Dr. Gerald Schwartz will discuss his book, “A Woman Doctor’s Civil War: Esther Hill Hawks’ Diary.” A physician, a Northerner, a teacher, a school administrator, a suffragist, and an abolitionist, Esther Hill Hawks was the antithesis of Southern womanhood. While most women of the 1860s stayed at home, tending husband and house, Dr. Esther Hill Hawks came South to Beaufort to minister to black Union troops and newly freed slaves as both a teacher and a doctor. She kept a diary and described the South. Her pen, honed to a fine point by her abolitionist views, missed nothing as she traveled through a hungry and ailing land.
Remarkably frank, Esther Hill Hawks’ story is one that is long overdue in the telling.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Gerald Schwartz is a professor of history at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, N.C. A graduate of Mexico City College, Dr. Schwartz holds a Ph.D. from Washington State University.
Please RSVP to Nancy Gilley at 843-524-7969. An optional light lunch catered by Debbi Covington will be served at 11:30 a.m. for $10.
The Beaufort County Historical Society is the oldest association in Beaufort County dedicated to the study and preservation of history. A member based organization, the society was established in 1939.
For more information, contact Pamela Ovens-President at sail@singlestar.us or call 843-785-2767 or visit www.beaufortcountyhistoricalsociety.org.
