations in the United States have been important and complicated moments of celebration and commemoration. Since the end of the slave trade in 1808 and the enactment of the British Emancipation Act in 1834 people of African descent throughout the Atlantic world have gathered, often in festival form, to remember and use that memory for more promising futures. In the United States, emancipation celebrations exploded after the Civil War, when each local community celebrated their own experience of emancipation. For many, the commemoration took the form of a somber church service, Watch Night, which recognized the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. Juneteenth, which recognized the end of slavery in Texas on June 19, 1865, became one of the most vibrant and longstanding celebrations. Although many emancipation celebrations disappeared after World War I, Juneteenth remained a celebration in most of Texas through the late 1960s when it disappeare...
Behind the Burnt Cork Mask: Early Blackface Minstrelsy and Antebellum American Popular Culture. B... more Behind the Burnt Cork Mask: Early Blackface Minstrelsy and Antebellum American Popular Culture. By William J. Mahar. Music in American Life. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999. Pp. xix, 444. Tables, appendix, musical examples, playbills. Cloth, $60.00; paper, $24.95.) According to William Mahar, the "burnt cork mask" worn by performers of antebellum minstrelsy has quite literally and figuratively obscured minstrelsy's varied and complex functions to contemporaries and historians alike. From Fredrick Douglass's contemporary observations to Eric Lott's recent influential study, analysts have focused almost exclusively on the racial meaning of white performers wearing black masks. William Mahar seeks to recover the complexity of antebellum minstrelsy by moving beyond a strict racial focus in Behind the Burnt Cork Mask. Mahar's detailed and comprehensive examination of a very wide range of minstrel performances includes the playbills, printed minstrel ...
Tyrannicide uses a captivating narrative to unpack the experiences of slavery and slave law in So... more Tyrannicide uses a captivating narrative to unpack the experiences of slavery and slave law in South Carolina and Massachusetts during the Revolutionary Era. In 1779, during the midst of the American Revolution, thirtyfour South Carolina slaves escaped aboard a British privateer and survived several naval battles until the Massachusetts brig Tyrannicide led them to Massachusetts. Over the next four years, the slaves became the center of a legal dispute between the two states. The case affected slave law and highlighted the profound differences between how the "terrible institution" was practiced in the North and the South, in ways that would foreground issues eventually leading to the Civil War. Emily Blanck uses the Tyrannicide affair and the slaves involved as a lens through which to view contrasting slaveholding cultures and ideas of African American democracy. Blanck's examination of the debate analyses crucial questions: How could the colonies unify when they view...
Slavery in New Jersey offers scholars a rich, untapped source for new scholarship about the meani... more Slavery in New Jersey offers scholars a rich, untapped source for new scholarship about the meaning of freedom and liberty from the Founding Era to the Civil War. Kean University recently sponsored a panel discussion featuring three scholars and their research into the story of slavery in the Garden State. This opening essay offers a summation of the Kean panel's findings, and offers encouragement to other scholars of slavery in the state.
... was a populist product that commodified the art of excerpting, condensing, and recasting easi... more ... was a populist product that commodified the art of excerpting, condensing, and recasting easily assimilated ... minstrelsy studies: Hans Nathan's pioneering Dan Emmett and the Rise of Early Negro Minstrelsy ... of tem-perance and anti-slavery, singing the latter with a spirit as well ...
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History, 2020
Emancipation celebrations in the United States have been important and complicated moments of cel... more Emancipation celebrations in the United States have been important and complicated moments of celebration and commemoration. Since the end of the slave trade in 1808 and the enactment of the British Emancipation Act in 1834 people of African descent throughout the Atlantic world have gathered, often in festival form, to remember and use that memory for more promising futures. In the United States, emancipation celebrations exploded after the Civil War, when each local community celebrated their own experience of emancipation. For many, the commemoration took the form of a somber church service, Watch Night, which recognized the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. Juneteenth, which recognized the end of slavery in Texas on June 19, 1865, became one of the most vibrant and longstanding celebrations. Although many emancipation celebrations disappeared after World War I, Juneteenth remained a celebration in most of Texas through the late 1960s when it disappeare...
As is the case in every such project, this thesis greatly benefitted from the aid of others. My a... more As is the case in every such project, this thesis greatly benefitted from the aid of others. My advisor, Leisa Meyer, carefully read and comm ented on this paper in its various forms and has helped shape this paper on many levels. Her guidance has introduced me to new historical methods, refined my writing, and nurtured my ideas. The other two members of m y committee, Ron Schecter and Kim Phillips have also been enormously helpful. Both have show n me new w ays of looking at my topic and have helped me to shape this thesis as som ething more than a sim ple reconstruction of black w om en's lost history. If I have suceeded in incorporating these w om en into their historical context, it is largely due to their input. Thank You. In my wonderful year at William and Mary, I was fortunate enough to interact w ith faculty and collegues w ho helped expand m y mind. Leisa
IN 1783, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts pronounced Quock Walker-and all other slaves... more IN 1783, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts pronounced Quock Walker-and all other slaves in the commonwealth-free. In that stroke, the court transformed Massachusetts from the first colony to legalize slavery into the first state immediately to deny its citizenry ...
