Reflection of archives

Britney Lewis

CODES

09 February 2024

This time, the trip to the garden was more interesting and I enjoyed it. We got to touch and read the documents. I remember when I was reading a document I noticed that some of the words were misspelled. This shocked me only because I didn’t know that back in those times they spelled things very differently than now.

The documents that I viewed were fascinating to me they were the receipts from Henry Shaw. I found it interesting that they had a handwritten Will by Robert Campbell. Henry Shaw had no family and left his will to the Botanical Gardens. He also left funds to establish the gardens and to build the Tower Grove house. I also saw receipts of slaves that Shaw bought they were described as “property” and not human beings. Their voices were silenced while Henry Shaw and his people were heard so when we talk about Henry Shaw back then it seems like it’s one-sided which makes it hard to fully understand what happened back in those times.

My group worked well together and when it came down to trying to read the documents we all worked together and asked questions. We learned more about Shaw through those receipts that we would’ve never known. I also feel like that was very helpful because we could include these things in our research.