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Loading... Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroadby Jacqueline L. Tobin, Raymond G. Dobard (Author)
![]() Books Read in 2021 (1,493) No current Talk conversations about this book. This book had such promise and started out so well and then fell so flat. The premise of the book is the story of Ozella and her ancestors, as told to the author in Ozella's quilt booth at a vendor's market. It's the story we want to hear when we pick up the book and the author tells us she has now heard the story. Just when we think we are going to hear the story as Ozella told it, which would have been what gave this book strength and potency, we veer off instead into what the authors made of the different little pieces of the story instead of hearing the actual story as it was told. This weakened the book and left me as the reader feeling as if the story was still being kept hidden. There was a lot of conjecture and research presented instead and whilst it was interesting at times and I did learn some things that were fascinating, I still found myself feeling like what I really wanted was to hear Ozella's story retold from that moment when Jacqueline was sitting at her feet surrounded by quilts for three hours. If the authors had done that and *then* presented their research, this book would have been much more satisfying and impactful to read. Instead, it felt like the story was kept secret with just little pieces of it exposed here and there. It had potential but didn't deliver. This is a book with interesting information, an extensive bibliography, and some pictures. However, it is repetitive and not seamlessly written. I imagine Tobin wrote it thinking it would be used for research, but since it is not indexed.... It is a shame that Tobin did not pay for an editor to tighten it up. As an example, it frequently suggests to the reader to "see the color photo section." The Kindle version does have some color photographs, but there is NO "color photo section." This book is a breath of fresh air in terms of presenting oral histories as valid, and folk history as usable in an academic setting. Forms of record-keeping which are not written using methods recognized by dominant cultures, whether academia, today, or the former empires of England, Spain, etc, are almost always discounted, or destroyed, as the Quipus of the Incan empire. These quilts are essentially, it sounds, like an updated form of Quipu (Khipu) made from fabric rather than strands of yarn or twine cordage. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu Page 29 made me think of the strain sometimes found between differing cultural interpretations and valuations of oral history and what makes a fact a fact, or something 'obvious,' well, obvious. In other words, the academic methodology versus intuitive oral tradition. As a phd student, I was horrified at the first presentation I attended by a fellow doctoral student. She presented her preliminary findings based on two years of research, and I found myself thinking that if any of my family could see this, they would all tell me I was wasting my time and money in doing research, if I would end up presenting findings as blindingly obviousl as hers. But, as on Page 31, the fear of ridicule forces one to follow a methodology that can be at odds with what one's gut instincts say are obvious. And when those two ways of thinking clash, it is the dominant culture that wins. Thanks to these many authors for making non-dominant cultural histories valid again. Shira Destinie Willaim-James-MEOW Date: 27 August, 12014 H.E. This book is a breath of fresh air in terms of presenting oral histories as valid, and folk history as usable in an academic setting. Forms of record-keeping which are not written using methods recognized by dominant cultures, whether academia, today, or the former empires of England, Spain, etc, are almost always discounted, or destroyed, as the Quipus of the Incan empire. These quilts are essentially, it sounds, like an updated form of Quipu (Khipu) made from fabric rather than strands of yarn or twine cordage. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu Page 29 made me think of the strain sometimes found between differing cultural interpretations and valuations of oral history and what makes a fact a fact, or something 'obvious,' well, obvious. In other words, the academic methodology versus intuitive oral tradition. As a phd student, I was horrified at the first presentation I attended by a fellow doctoral student. She presented her preliminary findings based on two years of research, and I found myself thinking that if any of my family could see this, they would all tell me I was wasting my time and money in doing research, if I would end up presenting findings as blindingly obviousl as hers. But, as on Page 31, the fear of ridicule forces one to follow a methodology that can be at odds with what one's gut instincts say are obvious. And when those two ways of thinking clash, it is the dominant culture that wins. Thanks to these many authors for making non-dominant cultural histories valid again. Shira Destinie Willaim-James-MEOW Date: 27 August, 12014 H.E. no reviews | add a review
The fascinating story of a friendship, a lost tradition, and an incredible discovery, revealing how enslaved men and women made encoded quilts and then used them to navigate their escape on the Underground Railroad. In Hidden in Plain View, historian Jacqueline Tobin and scholar Raymond Dobard offer the first proof that certain quilt patterns, including a prominent one called the Charleston Code, were, in fact, essential tools for escape along the Underground Railroad. In 1993, historian Jacqueline Tobin met African American quilter Ozella Williams amid piles of beautiful handmade quilts in the Old Market Building of Charleston, South Carolina. With the admonition to "write this down," Williams began to describe how slaves made coded quilts and used them to navigate their escape on the Underground Railroad. But just as quickly as she started, Williams stopped, informing Tobin that she would learn the rest when she was "ready." During the three years it took for Williams's narrative to unfold--and as the friendship and trust between the two women grew--Tobin enlisted Raymond Dobard, Ph.D., an art history professor and well-known African American quilter, to help unravel the mystery. Part adventure and part history, Hidden in Plain View traces the origin of the Charleston Code from Africa to the Carolinas, from the low-country island Gullah peoples to free blacks living in the cities of the North, and shows how three people from completely different backgrounds pieced together one amazing American story. With a new afterword. Illlustrations and photographs throughout, including a full-color photo insert. No library descriptions found. |
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![]() GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)973.7115History and Geography North America United States Administration of Abraham Lincoln, 1861-1865 Civil War Political history; causes, results Causes Fugitive slavesLC ClassificationRatingAverage:![]()
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Quilts seemed like a very awkward method of communicating important information which by its very nature could change from moment to moment. The leaps of logic they made interpreting the designs on the quilts also seemed improbable, and the fact that it was all so secret that only a few knew the meanings and most of them had been lost seemed impractical if you were trying to move people secretly without talking. How were they supposed to know what it all meant?
As I was reading about how the authors got this tale (from one woman who had not been alive during slavery, but she had been a school teacher and a very intelligent lady), I wondered if the lady was having a bit of fun with the author. Ozella McDaniel Williams could have been telling snippets of her own family history, but no one in her family was interested or participated or contributed.
Giles R. Wright wrote a critique of this book that summed up my thoughts in an intellectual and scholarly way. He even mentioned his doubts about the sincerity of Ms. Williams, though for the benefit of doubt, she certainly may have heard the tale she told from her family, and perhaps it even happened in her family. Personally, I think quilts are an excellent way to preserve the history of ones family in symbols.
I did enjoy the authors comparing African symbols with American and African American quilting symbols and Masonic symbols and all of their meanings, which seem to be similar. It was an interesting read. (