Describes in rich detail African American daily life among free blacks in the North in the 1860s. Based on a treasure trove of more than two hundred personal letters written in the 1860s, Hopes and Expectations tells the story of three young African Americans in the North. Living on Maryland’s eastern shore, schoolteacher Rebecca Primus sent “home weeklies” to her parents in Hartford and also corresponded with friend Addie Brown, a domestic worker back home. Addie wrote voluminously to Rebecca, lamenting their separation and describing her struggle to achieve a semblance of security and stability. Around the same time, Rebecca’s brother, Nelson, began writing home about his new life in Boston, as he set out to make a name and a career for himself as an artist. The letters describe their daily lives and touch on race, class, gender, religion, and politics, offering rare entry into individual black lives at that time. Through extensive archival research, Barbara J. Beeching also shows how the story of the Primus family intersects with changes over time in Hartford’s black community and the country. Newspapers and census tracts, as well as probate, land, court, and vital records help her trace an arc of local black fortunes between 1830 and 1880. Seeking full equality, blacks sought refinement and respectability through home ownership, literacy, and social gains. One of the many paradoxes Beeching uncovers is that just as the Civil War was tearing the nation apart, a recognizable black middle class was emerging in Hartford. It is a story of individuals, family, and community, of expectation and disappointment, loss and endurance, change and continuity. “This is a powerful book and a truly important story. Beeching provides a richly detailed survey of life in Connecticut, the political and racial climates at various historical moments, and the web of intraracial and interracial networks that informed the Primus family experiences. Multifaceted and thoroughly absorbing, Hopes and Expectations will reintroduce people to a New England that they thought they knew.” — Lois Brown, author of Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins: Black Daughter of the Revolution

Compiled by Mentor A. Howe and Roscoe E. Lewis.

Three hundred years of black affairs in Connecticut are examined in this book. It explains and discusses the changing racial demographics, evolving race relations and civil rights, as well as current issues and possibilities.

Argues that human freedom is threatened by systems of intelligent persuasion developed by tech giants who compete for our time and attention. This title is also available as Open Access.

Dr. Alan Gribben, a foremost Twain scholar, made waves in 1980 with the publication of Mark Twain's Library, a study that exposed for the first time the breadth of Twain's reading and influences. Prior to Gribben's work, much of Twain's reading history was assumed lost, but through dogged searching Gribben was able to source much of Twain's library. Mark Twain's Literary Resources is a much-expanded examination of Twain's library and readings. Volume I included Gribben's reflections on the work involved in cataloging Twain's reading and analysis of Twain's influences and opinions. This volume, long awaited, is an in-depth and comprehensive accounting of Twain's literary history. Each work read or owned by Twain is listed, along with information pertaining to editions, locations, and more. Gribben also includes scholarly annotations that explain the significance of many works, making this volume of Mark Twain's Literary Resources one of the most important additions to our understanding of America's greatest author.