A rare piece of
historical ephemera, the mailer tube’s label records the name and
address of the lithograph’s purchaser, Absalom Arter of Carlisle, Pennsylvania,
providing a glimpse into the A.M.E. Sunday School Union’s customer base in the
North. Little is known about Absalom Arter’s early life. The records that document that he was born in Charles Town, Virginia (later West Virginia), on December 25, 1839, do not indicate whether he was enslaved or free. By 1863, he was in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, where he enlisted as a private in Company H of the 22nd Regiment of the U.S. Colored Infantry. He served for the duration of the Civil War, mustering out on October 16, 1865.
After
the war, Absalom made a living as a day laborer and gardener. He and his family
moved often from city to city in central and western Pennsylvania, perhaps in
search of steady work. It is notable that, despite their frequent moves, the
Arters usually settled in a town or city close to an A.M.E. or an A.M.E. Zion
church. In 1880, he and his wife Henrietta (in either his first or second
marriage) lived with their four children, Harriet, Laton, Charles, and Anna in
Shippensburg, Pennsylvania. A November 22, 1884, article in the African
American newspaper The State Journal
noted that a Miss Hetty Arter (possibly Absalom’s fourteen-year-old daughter
Harriet) had won a gold necklace as a prize for her performance in a
fundraising concert at Shippensburg’s Wesley A.M.E. Zion Church.
By
1887, Absalom was living in Carlisle, where he married his third wife, Nancy
Ellen Plecker, around 1892. Like Absalom’s previous wife Henrietta, Nancy did
not work outside of the home. Between 1892 and 1909, Absalom and Nancy had ten
children, three of whom died at an early age. Charles and Anna, the two
youngest children from his previous marriage, may also have lived in the
household until they reached adulthood. It was here in Carlisle that the A.M.E.
Sunday School Union lithograph was sent. Solely dependent upon Absalom’s wages,
the growing family was not wealthy and probably lived in tight quarters at 59
West Chapel Street. Regardless of a family’s income, a print such as this typically
would be displayed in the main living room as a religious and social symbol of
racial progress.
 |
| The Arters lived on West Chapel Street, between Pitt and Hanover Streets. As pictured on this map, a Bethel A.M.E. church is only a block and a half away at the corner of West Chapel and West Streets. Map of Carlisle from Atlas of Cumberland Co., Pennsylvania (New York: P.W. Beers, 1872). |
According
to city directories and federal censuses, Absalom probably continued working
well into his seventies. Although all of the Arters’ children were literate and
had attended school, when they reached adulthood, they too found work in domestic
service or manual labor occupations, ranging from maids and laborers to porters
and molders. The reasons for their employment choices are likely complex but may
have been due to a combination of racial prejudice, economic pressures to earn
money rather pursue advanced education, limited employment options, and lack of
access to professional training. A December 3, 1891, article in The Christian
Recorder observed that African Americans were completely shut out of
employment opportunities in the thriving manufacturing sector of central
Pennsylvania.
In
1922, for the first time, the Arters settled in a town without an A.M.E. church
or a substantial African American population when they moved to Cambridge
Springs, a resort town in Crawford County, Pennsylvania. A decade earlier, the Pennsylvania Negro Business Directory, 1910
had noted that the town’s only African American residents were a restaurant proprietor
and his wife. In 1920, the entire county of Crawford contained approximately
700 African Americans out of 60,000 residents, suggesting that blacks were
still a tiny minority in Cambridge Springs when the Arters arrived. A year
following the move Absalom died. Nancy lived with her daughter Mary in
Cambridge Springs until her death in 1962, likely supported by Mary’s wages
from domestic service and Absalom’s veteran’s pension.
Many
gaps remain about the Arters’ aspirations, motivations, and struggles.
Nevertheless, as a material artifact of their existence, this print and its
mailer tube help to flesh out the lives of a working-class Northern black
family in the late 19th century.
Krystal Appiah
Exhibition Curator and
Curator of African American History
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