Moody Moments

The past week at the Maryland State Archives is something of a blur of constant activity book-ended by dull moments while reading 200 year old court records concerning a slave named Robert Moody.

Oral Histories

Under the new terms of my fellowship’s placement at the Maryland State Archives I continue working on oral history interview processing. Although I’ve worked under these terms for four and a half months at Maryland compared to the three months at Chicago for the summer institute, the remote work for The HistoryMakers is a once weekly affair rather than a daily concern so it remains ever fresh in my mind. In order to meet a request from Dr. Ed Papenfuse this past December, an information-dense interview in November, and frequent distractions on my designated day to work on interviews, I fell behind schedule. So in addition to working over break and on weekends, I devoted Monday and Tuesday to polishing one interview and beginning another.

Leah Ward Sears

My (mostly) completed interview is Leah Ward Sears, a judge appointed to the Georgia Supreme Court at the ripe old age of 36. I could tell, simply by the way she talked about the upbringing of her parents and herself, that she placed great importance on family as an institution. This certainly rang true in two important court cases from the Superior Court where she exercised significant independent judgment; one involved parents who disagreed on whether to take their comatose daughter off life support and another case involved a couple who took a weekend to regret forfeiting their child. In the first case she essentially sided with the mother, who wanted to keep the daughter alive, by saying the family needed to agree; the daughter died of natural causes a few days later and the family unit survived. In the adoption case she decided that the father did not relinquish his rights to the child and returned it to the couple. Although proponents of family tend to be on the conservative side of most issues, Sears was quite obviously a liberal. She named her daughter “Brennan” after the US Supreme Court justice because, or so she claimed, “Thurgood” was not a proper name for a girl.

Leah Ward Sears Sears’ emphasis on the family without adopting related political baggage of the family values circle reminded me of my former American history professor, John Sharpless. A colorful man, Sharpless was prone to tangents and told often elaborate stories that always put his classes behind schedule. One such story was his unsuccessful run for Congress in 2000 against (now Senator) Tammy Baldwin. As smirking curmudgeons and astute observers often do, he ran as a moderate of with whatever party he was aligned. During candidate boot camp in Washington, one of the trainers cautioned candidates against using the Republican shibboleth “family values” to rally the faithful. He summarized her remark thusly: “Family is not a value, it’s an institution, and for some people it is sheer hell.” Sears believes in the importance of family as a sanctified and stabilizing force in society, which we must struggle to sustain, but she understands the difference between an institution and values.

Vel Philips

Throughout her interview she emphasized the patience and compassion necessary for the robes and warned viewers of her constant efforts to be worthy of her position. The second interview I’m working on is Vel Philps. She is a prominent judge and politician from Wisconsin and was approximately 83 during the interview. It is clear from the interview that an unexpected remodeling problem at their intended filming spot forced them into a building with heat only high enough to keep the pipe water from freezing. She wears a thick lady’s dress coat and hugs herself for at least three of the five tapes. By the second tape she is visibly drowsy but soldiers on, blaming the cold but admitting that warmth often does the same thing.

Maryland State Archives

On Wednesday the MSA was graced with the presence of a film crew for a genealogical show in the style of "Who Do You Think You Are?" with a celebrity primarily famous for a character in one of the Fox network's earliest and most successful shows. It would be out of place to say who this actor or actress was or describe the brief disruptions caused by their filming in the research room; shooting on location creates unavoidable headaches but I'm nevertheless glad the MSA will be represented on national television.

Wye Island

I resumed examining judicial records from the Scwhweninger Collection. This time I’m examining an 1812 judicial paper concerning a freedom petition by Robert Moody and submitted to the Court of Appeals for the Eastern Shore; Robert Moody’s name only appears in a few pages at the opening and closing of the 60+ page document because it contains literally a dozen exhibits and transcripts from cases dating back to 1793. Moody was using successful suits where no less than twenty slaves freed themselves because they were descended from an Indian native named Moll or Mary. The bulk of the writing could be summarized thusly: Can I have a continuance? Sure. Can I have a continuance? Sure. Can I have a continuance? Sure. No, I never heard of a girl named “Indian Margaret” on Wye Island.

