How did a 21 year old woman of mixed race see the world in the 1860s? That's the topic Loyola Professor Kaye Wise Whitehead is exploring in her first book. It's called Notes from a Colored Girl: The Civil War Pocket Diaries of Emilie Frances Davis.
The book is told through the eyes of a young free-born black woman living in Philadelphia. Her name was Emilie Davis, and she kept a daily diary for three years, beginning with the first day of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863.
Kaye Wise Whitehead is an assistant professor of communication and African and African American studies in the department of communications at Loyola University Maryland. You can learn more about her here.