Reading between the Lines: The Runaway Art Project

Let’s begin with a little word association.  I say “American Slavery” and what comes to mind?  The antebellum South, plantations, cotton, perhaps “12 Years a Slave” or even “Gone with the Wind?”  Unless prompted, rarely will the words “colonial” or “north” come up.  Rarer still do the actual names of enslaved men, women or children come up.  Can you name ten enslaved individuals?  I’ll spot you with five to get you started: Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Harriet Jacobs, Oloudah Equiano, and Solomon Northup.  Can you think of five more?  How about two who lived in the colonial north? 

Recently, Historic Hudson Valley (HHV) has partnered with the Center for Arts in Education (CAE) to teach about northern enslavement from a new perspective and, quite literally, put a face on the past.  Working with select middle schools in New York City, HHV and CAE have designed lesson plans that allow social studies and art teachers to collaborate on “Pretends to Be Free: Imagining Runaway Slaves” an interdisciplinary classroom project based on the research and interpretation carried out by Philipsburg Manor, Upper Mills.  One of several historic sites owned by HHV, Philipsburg Manor focuses on the story of enslavement in the colonial north and its effects on the commercial and cultural development of New York.

In New York, runaway advertisements printed in local newspapers provide us with a wealth of knowledge about enslaved individuals and their community.  These ads show evidence of ongoing, active resistance by individuals against the institution of slavery and allow readers a glimpse into the appearance, skills, cultures, education, personalities, and motives of those who chose to run.  And yes, the advertisements name names—hundreds of them, in fact.

“Pretends to Be Free: Imagining Runaway Slaves” stretches the boundaries of a typical interdisciplinary collaboration by asking social studies and art teachers to engage students with difficult historical documents that were once seen as routine but are now read as evidence of a colossal human tragedy.  Middle School students are asked to choose an ad and reconstruct, in a creative manner, the enslaved individual or individuals it described.  After discussing the biases inherent in these advertisements, students work with their teachers to develop their ideas. Each student artist is also required to submit a commentary describing his or her artwork and stating the reasons for choosing a particular advertisement.

The poster session at the AHA’s annual meeting in New York City will solicit responses to the project from historians, educators, and other conference attendees.  By engaging conference attendees in a discussion about how primary documents can be better used in the classroom, we will seek to both improve the program and to share with interested educators lesson plans so they can deliver the project to other schools.  Programs like “Pretends to Be Free” will make primary documents more relevant to students and spark an interest in history as something personal and human-scaled.