The hope is to find the delicious tidbits. For example, it did not matter that the court heard from a dozen people who claimed to know nothing about a black and Indian mulatto slave--because the mistress of the house admitted that she was. Strangely, she kept this information between herself and the previous owner rather than free her—but whatever. With the exhibits and depositions continuing almost seamlessly into each other, and a complex genealogy unfolded before me, it was difficult to know where one case ended and another began. I constantly reminded myself that every scrap of paper was relevant to Robert Moody’s freedom petition.

Although the jury found that Moody was not a slave, the appeal successfully argued that Moody did not satisfactorily prove he was the son of one of these freed slaves. Strangely, the court allowed the testimony of a mulatto. In the delicate language of their day the clerk slyly described his degree of blackness and hence the credibility of the defense’s objection to him as a witness. According to Maryland law, slaves were not allowed to testify in cases where white people were affected. The judge—and I just LOVED this—stated it was incumbent upon the defense attorney to prove he was a slave.

At close of business on Friday I had not yet found supporting records for his fate. I checked the Queen Anne's County Court Judgment Record series for potential 1813 retrial information but there seems to be none available. Perhaps due to some absent minded book binding over a century ago 1813 may well be misplaced within three volumes spanning the first quarter century of judgments. The year 1812 for example is, bizarrely, placed at the center of a volume spanning 1818-1822; the volume for 1814-1818 is apparently complete but does not possess my needed 1813 judgments. I will need to check for the 1813 judgments in the volume ending in 1811 before I am certain enough to give up my search. The fear that this year may not exist--or that I am checking the record series in error due to the complex legal avenues and jurisdictions in the document--actually kept me awake on Saturday night.

Outreach
 

Kent Island

My first speaking engagements for the Maryland State Archives Legacy of Slavery in Maryland project are looming. I studied a taped presentation given by my colleagues David Armenti and Ryan Cox this summer and was impressed by their grasp of the subject matter and ease of public speaking. For the Progressive Ed Summit, I’ve decided to emphasize how students can use the LOSIM website and teachers can strategically use primary sources to stimulate critical thinking.

During this week I was on something of a creative hot streak. My colleague Tanner consented to the name for our February 5 presentation on Kent Island--“Pistols and Petitions: Queen Anne’s Slave Self-Emancipation in the 19^th Century” and my division colleagues accepted one of two names I proposed for our May 18 presentation—“Know Your Rights: Lost Slaves, Proving Freedom, and Earning Pensions in 19th Century Maryland”; the idea for the latter came to me at the close our LOSIM’s weekly meeting. It was difficult to determine a theme because the only thing our respective topics had in common were petitions; petitions by slaveholders to recover chattel, petitions by slaves for their freedom, and petitions by veterans and widows to earn government pensions for United States Colored Troops service. As the meeting broke up, almost out of nowhere, The Clash came to mind.

At the core of every petition, whether slave, former slave, or slaveholder, the petitioners were exercising their rights under the contemporary law. Although I would like to say my suggested titles were selected because of their quality, I suspect they were chosen simply because I was the first one to offer any. I’ll take what I can get…

Alex Champion--Maryland State Archives

Home for the Holidays: Last of 2012

 

With my Christmas vacation officially starting on Monday with a six o’clock flight and layover to Appleton, Wisconsin, I stayed until six o’clock Friday performing the finishing touches on my William M’Neir case study. I spent the majority of the week playing catch up with HistoryMakers oral history processing, thus delaying my completion of his case study; after I left Chicago but before I started working in the Maryland State Archives, Executive Director Julieanna Richardson asked that the fellows dedicate one day a week to work on oral histories. Since M’Neir was a direct request from the state archivist Dr. Ed Papenfuse, it was prudent to give it my total attention.

