52 BCALA NEWS Volume 41, Issue 3
Summer 2014
work of African American artists or that focus on African American history.
J.A.: On a related note, Civil War narratives can be a little, shall we say, heavy. Is this something safe for all ages to enjoy?
K.W.: I believe that readers, starting as early as fifth grade, can enjoy the book and that teachers and professors can position Notes alongside other texts to help their students engage in a deeper exploration of topics as varied as the history of Black Philadelphians and the diverse work and social experiences of free Black women during the Civil War. Emilie is a fascinating person and I have worked hard to produce a reader friendly version of her diary and I organized the chapters in such a way that the diary entries can either be read as a part of the general story or can be read separately as a stand-alone text.
J.A.: Excellent, thank you for speaking with us. Is there anything else I haven’t covered that you would like to mention?
K.W.: I believe that there are [six] things about my book that position it as a new, unique, and valuable, text: 1. Emilie F. Davis was a free Black woman who kept a daily diary from 1863-1865 – since there are only a handful of primary sources from this time period, she is a new and unique voice that can be added to this very small canon.
2. I use her diaries as a lens to explore and analyze the lives and experiences of the Philadelphia free Black community.
3. I use her diaries as a lens to reconstruct and analyze the daily life of a young free Black woman during the U.S. Civil War including her dating patterns, her pursuit of education (she was a student at the Institute for Colored Youth), her jobs (she was both a seamstress and a domestic), and her family life.
4. I use her diaries as a lens to highlight the different ways that Civil War impacted the lives of the Philadelphia free Black community.
5. My manuscript is a departure from previous scholarship because it focuses so heavily on reconstructing the free Black community from the words and experiences. of an everyday (neither elite nor well known) free Black woman. Yet it also complements other works about the free black communities.
6. My manuscript also complements existing American and African-American high school and middle school history curriculums by providing another view of historical events from 1863-1865 from the perspective of someone who was being shaped by (rather than shaping) the political, cultural, and social mores of the time.
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