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659 reviews for:
All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake
Tiya Miles
4.12 AVERAGE
659 reviews for:
All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake
Tiya Miles
4.12 AVERAGE
This is an academic book, and it is a marvelous exploration of the nuances of objects and what they meant to the lives on enslaved people and their descendants. From one embroidered seed sack, passed from a mother to her daughter at the time of the daughter’s sale to a different location, Dr. Miles conjures entire worlds and hidden meanings.
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
slow-paced
Thought-provoking. I learned a lot and was prompted to more carefully consider the present and history of African American women in this country. But the writing didn’t grip me, and I found some of the book rather wordy and repetitive. Glad I took the time to listen though.
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
fast-paced
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Wow. This story, of a real item carried from slavery to the Smithsonian, is extremely personal and brings to life the small things in the lives of Unfree People.
From the deliberate choice of cloth, to diet to breaking families.
The book is so well written, and the audiobook narrator is excellent- which makes the content of the book so hard to read.
From the deliberate choice of cloth, to diet to breaking families.
The book is so well written, and the audiobook narrator is excellent- which makes the content of the book so hard to read.
Ashley's sack frames the telling of a history. This book is the antidote for the white upper class worldview presented in books like Gone With the Wind. This is the view from the perspective of the enslaved. An important note: the view isn't of only the hardships but also of the triumphs, the ways a people treated as things managed to remember and assert their humanity. That was most vivid to me when Miles contrasted the stark businesslike records of selling people with the warm record of the contents of the sack.
Where there are records, Miles combs through them. It seems like drudgery to me to sift through all the bills of sale, wills, and census records till she found a Rose and an Ashley who spent time under the same owner, though on different pieces of property. But the reward came when the pair were found. Other research seems more interesting to do: the social meaning of hair to Victorian English society and to some African societies, the clothing codes for separating the elite from the enslaved--and the transgressions of that code.
Miles keeps readers aware of the degrees of certainty/uncertainty as she fills in gaps. Sometimes parallel stories convey what might have been Ruth's, Ashley's, or Rose's experiences. Sometimes data is more probable. As an English major trained in the days of close reading, I really appreciated the analysis of the wording of the inscription itself. And in the spirit of that method, whether or not Ruth meant to achieve any of the effects observed doesn't matter, so long as the effects are in the text.
It is refreshing to read a history that is not a tale of military heroes and their conquests, but of people and their daily lives, trials and triumphs. All unified by a gift from mother to daughter, Ashley's sack.
Where there are records, Miles combs through them. It seems like drudgery to me to sift through all the bills of sale, wills, and census records till she found a Rose and an Ashley who spent time under the same owner, though on different pieces of property. But the reward came when the pair were found. Other research seems more interesting to do: the social meaning of hair to Victorian English society and to some African societies, the clothing codes for separating the elite from the enslaved--and the transgressions of that code.
Miles keeps readers aware of the degrees of certainty/uncertainty as she fills in gaps. Sometimes parallel stories convey what might have been Ruth's, Ashley's, or Rose's experiences. Sometimes data is more probable. As an English major trained in the days of close reading, I really appreciated the analysis of the wording of the inscription itself. And in the spirit of that method, whether or not Ruth meant to achieve any of the effects observed doesn't matter, so long as the effects are in the text.
It is refreshing to read a history that is not a tale of military heroes and their conquests, but of people and their daily lives, trials and triumphs. All unified by a gift from mother to daughter, Ashley's sack.
All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake by Tiya Miles
⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 stars
#NonFictionNovember book 6
In 1850s South Carolina, Rose, an enslaved woman, faced a crisis: the imminent sale of her daughter Ashley. Thinking quickly, she packed a cotton bag with a few items. 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 sack in spare, haunting language.
Using a seemingly insignificant object, an embroidered cloth sack, the author traces the story of three women - Rose, an enslaved woman, her daughter Ashley and her great granddaughter, Ruth.
Tiya Miles acknowledges the difficulty of her research, namely the lack of records and written history about enslaved people whose lives would not have been considered important enough to record, with the exception of their monetary value. Where Miles loses track of those women in the archives, she uses stories and records of others who might have had a similar experience to Rose, Ashley and Ruth.
I thought this was well-written and organised, using the items Rose had packed for her daughter as the common thread throughout the book - with the most heartbreaking of all being love, at a time when enslaved families were routinely torn apart to be relocated or sold for profit.
I thought this was such an interesting book, and I completely understand why it was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Non-Fiction earlier this year.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 stars
#NonFictionNovember book 6
In 1850s South Carolina, Rose, an enslaved woman, faced a crisis: the imminent sale of her daughter Ashley. Thinking quickly, she packed a cotton bag with a few items. 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 sack in spare, haunting language.
Using a seemingly insignificant object, an embroidered cloth sack, the author traces the story of three women - Rose, an enslaved woman, her daughter Ashley and her great granddaughter, Ruth.
Tiya Miles acknowledges the difficulty of her research, namely the lack of records and written history about enslaved people whose lives would not have been considered important enough to record, with the exception of their monetary value. Where Miles loses track of those women in the archives, she uses stories and records of others who might have had a similar experience to Rose, Ashley and Ruth.
I thought this was well-written and organised, using the items Rose had packed for her daughter as the common thread throughout the book - with the most heartbreaking of all being love, at a time when enslaved families were routinely torn apart to be relocated or sold for profit.
I thought this was such an interesting book, and I completely understand why it was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Non-Fiction earlier this year.