Scarsdale Librarian Reveals Cache of Civil War-Era Documents

When’s the last time you saw pure, unadulterated fascination on a child’s face?

(That glazed look they get while watching iCarly doesn’t count.)

After 13 years as a librarian in the Scarsdale public schools, Liz Waltzman knew how rare – and precious – a child’s true engagement with subject matter in school is. Throughout her career, Waltzman has made it her mission to whet intellectual appetites, but recently, her quest to root out interesting material for middle schoolers in Scarsdale has led her down some strange and surprising new paths.

“My current project began as a fluke, really,” Waltzman said. “One of our 7^th-grade visiting authors last year was Marilyn Nelson. She is a poet and was the poet laureate for the state of Connecticut from 2001-2006. Most of her books deal with the African-American experience and two deal directly with slavery. Her book ‘Fortune’s Bones’ is a requiem for a slave from Waterbury, Conn., whose owner was a physician who rendered his bones and made, I believe, the first skeleton for display and study." 

“In our discussion regarding the teaching of slavery and in preparation for Marilyn’s visit, Meghan Lahey, the 7^th grade social studies teacher, wondered if there was any information on slavery in Scarsdale. That same day, I located several local history books that we had in the library, and we found one website that had information. This began our quest to find more information, particularly primary documents that were mentioned in the secondary sources.”

Needless to say, Waltzman found her job to be quite an undertaking, consisting of countless hours of over-caffeinated, dusty stints spent sifting through one document after another. One recovered document often led to searches for another 20 that were tangentially related to the first, and would, in turn, each lead to another series of searches inspiring minor scholarly skirmishes when she uncovered major research errors in local historian’s work. 

While Waltzman was mum on the juicy details, she did interview scores of experts and descendents of former Scarsdale residents. Waltzman and her team of investigative cohorts, Lahey, Meghan Troy and Marci Rothman, later applied for a grant from the New York State Archives to continue and expand upon their work.

In one of the most competitive years to receive funding, the team has received $8,956.00 to continue their work. (Though their research continued, unabated, while they waited to receive word from the grant board.) 

The result: a pirate’s booty of never-before studied details on the history of slavery in Westchester.  

“I never in my life thought that I would end up uncovering original historical documents,” Waltzman said. “It has been incredibly exciting. And being able to put the incomprehensible and inhumane system of racial injustice in a tangible context for 7^th graders in Scarsdale has been priceless. Seeing the kids take original documents and study them with magnifying glasses, transcribing them word for word and even helping them uncover mistakes in some of the documents has truly been invaluable.”

So far, by tracing the brutal lines of slavery that wind down from the 18^th century, the team has discovered freedom movements spawned by the large Quaker population, descendants of escaped slaves who bought property in Scarsdale and thriving free black communities in the region.

The grant will pay for research, of course, but it will also allow Scarsdale 7^th-graders to embark on a five-phase study project involving the transcription of historical documents like slave indenture contracts, analysis of censes reports, papers and multimedia presentations on their research.

In addition to ensuring that Scarsdale children get a solid foundation in the African-American experience during the colonial period through the Civil War, Waltzman hopes to explore the Scarsdale historical archives for new discoveries of interest in African-American life up to the Civil Rights period.

“For example, I found that African-American children in Scarsdale were allowed to go to school up until the 8th grade for a certain period of time around the Civil Rights period,” Waltzman said. “But they were required to go elsewhere for high school. Can you believe that? It’s amazing. And it was relatively recent – it’s so important for children to learn all of the details.”

"We've ruffled some feathers," Waltzman said ruefully. "One of the outcomes that I'd like to see as a result of the project is that proper attention is given to these valuable documents and the rich history that they illuminate. There should be readily accessible records of this material, and as it stands now, there aren't."

That's hopefully going to change.

That’s about to change.