All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake
“A history told with brilliance and tenderness and fearlessness.”—Jill Lepore, author of These Truths: A History of the United States
In a display case in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture sits a rough cotton bag, called Ashley’s Sack, embroidered with just a handful of words that evoke a sweeping family story of loss and of love, passed down through generations.
In 1850s South Carolina, an enslaved woman named Rose gave this sack filled with a few precious items to her daughter, Ashley, as a token of love and to try to ensure Ashley’s survival as well. Soon after, the nine-year-old girl was separated from her mother and sold.
Decades later, Ashley’s granddaughter Ruth embroidered this family history on the bag in spare yet haunting language—including Rose’s wish that “It be filled with my Love always.” Now, in this illuminating, deeply moving book inspired by Rose’s gift to Ashley, historian Tiya Miles carefully unearths these women’s faint presence in archival records to follow the paths of their lives—and the lives of so many women like them—to write a singular and revelatory history of the experience of slavery, and the uncertain freedom afterward, in the United States.
The search to uncover this history is part of the story itself. For where the historical record falls short of capturing Rose’s, Ashley’s, and Ruth’s full lives, Miles turns to objects and to art as equally important sources, assembling a chorus of women’s and families’ stories and critiquing the scant archives that for decades have overlooked so many. As she follows Ashley’s journey, Miles metaphorically “unpacks” the sack, deepening its emotional resonance and exploring the meanings and significance of everything it contained. The contents of Ashley’s sack—a tattered dress, handfuls of pecans, a braid of hair, “my Love always”—are eloquent evidence of the lives these women lived. They open up a window on Rose and Ashley’s world.
All That She Carried is a poignant story of resilience and of love passed down through generations of women against steep odds. It honors the creativity and fierce resourcefulness of people who preserved family ties even when official systems refused to do so, and it serves as a visionary illustration of how to reconstruct and recount their stories today.
As announced by Random House. More information on the publisher’s page.
Acclaim
New York Times Best Seller
Awards:
- 2021 National Book Award — Nonfiction
- 2022 PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award — Nonfiction
- 2022 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award — Best Nonfiction
- 2022 Darlene Clark Hine Award — Best Book in African American Women’s and Gender History
- 2022 Lawrence W. Levine Award — Best Book in American Cultural History
- 2022 Ralph Waldo Emerson Award — Nonfiction (Phi Beta Kappa)
- 2022 Massachusetts Book Award — Nonfiction
- 2022 Frederick Douglass Book Prize — Nonfiction
- 2022 Cundhill History Prize — Best Book
- 2022 Harriet Tubman Book Prize — Best Nonfiction Book
Notable:
- Finalist Chautauqua Book Prize
- Finalist Stone Book Award, Museum of African American History
- Finalist Lynton History Prize/J. Anthony Lukas Awards
- Finalist Kirkus Prize
ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, Slate, Vulture, Publishers Weekly
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, NPR, The Boston Globe, The Atlantic, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Smithsonian Magazine, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Ms. magazine, Book Riot, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, Booklist
Praise
“Tiya Miles is a gentle genius. The histories she writes are as deeply feeling as they are brilliantly researched and her writing is both elegant and tender. All That She Carried is a gorgeous book and a model for how to read as well as feel the precious artifacts of Black women’s lives.”
—Imani Perry, author of Breathe: A Letter to My Sons
“All That She Carried is a moving literary and visual experience about love between a mother and daughter and about many women descendants down through the years. Above all it is Miles’s lyrical story, written in her signature penetrating prose, about the power of objects and memory, as well as human endurance, in the history of slavery. Ashley’s sack carries us into another world as it reveals our own. The book is nothing short of a revelation.”
—David W. Blight, Yale University, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom
“We live in a world that undervalues, ignores, and erases the work and the humanity of Black women. Ashley’s Sack, as it is known, with its short and simple message of intergenerational love, becomes a portal through which Tiya Miles views and reimagines the inner lives of Black women. She excavates the history of Black women who face insurmountable odds and invent a language that can travel across time. She unearths how Black women fashion for their daughters sacks and words that will carry them into uncertain futures. All That She Carried is a stunning work of history and humanism, and Tiya Miles is one of our most eloquent chroniclers of the African American experience.”
—Michael Eric Dyson, author of Long Time Coming: Reckoning with Race in America
“Tiya Miles uses the tools of her trade to tend to Black people, to Black mothers and daughters, to our wounds, to collective Black love and loss. This book demonstrates Miles’s signature genius in its rare balance of both rigor and care.”
