Auction Finds » Georgia

My great grandfather and the 1900 census

sherry — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 14:24:31 +0000

At the turn of the 20^th century, a census-taker stopped by a rented farm in Monroe County, Georgia, and wrote down the names of my great grandfather, Green Howard; his wife, Rebecca, and their six children.

I keep trying to imagine what that was like, since it’s so different from how we do it now. I got my census form in the mail last week, took 3 minutes to fill it out and I’m mailing it today.

Back then, my great grandfather could not read or write, although his wife could. Did the white census-taker stand out in the yard of their rural cabin #125 and jot down their information? (The photo above of Green Howard was taken when he visited his son in Detroit possibly in the 1930s.)

Name. Relationship to “head of household.” Month and year of birth. Years married. Mother of how many children. Number of children living. Occupation. Read or write?

It’s hard to fathom what their family life was like back then – he and his wife had been born in slavery and lived through Reconstruction and beyond in one of the most brutal times for black people, especially in the state of Georgia where lynching was prevalent.

Equally, I’m sure that he could not have imagined that decades later, his great-great granddaughter would be writing about him – of all people.

I was able to find out some historical information about Green and Rebecca because of what they told the census-taker in June 1900. That’s why the census is so important for people of color – not just for the distribution of federal funds that can help our community and other perks – but to give us some details of our own personal histories. Unfortunately, the census form I filled out asked for very little of the information that was asked in 1900, but it at least showed that I lived and would be a good starting point to find out more about me.

The information I found out about my family on the 1900 form is the type that I will likely never find on an auction table. Records of our past just don’t end up in the dust bins. But sites like ancestry.com and heritagequestonline.com or a trip to a branch of the National Archives do make it easier, though.

I found out about my great grandparents on my mother’s side in 1989 when I helped put together a family reunion newspaper. My friend Ella and I compiled the history by using census records for historical data and filling in the rest with recollections from Green and Rebecca’s grandchildren.

From 1790 – when the first census was taken by federal marshals – until 1840, census records only recorded the head of household along with the number of slaves (only three out of five were counted, and Native Americans were not counted at all), according to the National Archives. By the time Green and Rebecca were born (he in 1852 and she in 1855), the federal government took a slave census that included the slave owner’s name, and the number of slaves by gender, age and a designation of black or mulatto. In the 1850 census, the names of all free blacks were also recorded.

In 1870, the names of all blacks were recorded as well as in the 1890 census. Most of the 1890 records were destroyed in a fire in the Commerce Department building in Washington, DC, in 1921.

When I went looking for my great-grandparents, I could not find them in the 1870 census. They apparently got married around 1883, because when the census was taken on June 8-9, 1900, they both told the census-taker that they had been married for 17 years.

Here’s the other valuable information I learned about them:

In 1900, he was 48 and she was 45. He could neither read nor write, but Rebecca could do both. According to the Census Bureau, 11 percent of the population 10 years old and over could not read or write in 1900.

They lived on a rented farm in Monroe County, Georgia (as sharecroppers, perhaps?).

They had eight children, with seven living. Only six of the children are listed, along with their names, ages, and birth month and year. The record also showed whether the children could read or write, and if they attended school. Historical records showed that schools were first established for black children in 1871 and lasted for three months during the year.

Their last son had not yet been born. The 1910 census listed him as 8 years old that year, indicating that he was born in 1901 or 1902. (His children have said that he was born in June 1900). By the 1910 census, Rebecca had died and Green had remarried.

I found all of this information in the records at the National Archives office in Philadelphia. I remember sitting at a microfilm machine, scrolling through the records when I came upon the name Green Howard and then my grandfather’s name, Alonzo.

It was one of the most amazing experiences I had ever had. I was so full of emotion that I was almost in tears. Here, in front of me, was my grandfather at 6 years old – a man I remember first as a farmer who owned his own land and then as an old man confined to a Veterans Hospital in Dublin, GA. Six years old! He had been born in 1893, according to the census record.

It was mind-boggling to me that I could reach back and connect to him. It was as if someone had touched my soul.

Birthdays and birth certificates

sherry — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 15:28:04 +0000

I come across a lot of ephemera – paper and documents – at auction, but I’ve never come across anyone’s birth certificate.

Maybe it’s not the type of document parents keep along with the baby photos or recordings of first words or steps. It’s a state document that we ask for when we need it.

Birth certificates came to my mind this morning because today is my birthday, and I actually have a “certified” copy of my birth certificate (it looks like a clipped version with very basic information). I think I may have needed it to get my Social Security card for a summer job after my freshman year in college – the issue date is 1970. I have both the Social Security card and the birth certificate in the same folder in my file cabinet.

