Antebellum South

Abstract

Travel diary recording events of an unnamed Northern man's 1842-1843 journey from Boston to New Orleans, with descriptions of many aspects of Southern life and culture, including slavery, society, and food.

Scope and Contents This manuscript legal document, dated July 30, 1853, from Madison County, Alabama, records financial transactions involving enslaved individuals who contributed crops to their enslaver, Edmund C. Townsend. Justice of the Peace G. B. Strother documented estate information and financial accounts on behalf of the deceased Townsend, including $35.30 allocated to "sundry of his negroes" for their previous year’s crops and $23.00 specifically due to an enslaved person named Woodson for cotton,...

Abstract

Contains diary kept by Virginia Henry Mears while on a journey with her husband from Philadelphia to New Orleans shortly before the Civil War, along with other family materials and photographs.

Scope and Contents This collection contains a lengthy letter from Nathan Longfellow, the director of a women's school in Scottsboro, Georgia, to his brother-in-law, Elephas Weston, in Bremen, Maine. Written in 1838, it depicts life in the South, comparing it to Longfellow's experiences in New England. Written on a 20.5 x 16 inch sheet of paper that is folded to form four pages, the letter includes Longfellow's opinions of individuals in the upper eschelons of Southern society, commenting specifically on the...