Trilogy: Passages From Life Stories in the Time of Slavery

The nineteenth century is one of the most significant centuries in the history of man. Slavery is only a part of that time, albeit a significant one. It is the century when the industrial revolution truly took hold. Ways of life were continually changing, generally improving. The concept of the individual as an autonomous person and not just a subject of the ruling class was beginning to take hold. That naturally led to critical examination of slavery.

Slavery was justifiable to an aristocratic class that had for been generations comfortable with ruling over others, both free and slave. On the other hand, there were those who were developing a fierce sense of individual liberty previously unknown in the world, and largely unattainable prior to the industrial revolution.

TRILOGY consists of passages from three autobiographical books by people of that time.

Cornelia Randolph was the aristocratic daughter of a plantation owner who owned hundreds of slaves.

Solomon Northup was a free black man who had been kidnapped into slavery for a period of twelve years.

Albion Tourgee had been a Northern officer in the civil war, moving to the South after the war, becoming a carpetbagger.

None of these three knew each other personally, but they share the times. They are a window into those times.

Chip Kussmaul taught science in public schools for six years at the beginning of his career. Wanting to examine other opportunities, he became and architectural woodworker. Besides commercial work, Chip restored a number of Victorian homes, in a period appropriate manner. He and his wife Jan have lived for many years in one such home, an 1880s Italianate. The nineteenth century fascinates Chip. It was one of the most rapidly transitioning centuries in human history. The age of enlightenment was forcing slavery to a close, while the industrial revolution, for better and worse, rapidly changed how people lived.