During the Revolutionary era, two slaves, one named Leander from South Carolina and another named... more During the Revolutionary era, two slaves, one named Leander from South Carolina and another named Caesar from Massachusetts, legally verified their new free status after long battles to become free. These two cases expose some similarities in the slave systems of ...
rising in value as European and American investors as well as states themselves began buying fede... more rising in value as European and American investors as well as states themselves began buying federal securities. New York and Pennsylvania both became net creditors of the Confederation government, while other states assumed the interest payments on federal securities owned by their citizens. The impost whether under the Constitution or soon to be enacted (I would argue) under the Confederation would bring in the necessary revenue, especially when international trade burgeoned in the 1790s. Federalists, in fact, argued that, except for emergencies, the tariff revenue would be more than sufficient to finance the federal government. Johnson stresses the importance of the tax power as the first listed power in the Constitution. At least as important, however, are the very first three words-"We, the People"-which enunciated a complete change from a confederation to a consolidated national government-something a small group of nationalists had desired since 1776-well before any "righteous anger" existed because of the states' failure to pay their requisitions or adopt a federal impost. Most Americans were not angry with their states. They admired their states for trying to combat the inevitable postwar depression that hit America in the mid-1780s. If there was any animosity by the people toward government, Americans felt contempt for and suspicion of Congress. Their residual fear of the far-off imperial government in London carried over to their loathing for a new, stronger central government resident in Philadelphia or New York City with potentially even stronger-perhaps despotic-powers over the states and their citizens. It is not that Johnson is wrong in highlighting the tax issue-it was extremely important. It is that everything else in his judgment was unnecessary-the change to a consolidated government, the need for a bill of rights, the need for Congress to regulate commerce, the separation of the three branches of government. The Constitution was not a unilateral tax document. It revolutionized the entire federal government.
torical detail, as it highlights more than ever Dickinson’s profound difference in a context of l... more torical detail, as it highlights more than ever Dickinson’s profound difference in a context of likeness, seems to increase rather than diminish the mystery of Dickinson. Petrino’s explanation for Dickinson’s difference rests in the politics of the famous decision not to print. In a chapter devoted to the rigid publishing constraints for women, Petrino demonstrates why discretion was demanded when women did challenge convention. Dickinson’s private forms of publishing, likened to the tradition of portfolio writing, are seen as a radical gesture. Because she would not have her artistic conception violated, she would not publish; thus, she turned another convention, that of women’s inherent privacy, to her own unconventional ends. This is a familiar argument inDickinson studies. Although it may explain how Dickinson got to keep her ‘‘Snow,’’ it shies away from explaining what and why this Snow might be. Petrino’smethodology is thematic. She readsDickinson’s poems in terms of what they say, comparing Dickinson’s ideas with those of her female contemporaries. And yet when we see her poems contrasted with those of others, the most glaring difference resides in their language. Nobody wrote like Dickinson—ever. Her challenge to convention is as verbal as it is ideological, and the two cannot really be separated. To bypass the words may help Petrino recuperate other writers who lack such ‘‘linguistic superiority’’ (207), but the omission leaves the mystery intact: if Dickinson’s ‘‘life story is in many respects a classic example of the nineteenth-century American woman writer,’’ how do we account for the ‘‘poetry that transcends her age and ours’’ (210)?
Emancipation celebrations in the United States have been important and complicated moments of cel... more Emancipation celebrations in the United States have been important and complicated moments of celebration and commemoration. Since the end of the slave trade in 1808 and the enactment of the British Emancipation Act in 1834 people of African descent throughout the Atlantic world have gathered, often in festival form, to remember and use that memory for more promising futures. In the United States, emancipation celebrations exploded after the Civil War, when each local community celebrated their own experience of emancipation. For many, the commemoration took the form of a somber church service, Watch Night, which recognized the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. Juneteenth, which recognized the end of slavery in Texas on June 19, 1865, became one of the most vibrant and longstanding celebrations. Although many emancipation celebrations disappeared after World War I, Juneteenth remained a celebration in most of Texas through the late 1960s when it disappeare...
Behind the Burnt Cork Mask: Early Blackface Minstrelsy and Antebellum American Popular Culture. B... more Behind the Burnt Cork Mask: Early Blackface Minstrelsy and Antebellum American Popular Culture. By William J. Mahar. Music in American Life. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999. Pp. xix, 444. Tables, appendix, musical examples, playbills. Cloth, $60.00; paper, $24.95.) According to William Mahar, the "burnt cork mask" worn by performers of antebellum minstrelsy has quite literally and figuratively obscured minstrelsy's varied and complex functions to contemporaries and historians alike. From Fredrick Douglass's contemporary observations to Eric Lott's recent influential study, analysts have focused almost exclusively on the racial meaning of white performers wearing black masks. William Mahar seeks to recover the complexity of antebellum minstrelsy by moving beyond a strict racial focus in Behind the Burnt Cork Mask. Mahar's detailed and comprehensive examination of a very wide range of minstrel performances includes the playbills, printed minstrel ...
Tyrannicide uses a captivating narrative to unpack the experiences of slavery and slave law in So... more Tyrannicide uses a captivating narrative to unpack the experiences of slavery and slave law in South Carolina and Massachusetts during the Revolutionary Era. In 1779, during the midst of the American Revolution, thirtyfour South Carolina slaves escaped aboard a British privateer and survived several naval battles until the Massachusetts brig Tyrannicide led them to Massachusetts. Over the next four years, the slaves became the center of a legal dispute between the two states. The case affected slave law and highlighted the profound differences between how the "terrible institution" was practiced in the North and the South, in ways that would foreground issues eventually leading to the Civil War. Emily Blanck uses the Tyrannicide affair and the slaves involved as a lens through which to view contrasting slaveholding cultures and ideas of African American democracy. Blanck's examination of the debate analyses crucial questions: How could the colonies unify when they view...
Slavery in New Jersey offers scholars a rich, untapped source for new scholarship about the meani... more Slavery in New Jersey offers scholars a rich, untapped source for new scholarship about the meaning of freedom and liberty from the Founding Era to the Civil War. Kean University recently sponsored a panel discussion featuring three scholars and their research into the story of slavery in the Garden State. This opening essay offers a summation of the Kean panel's findings, and offers encouragement to other scholars of slavery in the state.
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Papers by Emily Blanck