Dorothy Sterling (1913—2008) was a native New Yorker who lived for many years on Cape Cod in Wellfleet. She made many trips to Nantucket, Block Island, Martha's Vineyard, and Long Island. She was a painstaking and thorough researcher with a long list of natural history, biography, and fiction books to her credit.

"This richly researched, sensitively edited, annotated volume portrays indelibly, in their own words, the lives of American black women before, during, and immediately after the Civil War... Added to the oral interviews collected by historians of the WPA Writers' Project in the 1930s are excerpts from contemporary diaries, letters, newspapers, memoirs and other sources... A narrative symphonic in scope and inspiring in its revelations of the human ability to overcome... Unforgettable reading." -- Publishers Weekly "Dorothy Sterling has for most of a rich lifetime been providing us with significant portions of black women's history. Now we have another treasure, the fruits of a sympathetic heart and an able mind." -- Florence Howe, The State University of New York at Old Westbury

Dorothy Sterling (1913—2008) was a native New Yorker who lived for many years on Cape Cod in Wellfleet. She made many trips to Nantucket, Block Island, Martha's Vineyard, and Long Island. She was a painstaking and thorough researcher with a long list of natural history, biography, and fiction books to her credit.

"This richly researched, sensitively edited, annotated volume portrays indelibly, in their own words, the lives of American black women before, during, and immediately after the Civil War... Added to the oral interviews collected by historians of the WPA Writers' Project in the 1930s are excerpts from contemporary diaries, letters, newspapers, memoirs and other sources... A narrative symphonic in scope and inspiring in its revelations of the human ability to overcome... Unforgettable reading." -- Publishers Weekly "Dorothy Sterling has for most of a rich lifetime been providing us with significant portions of black women's history. Now we have another treasure, the fruits of a sympathetic heart and an able mind." -- Florence Howe, The State University of New York at Old Westbury

Dorothy Sterling (1913—2008) was a native New Yorker who lived for many years on Cape Cod in Wellfleet. She made many trips to Nantucket, Block Island, Martha's Vineyard, and Long Island. She was a painstaking and thorough researcher with a long list of natural history, biography, and fiction books to her credit.

"This richly researched, sensitively edited, annotated volume portrays indelibly, in their own words, the lives of American black women before, during, and immediately after the Civil War... Added to the oral interviews collected by historians of the WPA Writers' Project in the 1930s are excerpts from contemporary diaries, letters, newspapers, memoirs and other sources... A narrative symphonic in scope and inspiring in its revelations of the human ability to overcome... Unforgettable reading." -- Publishers Weekly "Dorothy Sterling has for most of a rich lifetime been providing us with significant portions of black women's history. Now we have another treasure, the fruits of a sympathetic heart and an able mind." -- Florence Howe, The State University of New York at Old Westbury