LETTER: ALS to Jane C. Gordon
Two Page Autograph Letter Signed ("S. A. Martha Canfield") to Jane C. Gordon of Morganville, New Jersey on Department of the Interior, Bureau of Education stationary from Washington, D.C., dated on May 23rd, 1877. Old folds from mailing, else fine; original envelope present (the stamp removed). An easily readable and friendly letter from a teacher to an old and apparently dear acquaintance who also seems to be a teacher, discussing family matters and details of possible visits, of interest primarily for her mention that "I go this afternoon by steamer to Hampton, Va., to spend several days and look after my colored children that I have there at school." Canfield also says she will send some publications of the Bureau of Education (perhaps in an effort to recruit her friend?). Canfield was active in the Freedman's Burueau, and later in the Department of Education. In 1863, she went to visit her husband, a Lieutenant Colonel in an Ohio Regiment, in Tennessee, but only found his body after he was killed at the Battle of Shiloh. She stayed on in Tennessee to ably ran an "Asylum" for freed black children in Memphis, and later wrote several publications for the Bureau of Education including *Statements relating to Reformatory, Charitable, and Industrial Schools for the Young* (1875), *Training Schools of Cooking* (1879), and *The Inception, Organization, and Management of Training Schools for Nurses* (1882). Her service is detailed in *Grant, Lincoln, and the Freedmen: Reminiscences of the Civil War.* (Eaton and Mason; 1907) and also in *Woman's Work in the Civil War: A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience* (Brockett and Vaughn; 2007). A modest but interesting letter with a mention of the attempt to educate black children in the South.
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