Atlantic Crossing in the Wake of Frederick Douglass: Archaeology, Literature, and Spatial Culture

302 Pages·2017·4.204 MB·English

by  Mark Leone (editor)

Atlantic Crossings in the Wake of Frederick Douglass
Cross/Cultures
Readings in Post/Colonial
Literatures and Cultures in English
Edited by
Gordon Collier
Geofffrey Davis
Bénédicte Ledent
Co-founding editor
†Hena Maes-Jelinek
VOLUME 197
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/cc
Atlantic Crossings in the Wake of
Frederick Douglass
Archaeology, Literature, and Spatial Culture
Edited by
Mark P. Leone
Lee M. Jenkins
LEIDEN | BOSTON
Cover illustration: Gordon Collier, “Ezekiel’s Wheel.” Photo of Frederick Douglass statue in Frederick
Douglass Square, University of Maryland, College Park. Courtesy of John Consoli. Photograph of wheel:
courtesy of Sarah A. Grady and Stefan Woehlke.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov
lc record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2017932165
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface.
issn 0924-1426
isbn 978-90-04-34290-3 (hardback)
isbn 978-90-04-34348-1 (e-book)
Copyright 2017 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands.
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Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ix
LIST OF FIGURES xiii
INTRODUCTION
Frederick Douglass and the Transatlantic Classroom
MARK P. LEONE AND LEE M. JENKINS xv
PART I
ROOTS AND ROUTES: SITES OF SLAVERY, PASSAGES TO FREEDOM
CHAPTER ONE
Transatlantic Roots: Cultural Uses
of Plants at the Wye House Plantation
ELIZABETH PRUITT 3
CHAPTER TWO
Montpelier: The Making of an African-American Landscapes
STEFAN WOEHLKE 21
CHAPTER THREE
Between Freedom and Slavery: Understanding
the Material Landscapes of Labour in
Nineteenth-Century Baltimore and Texas, Maryland
ADAM FRACCHIA 45
CHAPTER FOUR
Frederick Douglass, Arthur O’Connor,
and theColumbian Orator
ANN COUGHLAN 65
PART II
TRANSATLANTIC COMPARATIVES
CHAPTER FIVE
Domestic Labour in Black and Green: Deciphering
the Sensory Experiences of African-American and Irish
Domestics Working in Alexandria, Virginia
MARY FURLONG MINKOFF 85
CHAPTER SIX
“A nice Catholic girl ruined by a dirty foreigner”:
Foreign and Domestic Censorship
in Edna O’Brien’sThe Country GirlsTrilogy
DAN O’BRIEN 105
CHAPTER SEVEN
Negative Space and Narrative Elision in Twentieth-Century
Soviet and American Fiction: Towards a Transnational
Aesthetic of Paranoid Representation
MIRANDA CORCORAN 121
PART III
CREATING IDENTITIES
CHAPTER EIGHT
Allies and Intersections: Douglass, Archaeology,
and the Knitting Together of Progressive Movements
TRACY H. JENKINS 141
CHAPTER NINE
William Faulkner, Whiteness, and
the Transnational Short Story
EOIN O’CALLAGHAN 161
CHAPTER TEN
Who’s Who and How Can We Tell?: The Archaeology
of Group Identity and Demonstrating Belonging in
Nineteenth-Century African-American Annapolis
KATHRYN H. DEELEY 177
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“I read them, over and over again, with an interest
that was ever increasing”: Language and Education
in Frederick Douglass and Anzia Yezierska
KATIE AHERN 197
CODA
An Eagle on Their Buttons: Frederick
Douglass, Archaeology, and Ideology
BENJAMIN A. SKOLNIK 213
Notes on the Contributors and Editors 237
Index 241

Acknowledgements
I
N ORDER TO UNDERSCORE THE LONGSTANDING TIE between Frederick
Douglass and Cork, Ireland, the Graduate School of the University of Mary-
land and the Graduate School of the College of Arts, Celtic Studies, and
Social Sciences at University College Cork collaborated in 2014 on a scholarly
celebration of Douglass. Dean Charles Caramello of the University of Maryland
and Professor Caroline Fennell of University College Cork sponsored a three-
part graduate education and research programme. The class brought doctoral
students in the School of English, University College Cork, into close contact
with doctoral students in historical archaeology and members of the Depart-
ment of Anthropology at the University of Maryland, with a view to exploring
the transatlantic world crossed and recrossed, physically and intellectually, by
Douglass.
Reciprocal site visits followed, culminating in a visit to the Wye House plan-
tation on which Douglass was born, and in a research symposium. The Univer-
sity of Maryland, College Park, dedicated Frederick Douglass Square in Novem-
ber 2015, as a memorial. The dedication is part of the University of Maryland’s
continuing recognition and celebration of the importance of Frederick Douglass
to Maryland. The memorial, which was conceptualized by Professor Ira Berlin,
is also a classroom, featuring twenty quotations from Douglass. It was brought
into being and dedicated by University President Wallace Loh. His staff,
Michelle Eastman and Cornelia Grunwald Kennedy, organized the dedication,
which was attended by two descendants of Douglass. A simultaneous exhibition
in University Libraries was devoted to University of Maryland scholars who
write on Douglass.
x ATLANTIC CROSSINGS (cid:2)
The editors would like to thank Dean Caramello and Professor Fennell for
facilitating this transatlantic and transdisciplinary project. Much of the grad-
uate education programme operating under their aegis has gone into the pres-
ent book. We are grateful to Richard and Beverly Tilghman, the owners of Wye
House, who made the property available to us during the Maryland site visit,
and who hosted long-term archaeological investigations on their land, particu-
larly on the Long Green and in the greenhouse. This book would not have been
possible without their support of, interest in, and commitment to the archae-
ology of African America. The celebration of Douglass and the scholarship at
Wye House included members of the local Frederick Douglass Honor Society,
many of whom are descendants of people enslaved on the Wye House plan-
tation. Many are members of local churches and, in that capacity, too, have
been central to the success of the archaeological project discussed in the Intro-
duction to this collection and in several of the chapters.
We also thank Mr Jeffrey Franke of the UMCP Graduate School for making
the arrangements that enabled the Maryland students to travel to Ireland, and
for facilitating the events held at the Maryland campus and at Wye House.
Thanks to Dr Michael Murphy, President of University College Cork, and to
Professor Patrick O’Shea, President of University College Cork and former Vice-
President of Research at the University of Maryland, for supporting this project.
Thanks at both the Cork and Maryland ends to Dr Stephen Brighton, and to Dr
Barra Ó Donnabháin for curating a tour of his excavation on Spike Island, in
Cork harbour.
Mark P. Leone is grateful to his wife, Nan Wells,who encouraged the work on
Frederick Douglass and accompanied the class on Douglass in Maryland to Ire-
land. Mark Leone also thanks Dr Michael Roller and Dr Adam Fracchia for
reading and commenting on the draft version of his contribution to the Intro-
duction. Lee M. Jenkins would like to thank Anne Marie Cooney, financial man-
ager of the UCC College of Arts, for facilitating the budget for the Graduate
School programme; Deans of Graduate Studies Dr Silvia Ross and Dr Maíre
Leane, who facilitated our seminars; Ms Virginia Teehan; Ms Anne FitzGerald,
manager of the School of English, for invaluable administrative support; and
Professors Claire Connolly of the School of English and Geoffrey Roberts of the
School of History for their endorsement of the graduate education initiative
which prompted this book. She also thanks colleagues at University College