Mid-Atlantic Region

American Women Writers Study Group

Fall Meeting

October 15, 2011

Alexandria and Arlington, VA

Harriet Jacobs in Alexandria

The meeting described below went well; here we are in front of 323 S Washington St., which Tim Dennee has identified as the house where Harriet Jacobs and Julie Wilbur lived, worked, and fought many of their battles with Rev. Gladwin. Thanks to Barbara Baumgartner for taking the photo. 

Our next meeting will focus on Harriet Jacobs' writing about her work with former slaves in Alexandria, Virginia, during the American Civil War.  We'll have a walking tour of sites connected with Jacobs and the Civil War in the morning in Alexandria, VA, then meet for lunch and discussion in the afternoon in Arlington, VA (a short subway ride away).  Discussion will be led by Cathy Saunders of George Mason University.   Preliminary information is below; we'll add more details and confirm times as the meeting date approaches.  In the meantime, if you have any questions, please email Cathy Saunders. 

Note:  PDF copies of the readings will be made available in the Jacobs in Alexandria Readings folder (visible only to members of the site; if you're not a member, click here to send an access request.)

PRIMARY READINGS:

Discussion will assume familiarity with, but not focus on, Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and the story of Jean Fagan Yellin's recovery of Jacobs' life and work.  If you're not already familiar with both, a good place to start is the Belknap/Harvard edition of Incidents, which includes an introduction by Yellin. 

All selections written by Harriet Jacobs and/or Louisa Jacobs in parts Seven and Eight of The Harriet Jacobs Family Papers, Volume Two , ed. Jean Fagan Yellin, (UNC/Chapel Hill, 2008) (7.1, 7.5, 7.7, 7.15, 7.17, 7.19,  7.23, 8.2, 8.15, 8.16, 8.17, 8.18, 8.19, 8.21, 8.26, 8.27, 8.29, 8.30, 8.33),  plus Julia A. Wilbur's Feb. 27, 1863 letter to Anna Barnes (7.13).  We'll focus especially on "Life Among the Contrabands" ( 7.1,also available at docsouth) and "Speech of Harriet Jacobs, quoted in 'Flag Presentation at L'Ouverture Hospital, Alexandria, VA'" (8.21).  Please also read the headnotes to Chapters 7 and 8, and, if you have time, the documents by other authors interspersed among the ones by Jacobs listed above.  (Note: if you're borrowing the Jacobs Family Papers from a library, make sure you get the CD that fits in the pocket at the back of volume 2; it has PDFs of all of the documents).  

"Convalescent Soldiers in L’Ouverture Hospital 'Express Our Views' on Burial Location," Dec. 1864, National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 92, Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, Entry 576, General Correspondence and Reports Relating to National and Post Cemeteries. Transcription available at the Friends of Freedmen's Cemetery site.  This is a petition signed by soldiers at the L'Ouverture hospital (which treated African-American soldiers) expressing their wish to be buried with other soldiers in what is now the Alexandria National Cemetery, rather than in the Freedmen's Cemetery.  It ties in with (and may have been influenced by) Harriet Jacobs' speech of a few months earlier. 

SECONDARY READINGS:

Core:

Chapters 10 & 11 of Yellin's Harriet Jacobs, a Life (Basic Civitas, 2004, 157-189). 

Kate Masur, “ 'A Rare Phenomenon of Philological Vegetation': The Word 'Contraband' and the Meanings of Emancipation in the United States."  The Journal of American History, March 2007, 1050-1084. 

Background/Further Information:

Tim Dennee, "The Contraband Hospital and Alexandria’s Freedmen’s Aid Workers."  Available from The Friends of Freedmen's Cemetery (overall site here; specific document here).  Includes description of the specific building in which Jacobs worked, and a picture which appears to include her. 

There's a video of a panel including a presentation by Jean Fagan Yellin entitled "Harriet Jacobs in the Refugee Camps," and the discussion that followed, from a Sept. 2010 conference sponsored by the the Virginia Sesquicentennial Civil War Commission, here, and a clip of just Yellin's presentation here.

SCHEDULE FOR OCTOBER 15th:

(For a map pinpointing the venues listed below, click here; they may seem widely scattered, but as you'll gather from the frequent references to Metro stations, they're linked by the D.C. subway system, which extends into Virginia.  If you're driving, it may work best to park once, in the Virginia Square area, and take the subway from there). 

9:30-11:00 a.m.: walking tour of Jacobs/African-American history/Civil War sites in Alexandria.  Meet at the King Street Metro station at 9:15 a.m.   After the walking tour, we'll take the Metro back to the Virginia Square station, arriving in time for lunch.  We'll proceed with the tour even if there's light rain; if it's pouring rain and the forecast for Sunday is better, we'll gauge interest among those who have RSVP'd in postponing until Sunday. 

12:00-1:00 p.m.: dutch-treat lunch at the FDIC Cosi location (3503 Fairfax Drive Suite 200
Arlington, VA 22226, c. 1.5 blocks from the Virginia Square Metro station). 

1:00-4:30 p.m.: discussion and brief business meeting in the second floor community meeting room at the Arlington Central Library,, 1015 N. Quincy St., Arlington, VA 22201 (a few blocks from the Virginia Square Metro station). Coffee break c. 3 p.m., courtesy of the George Mason University English Department. 

5:30 p.m.: informal (dutch-treat) group dinner at  La Tasca, 2900 Wilson Blvd. Arlington, VA 22201

Note: so far, I haven't received any expressions of interest in Friday dinner or in meeting me at Rosslyn rather than King Street, so I've taken those options off the schedule.  If you're interested in one of them, let me know. 

R.S.V.P.s:

Please send questions and RSVPs (by Oct. 3) to Cathy Saunders (csaunde1@gmu.edu).  In your RSVP, please specify (1) whether you will be joining the walking tour (and, if so, whether you will meet the group at the Rosslyn Metro at 8:30 a.m. or the King Street Metro at 9:15 a.m.; if you don't specify otherwise, we'll assume King Street) and (2) which of three group meals you will be attending: Friday dinner, Saturday lunch, Saturday dinner. 

LODGING:

You'll get a pretty good selection of  hotels convenient to our meeting site(s) by putting "Rosslyn, Virginia"  or  "Alexandria, VA" into a travel site such as Expedia.  Do pay attention to locations, especially if you'll be relying on public transit, since some sites define areas very broadly; for this reason, it may be best not to try searching on Washington, D.C., which sometimes yields hotels anywhere between Baltimore, MD and Fredericksburg, VA.  To the best of my knowledge, all of the hotels which come up on an Expedia search for "Rosslyn, VA" (including the very basic but accordingly priced Inn of Rosslyn) are habitable, fairly typical of their kind/price range, and located in areas in which I feel comfortable walking at night; I don't know Alexandria as well.  If I can work out any group deals better than the ones yielded by the travel sites, I'll post information here; as of August 16, I'm seeing a pretty good selection of options in the $85-$130/night range (and, of course, plenty at higher prices). 

For a bit more information about Alexandria, including suggested activities for any family members who might accompany you, click here . 

Note: for more information about the Mid-Atlantic American Women Writers Study Group, including a list of past meetings, please see the home page.