MCLA Blog

The Shaping Role of Place

“connecting  local African American History and Culture to the  American story”

Shaping Role of Place Home |    NEH Curriculum Project

My interest in Rev. Samuel Harrison began when I moved to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and discovered his autobiographical sketch. I was moved by his forthright presentation of his life, his willingness to face the reality of 19th century America directly. At the same time, here was a man who held steadfast to his values, and was not unwilling to hold others, black and white, to the standards which our nation promulgated.

My curriculum attempts to uncover the combination of idealism and pragmatism in Harrison, a combination which reminds me of Puritan divines such as Thomas Hooker or John Cotton, and of the New England Transcendentalists, most obviously Emerson, but also Orestes Brownson, the publisher of the Boston Quarterly Review. In fact, the association of Harrison and Brownson is the stronger, because both were primarily self-educated, deeply religious, and new-comers to the center of New England influ-ence.
Harrison’s autobiographical sketch also presents a wide range of the American Experience (with both terms strongly capitalized). His childhood moves up and down the Eastern Seaboard, his rejection of his mother’s religion, his adolescent discovery of his own faith, his drive for education, his eventual achievement of some measure of renown – all of these create an American bildungsroman. Moreover, his account provides an important insight into the major events of the American 19th century: life in Philadelphia and New York; a trip on the Erie Canal; a journey into Ohio; service as a chaplain in the Civil War; work with the Freedman’s Bureau; and ministerial calls from various towns in New England, signalizing success in his vocation.
Perhaps what attracted me equally was the impersonality of his account. He provides very little per-sonal information about himself, and even less about his family. His autobiography has the tone one finds so often in 17th century account of conversion experiences. Yet it is quite apparent that he has strong fam-ily feelings. For example, after serving in churches in the eastern part of New England, he is happy to re-turn to Pittsfield so that his children may benefit from integrated schools.
Reading his other published works taught me just how frank he could be in his demand for equal opportunity for his race. His pamphlet, An Appeal of a Colored Man to His Fellow-Citizens of a Fairer Hue in the United States, may have an old-fashioned ring to the title, but the argument is current. He not only provides a solid case for Negro equality, and he foresees the national turmoil which will result from the failure to provide that equality.
Harrison’s career enables the teacher of U.S. History to probe many of the events of the 19th century through a focus on one individual. The personal struggles of the soldiers in the Civil War become clearer when concretized in Harrison’s search for boards to put under his tent, so that he will not have to sleep in the mud, or when, as an Army chaplain in his fifties, he reacts poorly to the food. Service in the Freedman’s Bureau and experience with Jim Crow laws can also be studied in terms of an individual’s reaction – so much more significant than when presenting these topics in terms of general history. Emerson would have nominated him as a representative man of his age.

The curriculum presents readings from Harrison’s published works, the entire Life Story and selec-tions from An Appeal. Several sketches from his sermon, Pittsfield Twenty-Five Years Ago, allow us to see his awareness of the pervasive racism of the post-Civil War period as well as his sense of humor. The four major sections of the curriculum should take about ten class days to present, though one should feel free to expand or contract at will. The hope is that I have presented the material in such a way as to bring out its inherent interest and to enable the teacher to shape the presentation which is the most appropriate for the classroom.