I especially have a fascination for the work of African-American craftspeople. I strongly feel no museum or institution can interpret a community if the legacy of its Black population is not fully included and represented to the best extent possible. Where the easily discovered relics of a white past fill museum cases, I think we've an obligation to seek even harder to find those last surviving physical vestiges of the Black community as well. When institutions don't see things as I do, well, I become perplexed.
Last year, 2016, I was challenged by a peer to investigate a rare surviving group of textiles, a collection of hand-loomed rag rugs, alluded to have a connection to a Kentucky slave. My curiosity was piqued, to say the least. More explicitly, I was like a bird dog on a pork chop. The goal, for me, was not only to prove this supposition, but if successful to put owner and some museum together to preserve and protect these fragile relics, using them to better interpret our greater understanding of being white, of being black, of being Kentuckians, and of being "Southernly" unique in the greater scope of the American experience.
You'll figure out I had more than anticipated success in my research, but the community at the core of this history, and the local museum charged with maintaining a regional heritage, well, their reaction was lack-luster at best. They received a bit of a sermon from me, which was to no avail, but as we say around here, "they shore got told!"
What you may not fully understand from the message I sent was that I had previously offered my services, for free, in verifying provenance when that one problematic matter seemed to be the snag in procuring these textiles. My disappointment came once I had overcome their hurdle, only to realize this technicality was likely never the hindrance it was portrayed to be. What I needed to overcome, and couldn't, was a mindset from a time we needed to have long since left.
Slightly edited, I'm going to share first in my blog the discourse from my personal soap box to the academic world. Few will heed it, but I felt better for the preaching of it! Names and identification have been edited out.
Comment, and "AMEN" me if you so choose. If it steps on somebody else's toes, too, then so be it.
30th August 2016
"Wow, folks, it took pulling a few hen's teeth, but I was able at last to reconstruct the full provenance of the rag rugs after all! I never heard back from anyone after I volunteered my time and talents to research this for you so, since I was after all the historian who made the initial "re-discovery" of Harriet Carter, I felt a scholarly obligation to see the story through to its final chapter!
Now understand, I'm very clear of the ultimate thoughts from your acquisitions consultant (who was that?) when you advised Ms. C***** that "we came to the conclusion that they are not the type of artifact that fits into our archival mission." I'm not sure if that referenced just the ******* Museum, or was inclusive of the collections mission of the *** Museum, too. Anyhow, despite the lack of interest in having one of these rugs back in ***** County where it was originally crafted for display and interpretation, filling in a vital historical/cultural gap by representing the very rare surviving professional craft of an enslaved Kentucky woman, I thought y'all might still enjoy seeing where I filled in all the missing pieces to substantiate these 5 rugs as the only documented output of the loom of Harriet Carter Blades of D**** in ***** County.
I'm actually rather proud of my diligence. While without doubt there were other women in & around ***** County and throughout Kentucky who had looms and made rugs and other textiles, Harriet is indeed a very special personage in your local history for her gender, her race, her enslaved experience, and for her tenacity to apply her slave-trained crafting talents toward a vocation to support herself and her family. The story is remarkable, and very unique. We have to now understand that no other rug, but for these 5, can ever be, without question, attributed to those worn, aged hands of a woman who experienced the horrors of slavery, yet persevered to live life to its fullest, expressing her joy of life through the product of her loom!
I really hate it that everyone's vision of displayable decorate arts in a museum setting, at least for *******, is limited to the standard furniture, silver and weapons. Someday, I think institutions such as yours will regret not fully appreciating the fragile "remnants" of our utilitarian material culture, those things of innate aesthetic design and beauty that were never intended to be art, much less last for all these generations. Ah well.
The attached research summary will, I hope, add some dimension to the community's efforts in black cultural studies there in *********. There is much to still be examined in Harriet's story, but at least this should constitute a start for a later scholar to tackle. It suffices at least to sufficiently document Harriet's handiwork.
In the future, though, I would strongly advise your institution, and others exploring the antiquities and decorative arts of Kentucky's black heritage, to apply unique, less restrictive criteria to your consideration process. We're talking about a group of people for whom documents are scarce. Relics of Kentucky African-Americans just can't be evaluated by the same rubric. Provenance is seldom as complete as we see here with Harriet Carter's weavings. For some relics, oral history is ALL that the black descendants of an object's maker or owner have to offer. That part of their culture, sans receipts and 19th century diary accounts, must be sufficient sometimes in documenting most surviving material culture. The relics of our rural black communities and their inhabitants really can't be subjected to grandiose requirements of proof for these scant few remaining artifacts of their past to fit in with the pre-existing displays of a predominantly white culture that, all too often, were never criticized or critiqued by the same restrictive standards. There is a huge void in our telling of the black experience in Kentucky. All our museums are lacking options for an interpretive experience that we all, as Kentuckians, need to share but fail generally to comprehend and appreciate adequately. Overly restrictive requirements for inclusion hinder an objective of diversity and expansion of the total story of Kentucky's past.
Sadly, I fear we have reproached Ms. C***** to such a point she will not likely ever cooperate to bring Harriet's rugs back to Kentucky. I offered to purchase them myself, but her hesitancy and final refusal indicate this opportunity has passed us by. I will leave her with a final plea to reconsider any perceived motives, opinions, questions and maneuverings and not conclude an ultimate criticism or personal judgment. R****(speaking directly to the owner, who was copied in this correspondence), you have cared for and preserved these treasures. For that the people of Kentucky, and her African-American community, need to be grateful. You've allowed at least for Harriet's story to be explored and known. Someday, maybe you will find it the proper time to allow her handiwork to come home."
gdg
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