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Dressmaker and Former Slave Elizabeth Keckley (ca.1818-1907), Tells How She Gained Her Freedom, 1868.

Read the Fine Print
Author:
Subject:
Humanities
Institution Name:
American Social History Project/Center for History and New Media
Collection:
Many Pasts (CHNM/ASHP)
Grade Level:
Secondary, Post-secondary
Abstract:

Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley was born around 1818 in Virginia, a slave of the Burwell family. At fourteen she was loaned to the Rev. Robert Burwell, her master's son, who lived in North Carolina. There she gave birth to her son George, the product of an unwanted encounter with a white man. After several unhappy years with Robert Burwell and his family, Keckley was sent to live in St. Louis with Anne Burwell Garland, a married daughter of the Burwells. In this selection from her 1868 memoir Behind the Scenes, Keckley describes how she bought her freedom from the Garland family, a process that was completed in November 1855. Her sincere efforts to live within slavery's rules are striking and indicate how deeply the slave system's practices and values permeated both the black and white cultures of the South. After her emancipation Keckley earned her living as a dressmaker in Washington, D.C.; she died there in poverty in 1907.

Languages:
English
Material Type:
Primary Source
Media Format:
Text/HTML
Conditions of Use:
Custom License
Fair Use for educational purposes
Copyright Holder:
Copyright 1998-2005 American Social History Productions, Inc. All rights reserved.

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