—Brittney Cooper, author of Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower
“Only a brilliant storyteller like Tiya Miles could get Ashley’s sack to speak across the generations. This story, about an enslaved girl’s simple cotton bag and its few embroidered lines, encourages us to pick up our treasured family keepsakes and recognize the love that they contain. Blending urgency, imagination, and poetic prose, All That She Carried is a masterpiece work of African American women’s history that reveals what it takes to survive and even thrive. Read this book and then pass it on to someone you love—it is a fitting tribute to Ashley, her mother Rose, and all those foremothers who endured.”
—Martha S. Jones, author of Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All
Published by Random House, June 2021. More information on the publisher’s page.
If you enjoy All That She Carried, please post a review to Amazon.com, Goodreads, or LibraryThing so the moving story of the sack can be passed on.
If you would like to invite Tiya to speak, please contact Rolisa Tutwyler at CCMNT Speakers.
Featured Interviews
In conversation with Tiya Miles
The Women’s Prize Trust spoke to Tiya about her writing, research and current reads. Read Tiya’s interview.
OBP’s Summer Book Club
On the Our Body Politic podcast episode OBP’s Summer Book Club, Farai Chideya talks with Tiya about her book All That She Carried and “one family heirloom from the enslavement period that remarkably stood the test of time.” Aired on July 28, 2023. Tiya’s interview begins at 20:18. Listen now.
A Historian Reckons With Gaps in the Archives
Brooke Gladstone, host of WNYC Studios On the Media, asks Tiya about her meditative approach to history and her career as a historical fiction writer. Miles explains what she learned about the three women connected to Ashley’s sack through her research and imagination to consider what their lives looked like. Listen now.
Ideas with Nahlah Ayed
“Ideas with Nahlah Ayed” — A cotton sack from the time of slavery bears the first names of a mother and her daughter, who was sold at the age of nine. Tiya scours the historical documentary record to discover who these women were and reveals their story of love in her book, All That She Carried — winner of the 2022 Cundill History Prize. Aired: Feb. 20, 2023
Black Native History with Dr. Tiya Miles
“Black Native History with Dr. Tiya Miles” — On the first episode in the series Black Native History on All My Relations Podcast, Tiya talks with the hosts about the historical foundations and intersection of relationships between Black and Native populations starting with the circumstances of their introduction during the time of the white settler invasion of the Americas.
Interview with South Writ Large
In her interview with South Writ Large, Tiya shares her inspiration, challenges, and intent behind her highly acclaimed book, All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake. Read her interview.
Q&A with Tiya Miles
Tiya discusses her experience writing the book All That She Carried with author Deborah Kalb on Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb.
All That She Carried’ tells the story of generations of Black women and the love that binds them
Tiya talks to NPR‘s Here & Now host Scott Tong about her latest book All That She Carried, a nominee for the 2021 National Book Award, and how “Ashley’s sack is a different kind of monument to the past; it’s not huge, it’s not made of stone, it’s not in the middle of a town square, and yet it speaks as loudly…” Listen to Tiya’s interview.
Tiya Miles writes history but she reads everything
What’s on Tiya’s reading list? Find out in her interview published in The Boston Globe. Read “Tiya Miles writes history but she reads everything.”
How A Cotton Sack, Passed Down Over Generations, Tells A Larger Story About Slavery – NPR
In this interview Tiya talks with NPR’s Arun Venugopal about her book All That She Carried — highlighting the story of a single cotton sack passed down over generations; from Rose, an enslaved woman, who gives the sack to her young daughter Ashley before she is sold to eventually finding its way to her great-granddaughter Ruth who embroiders the sack Venugopal summarizes, “In the words of author Tiya Miles, this book is about the burdens of being human in an inhumane world, and about how Black women in particular have responded to systemic erasure with art, compassion and love.” Listen to Tiya’s interview (transcript available).
The Extreme History Project: The Dirt on the Past
Tiya talks with the hosts of the podcast The Dirt on the Past about her book All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, A Black Family Keepsake — why she felt compelled to write about this significant object, her process, and why this story of resilience and of love passed down through generations of women is important today as we struggle with how to understand our hard histories and reconcile our past in a way that can help us move forward together.
Listen to the interview on Apple Podcasts.
