Digital Collections

Last Seen: Finding Family After Slavery

Digital collection. This website publishes thousands of “Information Wanted” advertisements taken out by people freed from slavery who are searching for family members who had been sold apart.

Time Periods: 1865
Themes: African American, Reconstruction, Slavery and Resistance
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Last Seen is an archive of thousands of “Information Wanted” advertisements taken out by people freed from slavery who are searching for family members. Their families were separated by the cruel and criminal institution of slavery which tore generations of families apart for close to three centuries.

The ads taken out in Black newspapers mention family members, often by name, and also by physical description, last seen locations, and at times by the name of a former slave master.

The archive, maintained by graduate students at Villanova University, can be a powerful tool in the classroom to tell stories of forced separation and survival during slavery, emancipation, and Civil War.

A few examples:

 

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Related Resources
Teaching Activities (Free)

Reconstructing the South: A Role Play

Lesson. By Bill Bigelow. 17 pages.
This role play engages students in thinking about what freedpeople needed in order to achieve — and sustain — real freedom following the Civil War. It’s followed by a chapter from the book Freedom’s Unfinished Revolution.

The Reconstruction Era and the Fragility of Democracy (Website) | Zinn Education Project: Teaching People's History
Teaching Guides

The Reconstruction Era and the Fragility of Democracy

Teaching Guide. By Facing History and Ourselves. 2015.
A collection of lessons, videos, and primary sources to teach about Reconstruction.

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Articles

Five Myths About Reconstruction

Article. By James W. Loewen. 2015.
Overview of five common fallacies that Americans still tell themselves about the Reconstruction era.

News

National Report on the Teaching of Reconstruction

The Zinn Education Project produced a national report on the teaching of the Reconstruction era. The report examines state standards, course requirements, frameworks, and support for teachers in each state. It also includes stories about creative efforts by districts and/or individual teachers in each state to teach outside the textbook about Reconstruction.

Books: Non-Fiction

Black Reconstruction in America

Book — Non-fiction. By W. E. B. Du Bois. Edited by Eric Foner and Henry Louis Gates. 2021. 1097 pages.
Originally published in 1935, Du Bois’ Black Reconstruction was the first book to challenge the prevailing racist historical narrative of the era and in sharp, incisive prose, tell the story of the Civil War and Reconstruction from the perspective of African Americans.

Crossing Ebenezer
Books: Fiction

Crossing Ebenezer Creek

Book — Historical fiction. By Tonya Bolden. 2017. 240 pages.
A moving account of the Civil War massacre at Ebenezer Creek in Georgia.

Books: Non-Fiction

Growing Up in Slavery: Stories of Young Slaves as Told by Themselves

Book — Non-fiction. Edited by Yuval Taylor. 2005. 230 pages.
Ten individuals tell stories of their childhood and teenage years in slavery.

Books: Non-Fiction

Remembering Slavery

Book — Non-fiction and CD. Edited by Ira Berlin, Marc Favreau, and Steven F. Miller. Foreword by Robin D.G. Kelley. 2007. 359 pages.
Oral histories of first-person accounts of slavery.

Unbound A Novel in Verse (Book) | Teaching People's History
Books: Fiction

Unbound: A Novel in Verse

Book — Fiction. By Ann E. Burg. 2016. 352 pages.
Story of a family fleeing slavery written in verse for grades 4-8.

Films

Reconstruction: The Second Civil War

Film. By Elizabeth Deane and Dion Graham. 2004. 174 minutes.
Through the voices of several historians and dramatic re-enactments by actors, PBS’s Reconstruction: The Second Civil War uses the stories of ordinary citizens to paint a picture of the Reconstruction era.