Slave in a Box

Slave in a Box PDF Author: M. M. Manring
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 9780813918112
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
The figure of the mammy occupies a central place in the lore of the Old South and has long been used to ullustrate distinct social phenomena, including racial oppression and class identity. In the early twentieth century, the mammy became immortalized as Aunt Jemima, the spokesperson for a line of ready-mixed breakfast products. Although Aunt Jemima has undergone many makeovers over the years, she apparently has not lost her commercial appeal; her face graces more than forty food products nationwide and she still resonates in some form for millions of Americans. In Slave in a Box, M.M. Manring addresses the vexing question of why the troubling figure of Aunt Jemima has endured in American culture. Manring traces the evolution of the mammy from her roots in the Old South slave reality and mythology, through reinterpretations during Reconstruction and in minstrel shows and turn-of-the-century advertisements, to Aunt Jemima's symbolic role in the Civil Rights movement and her present incarnation as a "working grandmother." We learn how advertising entrepreneur James Webb Young, aided by celebrated illustrator N.C. Wyeth, skillfully tapped into nostalgic 1920s perceptions of the South as a culture of white leisure and black labor. Aunt Jemima's ready-mixed products offered middle-class housewives the next best thing to a black servant: a "slave in a box" that conjured up romantic images of not only the food but also the social hierarchy of the plantation South. The initial success of the Aunt Jemima brand, Manring reveals, was based on a variety of factors, from lingering attempts to reunite the country after the Civil War to marketing strategies around World War I. Her continued appeal in the late twentieth century is a more complex and disturbing phenomenon we may never fully understand. Manring suggests that by documenting Aunt Jemima's fascinating evolution, however, we can learn important lessons about our collective cultural identity.

Slave in a Box

Slave in a Box PDF Author: M. M. Manring
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 9780813918112
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 228

Get Book Here

Book Description
The figure of the mammy occupies a central place in the lore of the Old South and has long been used to ullustrate distinct social phenomena, including racial oppression and class identity. In the early twentieth century, the mammy became immortalized as Aunt Jemima, the spokesperson for a line of ready-mixed breakfast products. Although Aunt Jemima has undergone many makeovers over the years, she apparently has not lost her commercial appeal; her face graces more than forty food products nationwide and she still resonates in some form for millions of Americans. In Slave in a Box, M.M. Manring addresses the vexing question of why the troubling figure of Aunt Jemima has endured in American culture. Manring traces the evolution of the mammy from her roots in the Old South slave reality and mythology, through reinterpretations during Reconstruction and in minstrel shows and turn-of-the-century advertisements, to Aunt Jemima's symbolic role in the Civil Rights movement and her present incarnation as a "working grandmother." We learn how advertising entrepreneur James Webb Young, aided by celebrated illustrator N.C. Wyeth, skillfully tapped into nostalgic 1920s perceptions of the South as a culture of white leisure and black labor. Aunt Jemima's ready-mixed products offered middle-class housewives the next best thing to a black servant: a "slave in a box" that conjured up romantic images of not only the food but also the social hierarchy of the plantation South. The initial success of the Aunt Jemima brand, Manring reveals, was based on a variety of factors, from lingering attempts to reunite the country after the Civil War to marketing strategies around World War I. Her continued appeal in the late twentieth century is a more complex and disturbing phenomenon we may never fully understand. Manring suggests that by documenting Aunt Jemima's fascinating evolution, however, we can learn important lessons about our collective cultural identity.

Henry's Freedom Box

Henry's Freedom Box PDF Author: Ellen Levine
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
ISBN: 1338082655
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 44

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Book Description
A stirring, dramatic story of a slave who mails himself to freedom by a Jane Addams Peace Award-winning author and a Coretta Scott King Award-winning artist. Henry Brown doesn't know how old he is. Nobody keeps records of slaves' birthdays. All the time he dreams about freedom, but that dream seems farther away than ever when he is torn from his family and put to work in a warehouse. Henry grows up and marries, but he is again devastated when his family is sold at the slave market. Then one day, as he lifts a crate at the warehouse, he knows exactly what he must do: He will mail himself to the North. After an arduous journey in the crate, Henry finally has a birthday -- his first day of freedom.

