The Fashion Archives and Museum of Shippensburg University has been diligently working alongside the City of Frederick’s Historic Preservation Office to bring the Sites of Enslavement to document the lived experiences of enslaved individuals, including the clothing and garments they wore.
The project is an ongoing effort by the City of Frederick to interpret research, interpret and publicly showcase the locations connected to the lives of enslaved African Americans. Each marker will include a QR code that links to a short documentary video about the site and the people associated with it.
Sarah Hoffeditz, Historic Preservation Planner II for the City of Frederick and an alumna of the Applied History graduate program at Shippensburg, recently contacted Dr. Karin J. Bohleke, director of the Fashion Archives and Museum at Shippensburg University, to assist with collecting garments connected to enslaved individuals and the emancipation era.
Hoffeditz shared an 1827 advertisement from the Frederick Herald with Bohleke, offering a $50 reward for Leonard, a 22 or 23-year-old enslaved coachman who fled wearing or taking a long list of clothing items. The detailed description includes a “sky blue coatee,” “black bombazet coat,” yellow gilt buttons,” striped pantaloons, waistcoasts and shirts made of fine cotton and drilling.
Bohleke was able to provide Hoffeditz with an 1820s sky blue coatee, 1820s black satin waistcoats and 1830s man’s shirt – similar to the styling of the 1820s. While the Fashion Archives cannot document that these exact garments were worn by enslaved individuals, Bohleke believes in the educational value of reconstructing Lenoard’s appearance in an accurate manner.
“With what we have, we can give the public a true sense of what Leonard may have looked like – not in myth or imagination, but in historically grounded material culture,” Bohleke expressed. “Anything we can do to restore humanity and specificity to those who were denied both is worth doing,” she said. “If a blue coatee helps us remember Leonard as a person instead of a statistic, then the garment has done its job.”
For Bohleke, the collaboration aligns with the Fashion Archives’ mission to use clothing as a way to tell stories throughout history.
“We work continually to show that garments are not just textiles, but social evidence,” she said. “Clothing helps us visualize people who were not allowed to leave written records of their own.”
The City of Frederick will install its first public markers this year, and the site videos are expected to launch online in phases. Hoffeditz noted that the work is only just beginning.
“Our goal is to bring forward the stories that were long ignored, hidden or erased”, said Hoffeditz. “Leondard’s story matters, and if we can get even a little closer to showing who he was as a human being, it changes how people understand history.”
