I was excited to hear a story on NPR that focused on “Information Wanted” ads; see http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/02/22/516651689/after-slavery-searching-for-loved-ones-in-wanted-ads
The story profiles an exciting new online project, “Last Seen: Finding Family After Slavery,” which is available at http://informationwanted.org/
Wonderful to see, too, that this project includes deep collaboration with Mother Bethel AME Church in Philadelphia, whose heroic efforts to preserve African American history (including Jabez Pitt Campbell’s run of the Christian Recorder) have been simply amazing.
Ideally, I’d like to have seen the story mention Heather Andrea Williams’s beautiful book Help Me to Find My People, which, to my mind offers one of the richest discussion of the ads I’ve seen.
Similarly, several of the exciting pieces of this project, ranging from seeing transcription as community action to rescuing pieces of Black print culture for active contemporary consideration, have been pioneered by the Colored Conventions Project at http://coloredconventions.org/
These other resources are most definitely worth close consideration, too.
But it is a wonderful story and an amazing project. Check it out!
I’ve blogged some about the ads--and specifically about experimenting with tracing the stories of some of the individuals who placed such ads.
If you’d like to learn more, those blog posts are available at
http://www.blackprintculture.com/bpu-blog/information-wanted-black-print-black-families-american-stories
and
http://www.blackprintculture.com/bpu-blog/more-information-wanted-african-american-histories
The story profiles an exciting new online project, “Last Seen: Finding Family After Slavery,” which is available at http://informationwanted.org/
Wonderful to see, too, that this project includes deep collaboration with Mother Bethel AME Church in Philadelphia, whose heroic efforts to preserve African American history (including Jabez Pitt Campbell’s run of the Christian Recorder) have been simply amazing.
Ideally, I’d like to have seen the story mention Heather Andrea Williams’s beautiful book Help Me to Find My People, which, to my mind offers one of the richest discussion of the ads I’ve seen.
Similarly, several of the exciting pieces of this project, ranging from seeing transcription as community action to rescuing pieces of Black print culture for active contemporary consideration, have been pioneered by the Colored Conventions Project at http://coloredconventions.org/
These other resources are most definitely worth close consideration, too.
But it is a wonderful story and an amazing project. Check it out!
I’ve blogged some about the ads--and specifically about experimenting with tracing the stories of some of the individuals who placed such ads.
If you’d like to learn more, those blog posts are available at
http://www.blackprintculture.com/bpu-blog/information-wanted-black-print-black-families-american-stories
and
http://www.blackprintculture.com/bpu-blog/more-information-wanted-african-american-histories
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