I’m a baby boomer, born in the 1950s in the great Southern state of Georgia, and the information recorded on the birth certificate reflected the times:

Color: Col.
It was the 1950s and this was Georgia. I’m not sure why it doesn’t say “Negro” rather than “Colored.”

Did you know that birth certificates in this country are only about 100 years old? Births were first recorded in the 1900s, and before then they went unrecorded or some family member recorded them in Bibles.

The first birth certificates were issued for tax purposes, among other things, according to Wikipedia. Births were registered with churches, a practice that endured into the 19^th century. Births, marriages and deaths were first recorded in the United Kingdom in 1837, and government agencies were required to start keeping birth records in 1853.

Birth certificates are also important in this country because they officially prove our citizenship. At least they should, unless you’re the president of the United States and a few loose cannons don’t think you were actually born in Hawaii. President Obama’s birth certificate proves that he was born here, which really doesn’t matter since his mother was a natural-born U.S. citizen and thus, so is he.

Wikipedia also noted that for nearly 50 years, the U.S. Census Bureau designed the birth-certificate forms and kept the records nationally before the U.S. Public Health Service took it over in 1946.

For black people, birth records of our ancestors are few and far between. Maybe some were recorded in Bibles or kept in someone’s memory, but most are lost. There are the Census records, though.

Back in 1989, I checked Census records in the National Archives in Philadelphia to see what I could find for a family reunion newspaper. I found records of the family of my mother’s father at the archives in Philadelphia, but I was never able to find records about her mother’s side of the family. The information below was taken from the Census records. It showed the birth dates of the parents and children (The last child was born after the Census was taken).

The 1900 Census records showed that my grandfather’s parents were born during slavery, got married and remained married for 17 years. They had eight children who were born between 1886 and 1900. He was born in April 1852 and she in March 1855. His parents were from Georgia and he was born there. Rebecca’s father was from Georgia and her mother was from South Carolina.

I wish I knew and could find more. People who throw away all those records and photos that I see at auction are tossing away treasures.

Who uses clothespins anymore?

sherry — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 11:15:16 +0000

One of my memories of growing up in the rural South was using wooden clothespins to hang clothes on the line to dry. We’d hang the clothes tip to tip (by the shoulder or waist), the two pieces held together by a clothespin on either side. This process was much more efficient than hanging each piece separately.

I also remember boys using clothespins to hold cards on the spokes of their bikes to create a flapping sound when the wheels turned. You could hear them a mile away.

When I came across a bag of old wooden clothespins at an auction some months ago, they evoked those memories of wash day. I’ve written about wash day before; I have three washboards as decoration in my basement laundry room.

I didn’t buy those clothespins at auction. Who needs them these days? I just take my clothes down to the basement, put them in my washer to wash and dryer to dry. They don’t have the fresh outdoor smell from my childhood, but this new way is much much easier and even more efficient. And, I don’t have to wait all day for clothes to dry or postpone washing because it’s raining outside.

Those wooden clothespins were very basic, one piece of wood split up the center with two carved prongs on both sides. According to Wikipedia, they were first made by the Shakers, who didn’t apply for patents for them. A writer of the book called “Ms. Inventor” credited Shakers founder Ann Lee with inventing the clothespin. In 1853, according to Wikipedia, the clothespin with a wire spring was invented by a man named David M. Smith of Vermont.

At a later auction, I came across three neat plastic figural clothespins, unlike any I had seen before. They were pink, and the heads were not your usual round ones. They were the carved heads of a dog, cat and baby. The legs were curved at the bottom and the center opening was wavy.

On the back was embossed: Rogers Clean-Grip Pat. Pend. I wasn’t able to find any information about the maker, and only found a few references via Google. In most instances, someone was selling them on Ebay or another marketplace site.

They were nifty looking, although the baby looked a little scary to me.

I wasn’t able to find a clothespin museum or an organization of clothespin collectors (there’s usually a collectors group for just about anything), likely because there’s very little to do to change its style. But one company’s re-tooling of the clothespin was named by Business Week as one of the winners of an Industrial Design Excellence Award in 1999. The new-styled Clip ‘n Stay clothespin was produced for EKCO Housewares.

Here’s what I also found out about the lowly clothespin:

The most famous one is a 45-foot-tall steel structure across the street from Philadelphia’s City Hall, on the west side. It was erected in 1976 by Claes Oldenburg.

The Smithsonian Institution held an exhibit in 1998 called “American Clothespins,” which drew large crowds. The museum has the patent models of clothespins created from 1852-1887. Some are pretty unusual.

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