Discovering history in the backyard

William Allen '09 feels a particular affinity for Harriet Wilson, an indentured servant who lived in the town of Milford, N.H., in the mid-1800s.

Allen grew up in the same village. In fact, his family's home is located adjacent to the crumbling remains of the foundation of what was once the Milford Poor House, an institution with which Wilson was intimately familiar: she and her son may have lived there at one time, according to historians.

Beyond the hometown they shared, however, Allen and Wilson are both published authors whose work shed light on the impact of racism and its troubling legacy in a New England town better known as the home for many famous 18th-century abolitionists.

Wilson's book, Our Nig, Or Sketches from the Life of a Free Black, is a fictionalized account of the African American experience in New England. Believed to be the first novel written by an African American woman, the work was "discovered" by Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. in 1983. His re-publishing of the book, which had been forgotten, brought it to the attention of African American literature scholars around the country.

Allen discovered the book as a high school sophomore as a member of the high school's History Club. He was quickly hooked, and his interest caught the attention of the Harriet Wilson Project, an initiative aimed at drawing attention to the author's achievements and to her work.

"William was so enthusiastic and so bright. His interest was contagious and he was promoting awareness of Harriet Wilson's book," said Jerrianne Boggis, project director of the Harriet Wilson Project. "His level of understanding of the book was impressive."

As a first-year student at Wheaton, the political science major authored an essay that was ultimately chosen for the new book Harriet Wilson's New England: Race, Writing, and Region, published in September by the University of New Hampshire Press. The collection explores Wilson's life and work and examines the New England culture as she and other African Americas may have experienced it.

"We still have lessons to learn from Harriet Wilson's book," says Allen, who is an enlisted reservist in the United States Coast Guard. The political science major's essay, "Discovering Harriet Wilson in My Own Backyard," relates the misunderstandings that Allen encountered in Milford while trying to talk with others about the book. In fact, he was escorted out of a Barnes and Noble by security after asking a clerk for a copy of the book, an incident that reflected how unknown Wilson's work remained in the author's hometown.

"My experience taught me that most people are comfortable hearing an uplifting story about how a baseball player bridges the gap between the races," Allen writes in his newly published essay. "At the same time, we are not comfortable with Wilson's story of racism when we are confronted with it in our own backyard."

Boggis said that Allen's personal take on the subject won his essay publication in the book on Wilson. "We didn't want it to be just a collection for academics," she said. "We wanted it to be used in the high schools, too. We wanted other high school students to find that history has its place today and to get excited about Harriet Wilson's contributions."

Allen still bristles with excitement about the discovery of Wilson's book and the perspective that it offers contemporary readers on the experience of African Americans in New England. "Her story is so hidden still," he says. "To me, it's very important that my hometown has a writer like Harriet Wilson. Yet her book is not taught in the schools. She shouldn't be hidden and maybe this new book will help to ensure that she is finally recognized."