All That She Carried
Ratings3
Average rating3.7
15
Ratings3
Average rating3.7
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • A renowned historian traces the life of a single object handed down through three generations of Black women to craft an extraordinary testament to people who are left out of the archives. “Deeply layered and insightful . . . [a] bold reflection on American history, African American resilience, and the human capacity for love and perseverance in the face of soul-crushing madness.”—The Washington Post “A history told with brilliance and tenderness and fearlessness.”—Jill Lepore, author of These Truths: A History of the United States KIRKUS PRIZE FINALIST • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY PUBLISHERS WEEKLY In 1850s South Carolina, an enslaved woman named Rose faced a crisis, the imminent sale of her daughter Ashley. Thinking quickly, she packed a cotton bag with a few precious items as a token of love and to try to ensure Ashley’s survival. Soon after, the nine-year-old girl was separated from her mother and sold. Decades later, Ashley’s granddaughter Ruth embroidered this family history on the bag in spare yet haunting language—including Rose’s wish that “It be filled with my Love always.” Ruth’s sewn words, the reason we remember Ashley’s sack today, evoke a sweeping family story of loss and of love passed down through generations. Now, in this illuminating, deeply moving book inspired by Rose’s gift to Ashley, historian Tiya Miles carefully unearths these women’s faint presence in archival records to follow the paths of their lives—and the lives of so many women like them—to write a singular and revelatory history of the experience of slavery, and the uncertain freedom afterward, in the United States. The search to uncover this history is part of the story itself. For where the historical record falls short of capturing Rose’s, Ashley’s, and Ruth’s full lives, Miles turns to objects and to art as equally important sources, assembling a chorus of women’s and families’ stories and critiquing the scant archives that for decades have overlooked so many. The contents of Ashley’s sack—a tattered dress, handfuls of pecans, a braid of hair, “my Love always”—are eloquent evidence of the lives these women lived. As she follows Ashley’s journey, Miles metaphorically unpacks the bag, deepening its emotional resonance and exploring the meanings and significance of everything it contained. All That She Carried is a poignant story of resilience and of love passed down through generations of women against steep odds. It honors the creativity and fierce resourcefulness of people who preserved family ties even when official systems refused to do so, and it serves as a visionary illustration of how to reconstruct and recount their stories today.
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This was such a poignant book. We live in a society where we give lots of importance to materialistic things, so it's fascinating to explore how a single such item can convey the traumatic history of a whole group of people. While talking about how a single bag was passed down through generations, the author manages convey to us the horrors of enslavement, how the lives of enslaved women were for decades, and how difficult it was for them to even own something, let alone pass it down, when they themselves were considered property. Add to it the fact that families were separated very often, it's truly a story of resilience that the author narrates to us here.
Very compelling and engaging read and I would definitely recommend to readers who would love to read books about African American history from different perspectives.
I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, it tells a compelling story about slavery, and if you haven't read about the horrors of slavery in the US it is a good place to start. (We don't need to teach “CRT”–just assign a couple of books like this and people will get the idea of how badly slaves were treated by whites.) On the other hand, if you have read about slavery, as most educated people have, this book adds only some texture to the story–the interesting detail of how enslaved women might value needlework in some kind of coping mechanism. But what I found lacking in the book is that its central narrative revolves around speculation. As much as the author tried to get concrete evidence, that evidence is mostly lacking and so much of the story is made up. It could have been done this way, for this reason, etc. It's all plausible, but not really history.
