Notes from a Colored Girl

This historical biography provides a scholarly analysis of the personal diaries of a young, freeborn mulatto woman during the Civil War years. In Notes from a Colored Girl , Karsonya Wise Whitehead examines the life and experiences of Emilie Frances Davis through a close reading of three pocket diaries she kept from 1863 to 1865. Whitehead explores Davis’s worldviews and politics, her perceptions of both public and private events, her personal relationships, and her place in Philadelphia’s free