Stacey M. Robertson: Stacey M. Robertson teaches for Butler College.
Farah Jasmine Griffin has resurrected two captivating nineteenth-century African-American women in this nicely edited collection of personal correspondence. With a gentle yet incisive touch, Griffin allows Addie Brown and Rebecca Primus to speak for themselves while offering a context to their experiences. The result is an important new addition to accessible primary sources on African American women.
Unlike most of the literature on Black women, this collection is not about slaves or abolitionists. Instead, it focuses on two "ordinary" New England women from different class backgrounds. Addie Brown earned her living as a domestic servant and seamstress, while her "loving friend," Rebecca Primus, was one of the few Northern Black women who went South to teach freed slaves. Brown probably met Rebecca as a boarder in the Primus family home in Hartford, Connecticut, and the two quickly developed a loving relationship. Despite their class differences Brown and Primus managed to develop an intimacy which survived long-term absence—in fact, they lived apart for most of their relationship. Brown worked as a domestic servant in New York during the Civil War and when she returned to Hartford during the Reconstruction period Primus had moved to Maryland to work as a teacher. Brown married in 1868 while Primus continued to work in Maryland. Brown died only two years later at the age of 28. Primus married in the early 1870s and died in 1929—she was 95 years old.
As Griffin explains in her insightful introduction, the letters between Brown and Primus are especially important because they complicate our understanding of African-American women in this period. These two women bridged class differences, and they articulated strong personal convictions about the world around them. They allow us to see African-American women outside of their relationship to slavery––in free Black communities, in urban centers, in churches, in schools, in work, in families, and in friendships. For example, when Addie Brown asserted her independence from her employer in one letter, "Mrs. H wanted me to take Harry to church I refuse doing so," she reveals the fluid and complex relationships that sometimes developed between White employers and their African-American servants (p. 117) .
The letters also complicate our understanding of Black women's sexuality. Griffin argues that Primus and Brown developed an erotic relationship built on passion, respect, and love. Challenging stereotypes of African-American women as either "promiscuous harlots" or "nurturing mammies," these letters paint a picture of a romantic relationship between two loving women. Although the letters do not reveal the exact nature of their intimacy, there are sexual references and a certain passion which Griffin shows to be lacking in their correspondence with other people. Brown and Primus clearly have a relationship which includes a physical element that both seem to find "thrilling" (p. 75).
The Brown-Primus relationship also challenges our understanding of White women's sexuality in the nineteenth century. Although Griffin does not discuss this at length, I would suggest that Brown and Primus' relationship reflects the "Boston marriages" that emerged a bit later in the century. Historians have seen the Boston marriage as an intimate relationship between middle- or upper-class, educated, white women. The Brown-Primus letters demand that we rethink our assumptions about such relationships—making more effort to look beyond the limited scope of White middle-class college women.
In terms of structure, Griffin offers an unusual approach to editing—she introduces each chapter with a brief background and supplements this with a running commentary among the letters. The commentary offers additional context and sometimes fascinating personal insights. Following one letter in which Addie Brown writes about washing out her "nubia," Griffin discusses her efforts to discover exactly what “nubia” meant. After speculating with friends, family, and colleagues, Griffin found the most likely answer in the Oxford English Dictionary—it was probably a "wrap for her head" (p. 194). Unfortunately, such interesting revelations about the process of editing are shared only infrequently in this collection.
In other respects, Griffin's editing touch is light, which allows the reader to grapple with the voices of Addie and Rebecca without much interference. And yet sometimes the editing is too restrained. I would have appreciated more helpful hints as I struggled through Brown's difficult writing style. Since I eventually discovered a few basic "rules" myself (for example, she does not bother with the possessive), Griffin might have provided such specific suggestions in her introduction. More references to scholarly literature and historical background would help to contextualize their lives for readers. When the two women discuss their traveling experiences, for example, it would have been useful to learn a bit about the difficulties women faced when they traveled alone in this period. Griffin might also have pointed out some of the scholarship on women and travel.
Griffin reminds us in her introduction that the letters of Addie Brown and Rebecca Primus have remained virtually untouched in the Connecticut Historical Society for more than sixty years (only three scholars examined them prior to Griffin). Even as historians continue to explain the absence of women of color from their scholarly work due to the lack of material available, this collection is solid proof that significant, exciting sources await those who make the effort to find them.
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