Villanova University history professor Judith Giesberg has written a book detailing the struggle that former enslaved people went through to find their lost families after the Civil War, writes Valerie Russ for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
“Last Seen: The Enduring Search by Formerly Enslaved People to Find Their Lost Families” follows the lives of 10 people who placed ads to find their families.
One of them was Hagar Outlaw, a formerly enslaved woman in North Carolina who was desperate to find eight of her children who had been sold during slavery.
Her April 7, 1866 ad in Philadelphia’s Christian Recorder listed her children and where they were last seen.
“I hope they will think enough of their mother to come and look for her, as she is growing old and needs help,” the ad read.
The book drew on a digitized archive that includes nearly 5,000 newspaper ads, letters and published articles.
Some searches for family members lasted almost 60 years after the Civil War ended.
“The institution of slavery was sustained on a callous assault on enslaved people’s families,” Giesberg wrote in the book.
In 2019, a dramatic production of the book was created.
Find out more about Giesberg’s book in The Philadelphia Inquirer.