Narrative of the life of Henry Box Brown, written by himself

Narrative of the life of Henry Box Brown, written by himself PDF Author: Henry Box Brown
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : African Americans
Languages : en
Pages : 94

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Book Description
The life of a slave in Virginia and his escape to Philadelphia.

Colleen Stan: The Simple Gifts of Life

Colleen Stan: The Simple Gifts of Life PDF Author: Jim B. Green
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 9781440118388
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
Throughout my captivity, I was never told what was going to happen next or why. This lack of knowledge was used by Master to maintain a continuous element of fear and control over me. Anytime I was taken out of the box, I never knew what to expect. Fear of the unknown was always with me as I was kept in the dark both physically and mentally. This lack of knowledge may have been a good thing in one sense. If I had known the length of my entombment after returning from Riverside, I'm not sure I would have survived. Of course, I'm not sure even Master knew how long he was going to keep me in the box. A few days passed then a few more. Then weeks passed followed by months. Months slowly turned into years. I would spend the next three years of my life (1981-1984) in the box sleeping, dreaming, and praying. I have to assume my lengthy confinement in the box came about because Master was concerned he had given me too much freedom. Maybe he felt he was losing control of his slave. Too many neighbors had seen me, and questions about my status in the Hooker household were surely to arise. A fast thinking family member in Riverside may have copied down his vehicle tag number. What if the police knocked on his door one day looking for Colleen Stan? What if they searched the mobile home? Would anyone think to look under a waterbed for the girl in the box? Master wanted to keep me out of sight until the heat had passed. The other reason for putting me into storage was Ma'am. I'm sure she wanted me out of her life, out of her children's lives, and out of her husband's life. Master was not ready to let his slave go. Cloistering was the only answer. My daily routine soon became predictive as I was allowed out late in the evening after the girls had gone to bed. I emptied my bedpan, drank a large glass of water, and ate cold leftovers in the front bathroom. Sometimes the leftovers were true leftovers that had been out all day and the family didn't want.

Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, Written by Himself

Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, Written by Himself PDF Author: John Ernest
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807888850
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
It is the most celebrated escape in the history of American slavery. Henry Brown had himself sealed in a three-foot-by-two-foot box and shipped from Richmond, Virginia, to Philadelphia, a twenty-seven-hour journey to freedom. In Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, Written by Himself, Brown not only tells the story of his famed escape, but also recounts his later life as a black man making his way through white American and British culture. Most important, he paints a revealing portrait of the reality of slavery, of the wife and children sold away from him, the home to which he could not return, and his rejection of the slaveholders' religion--painful episodes that fueled his desire for freedom. This edition comprises the most complete and faithful representation of Brown's life, fully annotated for the first time. John Ernest also provides an insightful introduction that places Brown's life in its historical setting and illuminates the challenges Brown faced in an often threatening world, both before and after his legendary escape.

The Unboxing of Henry Brown

The Unboxing of Henry Brown PDF Author: Jeffrey Ruggles
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
"THE UNBOXING OF HENRY BROWN documents the amazing life of Henry Box Brown, whose daring escape from slavery sealed in a box has become a celebrated saga of the Underground Railroad. Based on more than a decade of research in the United States and England, Jeffrey Ruggles tells the dramatic but true story of Brown, an industrial slave in Virginia, an abolitionist activist in New England, and a performer for a quarter-century on the English stage." -- page 4 of cover.

