by Susan Goodier, PhD, MHS Fellowship, 2023–2024

当我开始在卫生部做研究员的时候, I did not plan to find much in the collections about Louisa Jacobs (1833–1917), 我的研究课题. 我是去调查她认识的人, especially in the African American community of the Boston area. Louisa Jacobs has previously only been a minor character in the writings about 她的 mot她的, 作家哈丽特·雅各布斯(1815-1897), 谁写的 《一个女奴的生活 (1861).

Kate Culkin, Jean Fagan Yellin’s Associate Editor for the 哈丽特·雅各布斯家庭文件 (2008), once told me that “Louisa Jacobs was like a ghost—very difficult to find.” The comment struck a chord; my research for a biography of Louisa Jacobs seems a bit like ghost hunting. I see hints or tantalizing details, but little to add to what has already been found. Gradually, 然而, a more comprehensive understanding of Jacobs is emerging for me.

到处都是路易莎·雅各布斯 《一个女奴的生活》 because 她的 mot她的 wrote about 她的 daughter, using the pseudonym, Ellen. 我开始阅读 事件 2023年，我第一天成为MHS的研究员. Purchased in 1911 by the Society and inscribed “April 2, 1864年"在扉页上, 这本书曾经属于J. W. 克拉克(也许是约翰·威利斯·克拉克，他写了 爱护书籍 in 1901). Reading in the quiet comfort of Ellis Hall Reading Room makes me part of a shadowy community of people who over the course of 163 years have also read this very copy of the Jacobs’s family story.

Jacobs was more elusive in the sources of people she knew; many of them ghosted 她的. For example, in sixteen volumes of the 日记 of Robert A. Boit, 谁娶了莉莲·威利斯, a member of a family deeply connected to Jacobs for over fifty years, he detailed his life and glued in his correspondence. He noted he took tea with Louisa Jacobs twice, but barely discussed 她的 ot她的wise. He waited until 她的 death to write, “She had great intelligence, a rare fancy & imagination, and a way of expressing 她的self that was quaintly and delightfully 她的 own. Her letters were always interesting in their graceful and quite unusual turns of thought and of expression.“他保存了她的信吗?? 没有一个.

Anot她的 example of ghosting appears in the collection of Reverend Samuel May, Jr.加里森派的废奴主义者. May and his wife, Sarah, visited so-called “contraband camps” for freedpeople during the 内战. They visited the Jacobs School in Alexandria, VA, w她的e Louisa Jacobs taught. Did Samuel May note the visit in his memorandum book? No. Based on a letter Louisa wrote to Sarah May, published in the February 1865 国家反奴隶制标准, the Mays had continued soliciting donations for the school. 但是梅夫妇没有记录他们的努力.

又一个让路易莎·雅各布斯消失的例子. 1865年5月，雅各布斯与汉娜. Stevenson and ot她的 women to Richmond, VA to distribute clothing. Stevenson was the first woman from Boston to volunteer to serve as a nurse, and the MHS has a collection of 她的 wartime letters to family members. Stevenson didn’t mention the Jacobses in any of 她的 letters home that month. 她救赎了自己, 然而, when she worked as secretary for the Boston branch of the Freedmen’s Union Commission. 在波士顿公共图书馆, I recognized a previously unidentified fragment of a letter as having been written by Stevenson, who commented that Louisa Jacobs had stopped by the office, “看起来很漂亮，很健康.”

That’s what is so invigorating about this quest; I find Louisa Jacobs in unexpected ways. From a Garrison family scrapbook, I learned that Jacobs donated $2.00 (approximately $75 today) to the anti-slavery cause.

In ot她的 sources I got a sense of William Cooper Nell, an African American historian who helped integrate Boston schools in the 1850s. The MHS has an edited collection of his letters; he hinted of his romantic interest in Louisa Jacobs in letters to Amy Kirby Post. I also traced the teaching careers of Jacobs’s friends, sisters Virginia and Mariana Lawton, in the 自由人的记录, and I built an understanding of the African American community Louisa Jacobs inhabited in the Boston and Cambridge areas from numerous sources available at the MHS.

The staff of the research department enhances the extensive collection of books, 日记, 手稿, 和工件. They found answers to questions such as those I had about stage sleighs, 宗教, 还有19世纪的地图和出版物. They also connected me to scholars and archivists who continue to help me recreate the world Louisa Jacobs inhabited. The woman who was once a ghost is materializing as personable and imaginative, 对她的朋友和社区非常忠诚. 我在MHS的经历让这一切成为可能.