Voices from Harpers Ferry: Generations of Perspectives on John Brown's Raid

 

9:30 AM | Welcome with Pastries and Coffee

 

10:00 AM | Kevin R. Pawlak, John Brown's Raid: Harpers Ferry and the Coming of the Civil War

 

Herman Melville and Walt Whitman extolled John Brown as a “meteor” of the war. The nation’s dividing line had been drawn. Roughly one year after Brown’s failed Harper’s Ferry raid, the nation was at war, fueled by Brown’s fiery actions. John Brown’s Raid—part of the Emerging Civil War series—tells the story of the first shots that led to disunion. Author Kevin R. Pawlak is a historic site manager for Prince William County’s Office of Historic Preservation and a Certified Battlefield Guide at Antietam National Battlefield. He previously worked as a park ranger at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.

 

 

11:15 AM | Brianna Wheeler, Altogether Different

 

Portland, Oregon-based journalist and author Brianna Wheeler will discuss the unexpectedly esoteric recovery she experienced after publishing her Eric Hoffer Award-nominated debut memoir, Altogether Different: A Memoir About Identity Inheritance and the Raid that Started the War, a hybrid work of nonfiction that explores the author’s relationship with her ancestor Dangerfield Newby, the first of John Brown’s soldiers to be killed during the raid on Harpers Ferry. She will also perform a short reading from Altogether Different.

 

12:15 PM | Light Lunch and Book Signings

 

1:30 PM | Book Launch, A Voice from Harper’s Ferry by Osborne Perry Anderson, copyright 1861, reprinted 2024

 

Interpretive Park Ranger Isaac Wickenheiser will speak of the importance of this first-person account in public interpretation; Executive Director Catherine Baldau will describe the Harpers Ferry Park Association’s mission to make out-of-print or never-before-printed manuscripts available to the public; and author of “Five for Freedom: The African American Soldiers in John Brown’s Army” and former Washington Post journalist Eugene L. Meyer will highlight Osborne Perry Anderson, his life and afterlife, myths and facts about this man whose place in history has been treated with ambivalence. He’s a hero—but not quite a hero in the raid on Harpers Ferry.

 

 

2:45 PM | Louis DeCaro, Jr., John Brown: Changing Perspectives

 

Retired professor of history and life-long student of John Brown, Louis DeCaro, Jr., has written extensively on Brown, his men, Brown’s raid and last days, and on Brown’s biographers. In this talk, DeCaro will center his presentation on Brown’s writers upon the essential work of Boyd B. Stutler, documentarian and collector, whose work, association, and influence serves as a hub connecting Brown’s writers past and present. From this vantage point, DeCaro will likewise suggest the changing perspectives of Brown, and how the story has changed according to time and political circumstances.