In Search of Mary Miles Bibb: Trailblazer, Abolitionist, Educator

• In Event: Gender and International Relations

Abstract

The contributions of African American women from the 1800s are sparce in the historical record. The important work of Mary Miles (later Bibb, then Cary), who died in 1861, is just beginning to be recognized. The first African American to graduate from Framingham State University, she is credited as later being the first Black female journalist in Canada, recognized, with her husband Henry Bibb, as being persons of national historic significance by the Canadian government.

This paper, divided into two parts, begins with the story of this author’s search for Mary Miles Bibb. How does one track the life of a Black woman from the 1800s? What have been the results of archival searches from Windsor and Toronto, Canada to Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, and Boston and what challenges accompany the process of trying to retrieve pieces of a life, particularly that of a Black woman, more than 150 years after that person’s death?

Part two of the paper will discuss Bibb’s life in terms of her relevance to political science. Drawing on gendered frameworks offered by international relations scholars, Cynthia Enloe (2014) and Ann Tickner (2001), this section describes how signposts in Mary Bibb’s life show she was influential in shaping the anti-slavery and civil rights movement in her community and transnationally. This section also discusses the importance of further documenting and recognizing the work of Mary Miles Bibb as valuable to history and the field of international relations.

Author

• Carol J. Gray, University of Alaska