Gazette
masthead
   About The Gazette Search Back Issues Contact Us    
The newspaper of The Johns Hopkins University February 18, 2008 | Vol. 37 No. 22
 
Museums Lecture to Present New Details on the History of Slavery in Mid-Atlantic

In honor of Black History Month, the JHU Museums will present "Tales of Enslavement: New Research from Cliveden and the Chew Family Papers," an illustrated lecture by Philip R. Seitz, curator of history at Cliveden of the National Trust, the Benjamin Chew family home in Philadelphia.

The lecture will begin at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 19 in the Bakst Theatre at Evergreen Museum & Library.

The Chews were among the largest slaveholders in Philadelphia, and perhaps Pennsylvania. Their papers, currently being preserved and catalogued at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, are providing new details about the history of slavery in the mid-Atlantic region.

In his lecture, Seitz will recount several slave stories as conveyed in the papers, including that of a Baltimore slave named Charity. Owned by Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Charity had been sent to Homewood, Charles Carroll Jr.'s summer house, to serve as a maidservant to Carroll's daughter-in-law, Harriet Chew.

In 1814, Harriet separated from Charles Jr. and brought Charity home with her to Cliveden. The Chew and Carroll papers contain a string of 18 letters debating who had custody of Charity. They also document attempts to return her to Maryland in order to avoid Pennsylvania's abolition laws.

Admission to the lecture is free for students and JHU Museums members and volunteers; $6 general public; $3 volunteers of Greater Baltimore History Association member sites. Seating is limited; reservations are requested at 410-516-5589.

GO TO FEBRUARY 18, 2008 TABLE OF CONTENTS.
GO TO THE GAZETTE FRONT PAGE.


The Gazette | The Johns Hopkins University | Suite 540 | 901 S. Bond St. | Baltimore, MD 21231 | 443-287-9900 | gazette@jhu.edu