Beloved Sisters and Loving Friends: Letters from Rebecca Primus of Royal Oak, Maryland, and Addie Brown of Hartford, Connecticut, 1854-1868

By Farah Jasmine Griffin and Aamna Qureshi

Book Overview

Rebecca Primus was the daughter of a prominent black Connecticut family who was sent south during Reconstruction by the Hartford Freedmen's Aid Society to teach newly freed slaves. Addie Brown was a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679451285
• ISBN13: 9780679451280
• Release Date: May 1999
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
• Length: 303 Pages
• Weight: 1.51 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.6" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

more photos

this book was very interesting in that one could explore the eIvertyday goings on of a time that we're so far removed from.I would like to have seen many more photos. You can identify much more with the characters in this way. from a historical point of view it was quite enlightening to see how black americans took a hand in their own destiny what with all the odds staked against them. we can see the format that is used even to this day. another interesting point is that there is noting new under the sun. It seems some of the everyday occurencess still prevail today under different circumstances. Though at times the letters were a little boring and written without prpoer punctuation, it helped to bring out the true personality of the writer. All in all for me it was a trip back into time.

Critical glimpse into nineteenth-century black life

Farah Griffin, editor of last year's "A Stranger in the Village: Two Centuries of African-American Travel Writing" has done it again with "Beloved Sisters and Loving Friends." This wonderful collection of letters between Rebecca Primus and Addie Brown allows readers to enter the world of nineteenth-century black American life. Through the correspondence of these "ordinary" women, the reader gains invaluable perspective on the social, political,economic and religious concerns of blacks around the time of the Civil War. In addition, the correspondence between these two loving friends is a welcome addition to all the historical collections of letters, diaries, etc. that document so well the white American experience while neglecting the experiences of black Americans and others. This collection is important and timely and I applaud Professor Griffin's achievement of giving voice to these two women and the world in which they lived.