Many of us imagine our family homes as private, intimate, and even sacrosanct spaces. Do we have a right to intrude upon that privacy by reading someone’s diary or their personal letters? Edward H. Fitzgerald’s journal and Sara E. Neal’s letters to her future husband offer us an intimate view of the sentimental nineteenth-century family, as well as insight into mental health in the U.S. military and gender norms in the American South. Another aspect of the sentimental family was its emphasis on childhood innocence. Families commonly commissioned photographers to create baby portraits like the one displayed. Photography, however, was not just a tool that families used to document themselves. It was also a new technology with the power to reveal secrets and hidden truths. Photos of white emancipated slaves from New Orleans were circulated widely during the Civil War to galvanize northern whites to join the abolitionist cause, but their persuasive power was fueled by many white Americans’ fears about racial intermixture in the pro-slavery South.
Family Secrets: Uncovering Identity in 19th c. America
History 195 (Fall 2022)
