Sarah Ann Haynesworth Gayle
2007-53

Summary Information

Repository
Newcomb Archives
Creator - Writer of accompanying material
Fox-Genovese, Elizabeth
Creator - Author
Gayle, John
Creator - Author
Gayle, Sarah Ann Haynesworth
Creator - Writer of accompanying material
Key, Francis Scott
Title
Sarah Ann Haynesworth Gayle
ID
2007-53
Date [inclusive]
Between 1804 and 1835
Extent
0.5 Cubic feet 1 Hollinger Box
Language
English

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Biographical/Historical note

Sarah H. Gayle is known best for the journal she kept consistently from 1827 until her death in 1835. Sarah was born in South Carolina in 1804 and moved with her family in 1810 to the newly established Alabama territory. In her journal she writes of memories she had of the long journey to Alabama; she even recounts how she met General Andrew Jackson and his men, Samuel Houston and Davy Crockett. In 1833 Sarah also had the opportunity to befriend and exchange writings with the patriot poet Francis Scott Key, who at the time was the Federal Commissioner to the State of Alabama. Key became friends with Governor John Gayle, and thus spent many nights with John, Sarah, and their family at their home in Greensborough, Alabama. In 1819 Sarah married a family friend, John Gayle, who was deeply involved in the political development of the Alabama territory. Throughout her diary Sarah describes in detail the trials of raising a family and being mistress of a household without her husband at home; his political career as a State Legislator, Supreme Court Judge, and Governor kept him in the capital city for months at a time. Because Sarah's journal is a consistent, well-written account of everyday life and southern womanhood, historians like Elizabeth Fox-Genovese have used it as a valid historical text of woman's issues in the antebellum South.

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Organization and Arrangement

This material is organized in five series:

I. Biographical Information

II. Correspondence

III. "The Letters of Sarah A. Gayle and John Gayle"

IV. Historian Elizabeth Fox-Genovese's paper; V. Journal of Sarah H. Gayle

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Administrative Information

Publication Information

Newcomb Archives

Newcomb Center for Research on Women
Seltzer-Gerard Reading Room
62 Newcomb Place
New Orleans, Louisiana, 70118
504 865 5762
vorhoff@tulane.edu

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Controlled Access Headings

Genre(s)

  • Diaries

Personal Name(s)

  • Denegre, George

Subject(s)

  • Nineteenth Century Life

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General note

The bulk of this material is contained in the Journal of Sarah H. Gayle. Material from all series have been refoldered, and some of the metal fasteners have been removed. The originals of Sarah Gayle's Journal and other papers in this file are located at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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Materials are organized in one box, as follows:

Biographical information, correspondence between Sarah Wiggins and George Denegre (great-great grandson of Sarah Gayle), copies of letters (originals at UNC-Chapel Hill), and the journal of Sarah Gayle as edited by her grandson Hugh A. Bayne (originals at UNC-Chapel Hill).

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Collection Inventory

 I Biographical Information   0.5 Cubic feet Part of contents of 1 Hollinger box.

Series Contents

1) Dictionary of Alabama Biography clipping on John Gayle

2) Newspaper clipping on Sarah Gayle as a "Slave holder"

3) Yale University Library Gazette "When Francis Scott Key Was an Ambassador"

4) Souvenir Booklet, The University of Alabama "Gorgas House"

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 II Correspondence   0.5 Cubic feet Part of contents of 1 Hollinger box.

Series Contents

1) Letters between Professor Sarah Woolfolk Wiggens, Editor, The Alabama Review, and George Denegre, Sarah Gayle's great-great grandson

2) A Francis Scott Key poem written to Sarah Gayle's daughter, Sarah Ann

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 III  Gayle, Sarah Ann Haynesworth The Letters of Sarah A. Gayle and John Gayle   0.5 Cubic feet Part of contents of 1 Hollinger box.

Series Content

Correspondence between Sarah A. and John Gayle while John was away on government business

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 IV  Fox-Genovese, Elizabeth Historian Elizabeth Fox-Genovese's Paper   0.5 Cubic feet Part of contents of 1 Hollinger box.

Series Content

Publication "Family and Female Identity in the Antebellum South: Sarah Gayle and Her Family"

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 V  Gayle, Sarah Ann Haynesworth Journal of Sarah H. Gayle   0.5 Cubic feet Part of contents of 1 Hollinger box.

Series Content

1) Complete Version

2) "Sarah Haynesworth Gayle and Her Journal" as edited by her grandson, Hugh A. Bayne

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