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Part 2
Transmission of Craft Knowledge,
Part 2
Mellanee Goodman
At war’s end, thousands of formerly enslaved craftswomen did not abandon their craft. During her time in a South Carolina contraband camp[1], Elizabeth Hyde Bostume, a white contraband camp missionary, witnessed self-emancipated women and men walking towards the protection of the camp. In some instances Bostume became enthralled with enslaved women walking towards the camp noting, “It was not an unusual thing to meet a woman coming from the field, where she had been hoeing cotton, with a small bucket or cup on her head, and a hoe over her shoulder, contentedly smoking a pipe and briskly knitting as she strode along. I have seen, added to all these, a baby strapped to her back.” [2] Bostume’s memories of the woman engrossed in her knitting while walking towards the camp act as an example of the immeasurable connection between enslaved women and their craft.
[1] The term contraband was coined on May 24, 1861 to refer to three runaway slaves near Hampton, Virginia who were taken to Fortress Monroe by Union soldiers and deemed “contraband” of war. Ex-slaves were known as “contrabands.”As Elizabeth Bostume notes, runaway slaves “could not be called freedmen, as emancipation had not yet been declared.” For more see Elizabeth Hyde Bostume, “Origin of the Name” in First Days Amongst the Contrabands. (Boston, Massachusetts: Lee & Shepard, 1893) 10. [2] Elizabeth Hyde Bostume, “Within the Lines” in First Days Amongst the Contrabands. (Boston, Massachusetts: Lee & Shepard, 1893) 53.Contextualization
The transmission of craft knowledge between enslaved mothers and daughters and other enslaved women continued throughout the chaos of the Civil War. Enslaved women and men emancipated themselves from bondage and often fled to Union Army lines and contraband camps. In cotton fields and abandoned buildings, spread across the southern coast of South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia, and concentrated in Tennessee and along the western borders of Mississippi, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Louisiana, these encampments provided temporary housing, but also a platform for white missionaries interested in providing industrial education to newly freed Black people who they felt were incapable of self-reliance. In the interest of preparing refugees for future employment, duty-bound missionaries erected sewing rooms, “tailoring schools,” and “knitting schools” inside the camps.
Further readings
Elizabeth Hyde Bostume, “Origin of the Name” in First Days Amongst the Contrabands. (Boston, Massachusetts: Lee & Shepard, 1893) 10.
Biography
Mellanee Goodman
She/Her/Hers
Written by Amy Meissner
Mellanee Goodman loves glimpsing mountaintops from every window in her North Carolina home. Her love for nature and “uphill and downhill” terrain brought her closer to place-based research studying the history of Black craftswomen in the upper South, including Southern Appalachia, from 1850¬–1910. This investigation reveals craft of the everyday and domestic that is often overlooked or erased due to the violent mobilization of Black bodies as methods of production. Mellanee’s interest lies in the craft work of Black women in particular––mattresses, brooms, spun thread, woven cloth, and knitted and sewn garments––objects made for the master’s plantation homes, but also for families in enslaved quarters. While most of these items no longer exist nor retain attribution to the original maker, her study of ex-slave narratives, newspaper clippings, and the education of the formerly enslaved after emancipation pieces together a more complete picture of craft- and place-based identities of Black craftswomen, some of whom lived in the same mountains Mellanee currently calls home.