The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of the Liberal Arts “SACRIFICES AND SUFFERINGS OF TRUE AMERICANS”: BLACK WOMEN’S NATIONALISM AND ACTIVISM IN PHILADELPHIA, 1863-1901 A Dissertation in History and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies by Christopher H. Hayashida-Knight © 2017 Christopher H. Hayashida-Knight Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2017 The dissertation of Christopher H. Hayashida-Knight was reviewed and approved* by the following: William A. Blair Walter L. and Helen P. Ferree Professor of Middle American History Dissertation Advisor Chair of Committee Amy S. Greenberg Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of History and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Lori D. Ginzberg Professor of History and Women’s Studies Lorraine Dowler Associate Professor of Geography, Women Gender and Sexuality Studies, and School of International Affairs Gregory Smits Professor of History and Asian Studies Director of Graduate Studies * Signatures are on file in the Graduate School. ii ABSTRACT This dissertation presents and analyzes the contributions of African American women in Philadelphia during and after the Civil War. Women there wrestled with the gaps between their theoretical legal rights and their lived realities, helping to shape black female intellectual and protest traditions that remain evident to this day. Black women’s political power was not as limited as it may seem due to their lack of suffrage; while their electoral power at the national and state level was severely hindered, their influence at the scale of their churches, their neighborhoods, and in the context of their local benevolent work was quite potent. It was in their work at this “small” scale that black women articulated their visions of national citizenship and their claims to American freedom and prosperity. From the 1860s through the early twentieth century, African American women grew a localized ethic of care into national institutions that cared for black people and promoted their equal access to opportunity. During the Civil War, black women joined black men in debating the possible outcomes of black enlistment in the Union Army, ultimately deciding that violence and the risk of death were worth the potential gains in civil and social rights that victory could bring. In the decade after the war, formerly enslaved southern African Americans moved North; women and girls faced poverty and incarceration while faced with severely limited economic opportunities and even fewer public resources. For these women, physical survival was the first “freedom struggle.” Wealthier women whose families could provide access to education became a vital part of private and religious benevolent work that supported the poor. They also made it their work to present their community in the best light possible, combating racism during Philadelphia’s preparations for the 1876 Centennial World’s Fair. Embracing the highest ideals of their nation, black women advocated for their full inclusion in American life, including the imperialist project of spreading American-style democracy and capitalism throughout the globe at the turn of the twentieth century. Archival sources include local and regional newspapers from the period, letters, diaries, family paper collections, maps, photographs, and state and federal census and institutional data. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................................................................ v LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................................................................... vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................................................................... vii INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................................ 1 CHAPTER 1. Home, Hearth, and Heart: Local Measures of Progress in Black Philadelphia .. 16 CHAPTER 2. Embracing Violence: Northern Women and the Call for Black Troops ............... 45 CHAPTER 3. Poor, Black, and Free in Post-War Philadelphia: The Short Life of Mary Ash ... 93 CHAPTER 4. “Not a matter that concerned our color”: African American Women’s National Identity and the 1876 Centennial World’s Fair ..................................................................................... 127 CHAPTER 5. Black Woman’s Burden: Frances Watkins Harper and the Black Feminist Mode of Empire, 1876-1901 ....................................................................................................................................... 168 Bibliography .......................................................................................................................................................... 214 iv LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Formal education of Philadelphia Co. inmates, Eastern State Penitentiary, 1871- 1879. ............................................................................................................................................................... 119 Table 2. Crimes recorded in prisoner intake records, 1871-1879. Admission and Discharge Books, 1844-1888, Eastern State Penitentiary, Pennsylvania State Archives. ............... 126 v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Religious education classroom, Bethany Mission for Colored People (BMCP), October 1869, probably located on Brandywine St, Philadelphia. BMCP, Records, 1862- 1936. Haverford College, Quaker Collection. ................................................................................... 25 Figure 2. Lincoln’s War Department explicitly addressed African Americans’ fears that capture by Confederate forces would lead to enslavement. “To Colored Men!”, Letters Received, 1863 – 1888, Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, 1780’s–1917, Record Group 94, National Archives. .................................................................................................................. 91 Figure 3. This song sheet produced in Philadelphia interprets black enlistment as an opportunity to hasten the “year of Jubilee,” reinforcing the connection between war violence and post-war rights. “The new version of the colored volunteer. By Corporal Sam’l Nickless, Co. I. Johnson, Printer, No. 7 North Tenth St.” [1863?] American Song Sheets, Library of Congress, Rare Books and Special Collections. .......................................... 92 Figure 4. Headquarters of the Women’s Centennial Executive Committee; Elizabeth Duane Gillespie seated at center. Hallberger's Illustrated Magazine 2 (1876): 465. .................. 143 Figure 5. Contemporary publications offered conflicting images of African Americans at the Centennial. This racist caricature shows a clumsy lack of refinement and an inability to appreciate high art. Harper's Weekly, November 4, 1876, p. 904. ....................................... 166 Figure 6. This illustration of Austro-Italian sculptor Francesco Pizzicar’s “The Freed Slave” offers a flattering portrait of middle-class African Americans at the Centennial. Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, August 5, 1876. ............................................................................ 167 vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Academic work is often a solitary and lonesome experience, but as I consider the many friends, colleagues, librarians, administrative staff members, and baristas who have contributed to my completion of this dissertation, I am filled with a grateful appreciation of the support and care that I have depended on all along the way. It is a true delight to share my thanks with so many who provided so much to make the progress of a somewhat unconventional graduate student such a smooth and successful process. Generous financial support for this work was provided by the Pennsylvania State University Graduate School, the Department of History, the Richards Civil War Era Studies Center, and the Africana Research Center. First and foremost, among the scholars who made this work possible is the ever generous, professional, and caring William A. Blair, Director of the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center at Penn State. Bill’s guidance of this project through a variety of false starts and unproductive tangents has made it a far stronger piece of scholarship than I ever could have hoped for. His incisive questions, encyclopedic knowledge, and refusal to settle have taught me much about how to write, how to read, and how to teach. His support was often made possible by the attention of the kind and helpful Richards Center staff, Matthew Isham and Barby Singer. My committee consists of some of the most important scholars in their fields, and some of the most thoughtful and skilled teachers I have ever met. Lori Ginzberg’s work in nineteenth-century women’s history has had an incalculable impact on my thinking and approach to research. Her rejection of lazy thinking, her love of the archives, and her seemingly endless reserves of energy to read drafts have been inspiring, challenging, occasionally exhausting, and always a motivation to make my work better. I am deeply grateful. Amy Greenberg is an amazing story-teller; in her classroom and as a beneficiary of her careful readings, I have learned how important it is to find the spark of imagination in my sources and to attempt to translate that to the