BCALA NEWS Volume 41, Issue 3
Summer 2014
49
story of one woman’s life through an intensive reading of her pocket diaries from 1863 to 1865. It is easy to overlook the life of Emilie F. Davis, a freeborn woman who worked as both a domestic and a modiste (a dressmaker), as her name is unknown; her contributions to history are undetermined; and outside of her pocket diaries the details of her life would not exist. What sets Emilie apart is that her pocket diaries are one of only a few primary sources written by a Black woman during this time period. Her ordinary has been rendered extraordinary simply because it has survived; and therein lies the dilemma and, of course, the interest. Because of Emilie’s choice to keep a personal diary—her conscious act of identity assertion—she has moved from invisibility to visibility and been added to the literature on everyday, working-class free Black American women.
J.A.: Your release also states that Davis’ writings had been ‘‘buried for over 150 years”. How were you made aware of these writings and how did you obtain them?
K.W.: The pocket diaries of Emilie F. Davis are over 150 years old and it is not known why or how her diaries (her memories) have been preserved. Perhaps they were passed from one family member to another as a way of maintaining the family’s story, or perhaps they were packed away in an heirloom box that sat for years in someone’s attic. That the diaries exist at all, that they have not disintegrated or been destroyed, and that years after Emilie penned her first entry they have ended up in my hands, is remarkable. Even though the diaries are tattered and fragile, her words have not faded and her story stands as an intact finished product. Through the process of intensively reading Emilie’s diaries—that is, by carefully examining every word that she wrote for meaning, context, and historical information—Emilie’s written lines can be interpreted in a broader context. Intensive reading of the Emilie Davis pocket diaries situates her as an active agent telling her own story; gives a shape and a form to Emilie’s personhood; and, reveals how she interacted within her environment, her circumstances, and her life experiences. As I stated earlier, I received black and white copies of the diaries in 2005. I had a friend who volunteered at the Historical Society of Philadelphia and she told me about them and made copies of them for me. I started working on them at the time and then I decided that I needed to go back to school and get my Ph.D. so that I could learn how to do historical reconstruction of a person’s life, how to write historiography, and how to do archival research. I began my doctoral program in 2006 and Emilie’s 1863 diary was transcribed and interpreted in my dissertation: ‘‘Reconstructing Memories: A Case Study of Emilie Davis, a 19th Century Freeborn Colored Woman.”
Over the years, other scholars have picked up on the work that I started with Emilie, so her diaries are currently available online on the website of the University of Pennsylvania.
J.A.: Do you know of any living descendants of Davis and did you involve them with the process of making this work or have them advise you along the way?
K.W.: No, but I was able to find her grave site at Lebanon Cemetery (now Eden) where she is buried along with her husband and at least three of her children and one of her grandchildren.
J.A.: What were some of the challenges of getting Notes from a Colored Girl published?
K.W.: The hardest part of getting my book published was trying to find ways to overcome the difficulties that I had in getting the work transcribed and annotated. My goal was to present a heavily annotated reader-friendly version while still preserving her intent and style. Transcribing the diaries was both time consuming and difficult; therefore, the process of transcription entailed many methodological decisions on my part as a researcher. I worked directly on paper copies made from the original diaries and spent a considerable amount of time learning Emilie’s writing. Many times I used a pencil to trace over her words in an effort to try and understand what she was writing.
Since Emilie took both French and German, there were times when I believed that she was
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