The Story of Aunt Jemima

The Story of Aunt Jemima PDF Author: John Troy McQueen
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1438937024
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 66

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Book Description


Clinging to Mammy

Clinging to Mammy PDF Author: Micki McElya
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674040791
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
When Aunt Jemima beamed at Americans from the pancake mix box on grocery shelves, many felt reassured by her broad smile that she and her product were dependable. She was everyone's mammy, the faithful slave who was content to cook and care for whites, no matter how grueling the labor, because she loved them. This far-reaching image of the nurturing black mother exercises a tenacious hold on the American imagination. Micki McElya examines why we cling to mammy. She argues that the figure of the loyal slave has played a powerful role in modern American politics and culture. Loving, hating, pitying, or pining for mammy became a way for Americans to make sense of shifting economic, social, and racial realities. Assertions of black people's contentment with servitude alleviated white fears while reinforcing racial hierarchy. African American resistance to this notion was varied but often placed new constraints on black women. McElya's stories of faithful slaves expose the power and reach of the myth, not only in popular advertising, films, and literature about the South, but also in national monument proposals, child custody cases, white women's minstrelsy, New Negro activism, anti-lynching campaigns, and the civil rights movement. The color line and the vision of interracial motherly affection that helped maintain it have persisted into the twenty-first century. If we are to reckon with the continuing legacy of slavery in the United States, McElya argues, we must confront the depths of our desire for mammy and recognize its full racial implications.

BOX: Henry Brown Mails Himself to Freedom

BOX: Henry Brown Mails Himself to Freedom PDF Author: Carole Boston Weatherford
Publisher: Candlewick Press
ISBN: 153622166X
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 59

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Book Description
In a moving, lyrical tale about the cost and fragility of freedom, a New York Times best-selling author and an acclaimed artist follow the life of a man who courageously shipped himself out of slavery. What have I to fear? My master broke every promise to me. I lost my beloved wife and our dear children. All, sold South. Neither my time nor my body is mine. The breath of life is all I have to lose. And bondage is suffocating me. Henry Brown wrote that, long before he came to be known as Box, he “entered the world a slave.” He was put to work as a child and passed down from one generation to the next — as property. When he was an adult, his wife and children were sold away from him out of spite. Henry Brown watched as his family left bound in chains, headed to the deeper South. What more could be taken from him? But then hope — and help — came in the form of the Underground Railroad. Escape! In stanzas of six lines each, each line representing one side of a box, celebrated poet Carole Boston Weatherford powerfully narrates Henry Brown’s story of how he came to send himself in a box from slavery to freedom. Strikingly illustrated in rich hues and patterns by artist Michele Wood, Box is augmented with historical records and an introductory excerpt from Henry’s own writing as well as a time line, notes from the author, and a bibliography.

The Illustrated Slave

The Illustrated Slave PDF Author: Martha J. Cutter
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820351156
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
From the 1787 Wedgwood antislavery medallion featuring the image of an enchained and pleading black body to Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained (2012) and Steve McQueen’s Twelve Years a Slave (2013), slavery as a system of torture and bondage has fascinated the optical imagination of the transatlantic world. Scholars have examined various aspects of the visual culture that was slavery, including its painting, sculpture, pamphlet campaigns, and artwork. Yet an important piece of this visual culture has gone unexamined: the popular and frequently reprinted antislavery illustrated books published prior to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) that were utilized extensively by the antislavery movement in the first half of the nineteenth century. The Illustrated Slave analyzes some of the more innovative works in the archive of antislavery illustrated books published from 1800 to 1852 alongside other visual materials that depict enslavement. Martha J. Cutter argues that some illustrated narratives attempt to shift a viewing reader away from pity and spectatorship into a mode of empathy and interrelationship with the enslaved. She also contends that some illustrated books characterize the enslaved as obtaining a degree of control over narrative and lived experiences, even if these figurations entail a sense that the story of slavery is beyond representation itself. Through exploration of famous works such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin, as well as unfamiliar ones by Amelia Opie, Henry Bibb, and Henry Box Brown, she delineates a mode of radical empathy that attempts to destroy divisions between the enslaved individual and the free white subject and between the viewer and the viewed.