2023-08 Raynors HCA Live
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 8/26/2023
Mary Anna Morrison Jackson (July 21, 1831 - March 24, 1915) was the second wife, and subsequently widow, of Confederate Army general Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. She was widely known as the "Widow of the Confederacy" for the next 50 years. Autograph Letter Signed "Mrs. T. J. Jackson", 4pp., October 30, 1912 with original cover addressed to Mr. Gaillard S. Tennent of Asheville, NC. Mrs. Jackson writes to an artist about his rendering of the Morrison coat of arms, asking for specific changes to be made to the depiction of Moors in the design. The letter contains sensitive content including racist language. In part, "I did not notice, however in the dim light that the Moor's head was representative of the purest African type and when I showed it to my family, the exclamation burst for from me of them, "Well, I didn't know we were descended from nxxxers. Acknowledging the tradition that "the Morrisons gained distinction for prowess by the slaughter of Moors," she protests "that they were not pure, black thick-lipped Africans!" She request that Tennant change the copy "to relieve the picture of the hideous African representation and transform such monsters into the type of the brown race with more regular and intelligent features; certainly not the thick, sensual lips ..."
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