Oral Histories

The HistoryMakers are testing a new, crowdsource friendly manner with which to process oral history interviews. After testing several different formats they settled on a SurveyMonkey report system; all of the fellows will essentially beta test this method and make recommendations based on our experiences. The previous format, typically called an “Evaluation” form, created a narrative interpretation of structural, administrative, and descriptive metadata for each interview. Each form is more-or-less broken down in three ways. (Warning: These terms are of my own invention and used here for clarity)

·         Frontmatter: The HistoryMaker’s name, the interview length, whether the interview is complete, is a follow-up, and when the previous interview was performed.

·         Tape Description: Every 30 minute segment is given a one page summary, 150 word abstract, a short narrative regarding its historical importance, and assigned Library of Congress Subject Headings; these headings compliment ones already assigned for the interview as a whole. Additionally, the interview’s and interviewer’s quality is described.

·         HistoryMaker biography: This information is taken from the entirety of the interview. These include jobs, organizations, schools, and family—pretty much anything intended for the EAC finding aid.

The form behaved as if it pre-dated the extensive databases maintained at THM headquarters in Chicago; it was time consuming to fill to completion, asked for redundant information, and the databases they were paired with were inaccessible remotely.

The new form is almost entirely descriptive metadata and renders the database access problem moot. The core of every evaluation is the Tape Description. Whereas the previous form asked for narrative qualitative analysis of the video, audio, and the quality of the interviewer, the SurveyMonkey form simply asks for a rating. Whereas the old form required a separate portion devoted to family background description, education, employment, and organizations, the new form abandons the family background description and only asks that the HistoryMaker biography references be noted for each tape rather than in a separate section. In the old method a lot of time is spent composing duplicate information as if the form were its own access point. This may have been true at one time or another but The HistoryMakers have since developed EAD, EAC-CPF finding aids, thorough databases, and a sophisticated work methodology that made these older forms duplicative and time consuming. 

The new form has its limits: Since data is inputted into fixed fields rather than free text, and the EAC information is noted per tape rather than per interview, there is less flexibility to accommodate HistoryMakers who mention more than four schools or five jobs in one tape. The only option is to create still more available fields. This however might look cumbersome or intimidating; it’s a balancing act.

Despite its flaws the new form is a significant improvement and recognizes the realities of the current HistoryMakers environment. During the summer Julieanna asked for our input on how we could increase productivity in oral history processing and I am gladdened to see that many of my and other’s suggestions are realized—albeit on the Web rather than a Word document.

DeLawrence Beard

Royce West

I completed evaluations for the Hons. Royce West and DeLawrence Beard. West is private lawyer and state senator from Texas but he lived in Annapolis as a boy. Beard moved to Maryland from St. Louis and, in 2003 when the interview was conducted, was a Circuit Court judge for Montgomery County. West was very entertaining and engaged with the camera; he frequently looked into the lens and addressed a hypothetical viewer. My favorite occasion of this was when West, recalling his time as a paperboy, chastised some folks who left town before settling their account; he looked directly at the camera and told them he was coming for them. Beard seemed more reserved at first; he had difficulty remembering particulars like names or even placing himself in the historical narrative. When asked about civil rights in St. Louis, he offered an interesting perspective. St. Louis, he claimed, did many things its own way. It desegregated Sportsman’s Park when Jackie Robinson refused to play otherwise, it desegregated its public transit workforce with little attention paid by its riders, and initiated its own school desegregation before Brown v. Board of Education. Once Beard warmed up, it was hard for him to stay still. The videographer frequently needed to reframe him as he settled differently in his chair.

2013

It is a bit unfortunate that I will be out of the archives until 2013 because I will have less time to prepare for a talk in February. Since the talk is at the Queen Anne’s Public Library in Stevensville, just beyond the Chesapeake Bay Bridge on Kent Island, I’m beginning with cases filed there. My colleague Tanner Sparks will talk about United States Colored Troops and I will talk about slave freedom petitions. Both represent institutionally valid methods that slaves used to earn their freedom in a system that favored the property class. Since the library wants to publish the event on their website by January 1^st and I will be out of state until then, I already proposed a title to Tanner: “Pistols and Petitions: Queen Anne's Slave Self Emancipation in the 19th Century.” Soldiers use rifles of course but the alliteration was too tempting.

