Transcending Time

Dear Mr. Waldstreicher,

Your analysis about print culture in Eighteenth Century America challenged me to think beyond the limitations that are often presented by dichotomies. I gained a greater understanding of how some people's stories have been left out of history and looked over because of their "incoherence" and complexity. During that time, many print advertisements called for the capture of runaway slaves, and were described by you to be early slave narratives. Interestingly, these slave narratives illustrated that a true picture of identity cannot be a simple one that is black and white. In America, especially, the characteristics of one’s identity, including those ascribed by an oppressor and those fashioned by one’s self/community out of the spirit of liberation, have been shown to be fluid. You connected the fluidity of identity not only to the print culture, but also to the culture of performance. After reading about Tom, one of the “confidence men,” I couldn't help but to think about the insecurities oppressors can possess but attempt so much to hide. To justify their entitlement to superiority, slave masters resorted to reasoning that slaves only had make-believe ambitions rather than real gifts and talents.

I admire how your article spoke a lot to the capitalistic mindset that still dominates America today. You illuminated the way that slaves dealt with being "producers, consumers, and commodities" simultaneously. While slavery is technically no longer an institution in present-day America, some people still manage to find mobility and experience enslavement at the hands of capitalism.

Lastly, I was struck by a brief story you included in your article about Hugh Whiteford, a slave master of Harford County. You wrote, “Realizing that in the midst of the Revolution, it was easier to imagine transcending time than space, he asked that ‘this advertisement may be carefully kept and taken notice of for several years." This compelled me to wonder about your own narrative. Perhaps, Whiteford was somewhat correct in his imaginings that print culture had the power to transcend time, and reach all the way from printers and writers in the 18th century to those in the present...including you. Undeniably, a digital culture has been taking over 21st century America by storm. In writing this article, however, you seemed to subtly tell readers that you possess a personal connection to this culture of the "past". As a writer, are you directly impacted by the print culture that managed to both liberate and criminalize slaves, human beings, way back then? Or, did you simply write this article from the standpoint of someone who's far away from the story yet fascinated by it at the end of the day?

With sincere respect,

Jessica