Hopes and Expectations: The Origins of the Black Middle Class in Hartford
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.36 (937 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 143846164X |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 270 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2013-06-15 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Through extensive archival research, Barbara J. The letters describe their daily lives and touch on race, class, gender, religion, and politics, offering rare entry into individual black lives at that time. It is a story of individuals, family, and community, of expectation and disappointment, loss and endurance, change and continuity.. Living on Maryland's eastern shore, schoolteacher Rebecca Primus sent "home weeklies" to her parents in Hartford and also corresponded with friend Addie Brown, a domestic worker back home. One of the many paradoxes Beeching uncovers is that just as the Civil War was tearing the nation apart, a recognizable black middle class was emerging in Hartford. Based on a treasure trove of more than two hundred personal letters written in the 1860s, Hopes and Expectations te
Now retired, Barbara J. Beeching spent many years working in public relations in Connecticut and received a PhD in US history in 2010.
"This is a powerful book and a truly important story. Beeching provides a richly detailed survey of life in Connecticut, the political and racial climates at various historical moments, and the web of intraracial and interracial networks that informed the Primus family experiences. Multifaceted and thoroughly absorbing, Hopes and Expectations will reintroduce people to a New England that they thought they knew." -- Lois Brown, author of Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins: Black Daughter of the Revolution