Alex Champion--Maryland State Archives

Evaluations: Alex Champion's Week 3

Monday: Foray into processing THM's programming archives

The IMLS Fellows did not have any field trips this week. We had our typical lectures from Dr. “call me Mr.” Reed on black history and archives from Cecelia Salvatore of Dominican but we mainly caught up on HistoryMaker interview evaluations.

I’m starting to wonder at what point residents become Chicagoans. My best answer so far is when cross streets are less for navigation but more of a short-hand clueing others into your mentality. My latest oral history interview is for Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett circa 2006. Speaking of community redevelopment in north Kenwood, she remarked that she grew up one block from my sublet and “always remembered looking south.” Why was there an “invisible line” at 47^th Street and what could the city of Chicago do to make other people transcend that line, too?

Community was important to all of the HistoryMakers I evaluated this week. A Milwaukee publisher closed her interview with mournful words on the state of investment by local businesses who do not advertise,  allow paper racks in their stores, nor sponsor kids to camp; corporations like Miller and the community Perkins franchisees “get it” whereas small-time convenience stores saw no obligation to invest in the community from which they take so much. As we would hope from a presidential adviser, Ms. Jarrett saw the big picture of community development. She was very frank that some social policies of the 1960s—like aid to single mothers on the condition they never marry and high-rise housing projects like the one named after her grandfather Robert Taylor—contributed to poverty and high black male incarceration. She claimed community input inevitably improved redevelopment projects but I suspect that was partly because its members chafe less if they felt they had a say in the inevitable. Still, mixed income development is a bold idea.

Another HistoryMaker talked about community but in a different sense. He spoke glowingly about his time at Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio and the lifelong friends he made there; he spoke about minority owned businesses and black entrepreneurs taking the initiative and advocating for themselves; he also spoke about the value of funding scholarships and sitting on education boards.

Looking back at all of my HistoryMakers I realized a pattern: They valued education because their parents stressed it; whether their father worked in a steel mill his entire adult life or the HistoryMaker was raised in a middle class family where even homemakers had a college education, education was stressed above all else. Typical to my sense of humor, I asked a fellow Fellow if they had evaluated any HistoryMakers whose parents told them education was a pointless exercise. It turned out the answer was no! 

Chiming in, officemate Ashley Howard took a break from her lesson planning and assumed a teacher-like tone of condescension. “And what does that tell you about how these people were able to achieve?” My hand rose and waved furiously as I shouted “ooh, ooh, Ms. Howard I know!” Ashley dutifully called on me but my answer was cautious. “Um…” I began, “because these people had parents who were supportive of them going to college, and, um…” my eyes searched her face to see if I was on the right track, “[often] paid for them, they were more likely to achieve good things?” Ashley praised me for my answer. “And class,” she spoke to our office mates who may or may not have been listening, “wouldn’t it also mean that if your family didn’t have money and didn’t value education that you would less likely achieve?”

“No!” I said disingenuously, breaking my character. I told her about an argument I had with a friend’s father many years ago about economic mobility and starting gate equality. After minutes of unproductive discussion, I posed what I thought to be an iron clad scenario that would make him admit he was wrong: Twins separated at birth and given to families on the opposite end of the economic spectrum. One gets a nanny, prep-school, and legacy enrollment with business connections upon graduation while the other is a latchkey kid, goes to a 35 student-per- room public school, and gets an Associate’s degree in business administration. Assuming they are just as intelligent and have the same degree of ambition, who will do better economically? My friend’s father insisted they would be equal. I called him a social Darwinist—a charge he denied. I suspect the amount of brain power necessary to sustain that degree of cognitive dissonance could power a small city.

Ashley’s response was probably the best response to that story to date: “Well then why doesn’t he send his kids to Compton schools?”

Indeed. Many of the HistoryMakers bemoaned their poor ambition. Valerie Jarrett admitted attending law school simply because she could think of nothing better to do. Because she had financially and emotionally supportive parents she bided her time long enough to find a place she could make a difference.