All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake

In 1850s South Carolina, an enslaved woman named Rose packed a cotton sack for her nine-year-old daughter Ashley before the girl was sold away from her mother. Decades later, Ashley's granddaughter Ruth embroidered the family's history onto the sack in spare, haunting language. Historian Tiya Miles traces the lives of these three women through archival records and, where archives are incomplete, through objects, art, and the environment. She reconstructs a singular history of slavery and the uncertain freedom that followed in the United States. The book examines how these women preserved family ties when official systems refused to do so, and demonstrates methods for reconstructing and recounting such stories today. All That She Carried is an account of resilience and love passed down across generations, honoring the creativity and resourcefulness of people left out of traditional historical records.