African American Passages Episode 4: In Search of Adeline Henson

In the fourth episode of our African American Passages podcast, former John W. Kluge Center Distinguished Visiting Scholar and Georgetown University history professor Adam Rothman goes in search of Adeline Henson, an African-American woman who makes an ephemeral appearance in the Library of Congress’s Manuscript Collections, through two photographs, a bill of sale, and a letter. In the first photograph, Adeline Henson is a young woman, likely still enslaved. In the second, taken in 1913, she is elderly.

Adam Rothman is joined by Johns Hopkins University historian Martha Jones and Library of Congress Senior Curator of Photography Beverly Brannan to discuss this fascinating story.