Buss’s letters provide a fascinating look into the experiences of Northern women teaching in the Reconstruction South. That she returned again and again, to different locations, teaching at different sorts of schools, and that her letters demonstrate genuine interest in and commitment to the welfare and future of freedpeople makes this collection an invaluable resource for scholars and a pleasure for readers.

Harriet Buss’s work proved more than a novel adventure undertaken by some missionaries. While other white women typically lasted one season, Buss persisted. By bridging race, gender, and region, she helped to lay the foundation for African American public schools and present-day Shaw University. Her letters also reveal the real challenges posed by the Ku Klux Klan and Southern white derailers of Reconstruction as well as the failure of federal leadership. This compelling collection of letters reintroduces readers to Harriet Buss as a significant interlocutor for understanding the motivations, experiences, and achievements of white Northern women who labored on the Southern educational frontier.

Jonathan White and Lydia Davis have a done a fine job introducing readers to Harriet Buss and her world. The editorial work is excellent, both in the introductions to each section of letters and in the annotations. Unlike many edited collections, this one has a thorough subject index that will assist a wide range of researchers. At the same time, My Work Among the Freedmen is simply worth reading to meet Harriet Buss and her students.

The good Harriet Buss accomplished permeates her amazing letters

A valuable contribution to the study of the Civil War era. Harriett Buss’s experiences in Port Royal brought her into contact with such familiar figures as Harriet Tubman, Robert Smalls, and James Montgomery. These associations, paired with the editor’s annotations, make the Civil War letters in this volume an excellent teaching resource, while the Reconstruction letters provide a comprehensive look at how day-to-day education functioned after the war. Social historians, as well as historians of race and education, will doubtless find plenty of material to work with here. Scholars may be especially interested in the complex interplay between personal progress and prejudice, an interplay that shaped the relationship between Buss and her students.

Buss’s letters provide incredible access to the life and thoughts of a northern white female teacher during the Civil War era. Readers of her letters will find a wealth of information on a host of topics related to race relations, nineteenth-century politics, gender, and the reality of living in a wartime and postwar society. They will also encounter someone who is very human and whose personality shines through by discussing rather normal, yet fascinating, things, like her obsession with food. She also comes across as someone who embraced hopefulness for the future, as evidenced by her dedication to teaching Black Americans. Moreover, Harriet Buss provides readers and researchers alike with a rich collection of letters that help us better understand this important moment in our history.