Newman also brings to life the African-Americans, first under slavery and then under Jim Crow segregation, who worked for her ancestors. Slave-owning planters and poor white farmers, enslaved and free black people, soldiers, lawyers, clerks, teachers, seamstresses, and housewives -- all their stories are included in this rich history of Newman's Virginia ancestors.
Barbara Newman is a professor who taught Russian and European history at the University of Akron for twenty-nine years. She was born and raised in Richmond Virginia, received her BA from the University of Richmond, her MA and PhD from Duke University.