Book
All that she carried : the journey of Ashley's sack, a black family keepsake
Published 2021 by Random House, New York
ISBN 9781984854995
Bib Id 2439552
Description 336 pges ; 21 cm
More Details
Leader
04613cam a2200649 i 4500
LCCN
2020-051688
ISBN
9781984854995 (hardcover) $28.00
1984854992
Call #
306.362 M
Title
All that she carried : the journey of Ashley's sack, a black family keepsake
Varying Form of Title
Journey of Ashley's sack, a black family keepsake
Publication Information
2021 by Random House, New York :
Description
336 pges ; 21 cm
Note
Includes index.
Summary
"Sitting in the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture is a rough cotton bag, called "Ashley's Sack," embroidered with just a handful of words that evoke a sweeping family story of loss and of love passed down through generations. In 1850s South Carolina, just before nine-year-old Ashley was sold, her mother, Rose, gave her a sack filled with just a few things as a token of her love. Decades later, Ashley's granddaughter, Ruth, embroidered this history on the bag--including Rose's message that "It be filled with my Love always." Historian Tiya Miles carefully follows faint archival traces back to Charleston to find Rose in the kitchen where she may have packed the sack for Ashley. From Rose's last resourceful gift to her daughter, Miles then follows the paths their lives and the lives of so many like them took to write a unique, innovative history of the lived experience of slavery in the United States. The contents of the sack--a tattered dress, handfuls of pecans, a braid of hair, "my Love always"--speak volumes and open up a window on Rose and Ashley's world. As she follows Ashley's journey, Miles metaphorically "unpacks" the sack, deepening its emotional resonance and revealing the meanings and significance of everything it contained. These include the story of enslaved labor's role in the cotton trade and apparel crafts and the rougher cotton "negro cloth" that was left for enslaved people to wear; the role of the pecan in nutrition, survival, and southern culture; the significance of hair to Black women and of locks of hair in the nineteenth century; and an exploration of Black mothers' love and the place of emotion in history"--
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