Peer Reviewed Publications
“A Stolen Ship: Robert Smalls’ Daring Escape to Freedom”
Gettysburg College Journal of the Civil War Era
Volume 12, 2023
“Beneath Central Park: The Preservation of Seneca Village”
Report: West Point Undergraduate Historical Review
Volume 14, Spring 2024
“The Three Lives of Hostomice Scroll #853”
The Jewish People and Memory: A Special Issue of the Judaic Studies Review
Spring 2025
Abstract
This paper discusses Robert Smalls’ daring escape to freedom on the morning of May 13, 1862. Smalls was an enslaved worker on the Confederate ship the Planter. Along with other enslaved members of the Planter’s crew, Smalls commandeered the ship and sailed past Confederate forts and ships in the Charleston Harbor until they reached the Union. I argue that the story of Robert Smalls validates arguments that enslaved people were not bystanders in the quest for emancipation; rather, the unique circumstances of the Civil War and the morning of May 13, 1862, allowed Smalls to enact his carefully created plan to seize his own freedom.
Abstract
“Beneath Central Park: The Preservation of Seneca Village” analyzes the creation of Central Park through the lens of the community that was eradicated to build it: Seneca Village. This paper seeks to understand how the history and legacy of Seneca Village are understood in the modern historical landscape by focusing on historian and archeologist Cynthia Copeland’s Seneca Village Project. Throughout the first decades of the 2000s, Copeland led efforts to excavate areas of Central Park to better understand the lives of Seneca Villagers. Her discoveries are imperative in contextualizing the history of Central Park and discussing how Americans should approach and preserve the histories of marginalized communities.
Abstract
Hostomice Scroll #853 has lived three lives. Working backwards from the present day, in the mid-1960s with the help of the Memorial Scrolls Trust, Hostomice Scroll #853 was re-homed in Congregation Habonim on 66th street just off Central Park West in Manhattan. Traveling back in time to pre-1960s, the scroll was housed in what is today known as the Jewish Museum in Prague. Before they were in a museum, however, they were a part of the everyday religious practice of a small Jewish community in Hostomice, Czech Republic. Hostomice Scroll #853 represents the Jewish communities of Bohemia and Moravia in the Czech Republic who died in the Shoah.