A Civil Life in an Uncivil Time

Julia Wilbur's Struggle for Purpose

Paula Tarnapol Whitacre (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

324 Seiten

2020
Potomac Books Inc (Verlag)
978-1-64012-311-3 (ISBN)

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The biography of Julia Wilbur, who left her conventional life to aid newly freed slaves, injured Union soldiers, and, later, the women’s suffrage movement in the late nineteenth century.

A Civil Life in an Uncivil Time is the captivating story of a woman who remade herself at midlife during a period of massive social upheaval.

In the fall of 1862 Julia Wilbur left her family’s farm near Rochester, New York, and boarded a train to Washington, DC. As an ardent abolitionist, the forty-seven-year-old Wilbur left a sad but stable life, headed toward the chaos of the Civil War, and spent the next several years in Alexandria, Virginia, devising ways to aid recently escaped slaves and hospitalized Union soldiers. A Civil Life in an Uncivil Time shapes Wilbur’s diaries and other primary sources into a historical narrative of a woman who was alternately brave, self-pitying, foresighted, and myopic.
Paula Tarnapol Whitacre describes Wilbur’s experiences against the backdrop of Alexandria, a southern town held by the Union from 1861 to 1865; of Washington, DC, where Wilbur became active in the women’s suffrage movement; and of Rochester, New York, where she began a lifelong association with Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony.

Harriet Jacobs, author of Incidents of a Slave Girl, became Wilbur’s friend and ally. Together, the two women, black and white, fought social convention to improve the lives of African Americans escaping slavery by coming across Union lines. In doing so, they faced the challenge to achieve racial and gender equality that continues today.

Paula Tarnapol Whitacre is a professional writer and editor for organizations including the National Institutes of Health and the National Academy of Sciences. A graduate of Johns Hopkins University, she is a former U.S. Foreign Service officer and staff writer for the Washington Post. Visit her website paulawhitacre.com.

List of Illustrations
Preface
Prologue: “The Saddest Sound I Ever Heard”
Part 1. Before the War
1. “A Peculiar Period in My Pilgrimage”
2. “Slavery Is an Evil That Ought Not to Exist”
3. “My Plans Overthrown. Life All Changed.”
4. “At Alexandria . . . the Potomac Rolls Its Majestic Stream”
Part 2. During the War
5. “Civil War Is Upon Us”
6. “My Way Seems Clear to Go”
7. “What a Place I Have Found”
8. “Mrs. J and I May Carry Out Our Plans”
9. “An Interfering and Troublesome Person”
10. “I Wish to . . . Fight It Through”
11. “Will It Pay?”
12. “As Good a Spot as Could Be Obtained”
13. “Things as Usual, Quite Unsettled”
14. “Flung My Flag to the Breeze”
Part 3. After the War
15. “The Paraphernalia of War Is Fast Disappearing”
16. “That I Might Be There to See”
Epilogue: “The Burial Was at Avon”
Acknowledgments
Appendix: Abbreviated Wilbur Family History
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Erscheinungsdatum	03.01.2020
Zusatzinfo	18 photographs, 2 illustrations, 1 appendix, index
Verlagsort	Dulles
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Themenwelt	Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
	Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Geschichte / Politik
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
	Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Militärgeschichte
ISBN-10	1-64012-311-3 / 1640123113
ISBN-13	978-1-64012-311-3 / 9781640123113
Zustand	Neuware