Black Feminist in Public: Ahead of Juneteenth, Tiya Miles Explores the Historical Baggage of Slavery
‘We are here because our ancestors were extraordinary, and that is a point of pride. They fought their way out of all of those ropes and chains. We can be proud of that, and I think that’s what this work is about.’ Tiya is interviewed by Janell Hobson in advance of Juneteenth as part of the Black Feminist in Public series for Ms. Read Tiya’s interview.
Rising Sea Levels Threaten MBTA’s Blue Line
“Rising Sea Levels Threaten MBTA’s Blue Line“ — Tiya discusses her new book, All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake, on Radio Boston (WBUR) with host Tiziana Dearing. June 2021.
Understanding the Horror of Slavery Is Impossible. But a Simple Cotton Sack Can Bring Us Closer.
From pecans to maternal empathy; in a moving and thoughtful interview with Slate, Tiya shares some of what she felt and experienced researching and writing All That She Carried. Read the full interview.
An Ordinary Treasure: PW Talks with Tiya Miles
Tiya was interviewed by Publishers Weekly on the material and symbolic significance of a cotton sack packed by an enslaved mother for her nine-year-old daughter, Ashley, the subject in her upcoming book All That She Carried (Random House, June 2021). Read the interview.
Featured Conversations
Sundays@Home: In Conversation with Dr. Tiya Miles, Author of “All That She Carried.” (Mar 30, 2022)
NWHM and Dr. Martha S. Jones joined in conversation with Dr. Tiya Miles, author of “All That She Carried,” for this special Sundays@Home program, followed by a live Q&A.
A Simple Cotton Sack: A Conversation about African American Women, Trauma, and Resistance (Feb 3, 2022)
Newberry Library
In this installment of our “Conversations at the Newberry” series, scholars Tiya Miles and Megan Sweeney discuss how seemingly simple historical artifacts can reveal the ways that enslaved African American women exercised agency under horrifying constraints and found meaning and beauty amid pain.
Book Talk with Tiya Miles || Harvard Radcliffe Institute (July 20, 2021)
The second installment in the summer series of Virtual Radcliffe Book Talks features Tiya Miles, author of All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake (Random House, 2021). Tiya’s reading is followed by a discussion with Tomiko Brown-Nagin, dean of Harvard Radcliffe Institute, Daniel P.S. Paul Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School, professor of history in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and chair of the Presidential Committee on Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery.
Tiya is a Radcliffe Alumnae Professor at Harvard Radcliffe Institute, a professor of history in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the Presidential Committee on Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery, a University-wide effort anchored at Harvard Radcliffe Institute. This program is presented as part of the Presidential Initiative on Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery.
History Café: Harriet Jacobs and the World of Abolitionist Cambridge Women (May 24, 2021)
“In our first History Café program of 2021, Dr. Tiya Miles discusses her work on the life of writer and abolitionist Harriet Jacobs. For the Spring 2021 semester at Harvard University, where she is Professor of History, Dr. Miles created a new course, “Abolitionist Women and Their Worlds.” Dr. Miles is joined in this program by her graduate teaching fellow, Alyssa Napier, and by two of her undergraduate students, Kyra March and Lilah Penner Brown, to talk about their experiences researching Jacobs’ time in Cambridge and her involvement with the movements for abolition and civil rights for Black Americans.”
All That She Carried Dr Tiya Miles hosted by Middleton Place (6/10/21)
“ALL THAT SHE CARRIED is a story about women, mothers and daughters, who chose the profundity of love over dehumanizing conditions. How much can one bag hold? Ashley’s Sack a rough cotton bag, given by an enslaved woman named Rose to her daughter, Ashley, before their forced separation, reveals one object’s capacity to hold onto history and to keep love for generations. Ashley’s granddaughter, Ruth, inherited the sack and embroidered it with just a handful of words that evoke her family’s sweeping story of loss and of love.
Building on Ruth’s words, Miles carefully unearths these women’s faint presence in archival records and draws on objects and art, to follow the paths of their lives—and the lives of so many women like them—in a singular and revelatory history of the experience of slavery, and the uncertain freedom afterward, in the United States.
But what makes Miles’s book revolutionary is that she shows us how these threadbare pieces of the historic record are vital TODAY as we stare down a difficult future. ALL THAT SHE CARRIED is not simply a history of dark times, as necessary as they as they are to confront, but about rediscovering the tools that Black women invented—tools to preserve and pass down love, tools to rescue stories, tools to hold onto the hope for a future against steep odds—as we look to create our own future, a future that includes facing things such as police brutality and climate change.”
Rising Sea Levels Threaten MBTA’s Blue Line’
“Rising Sea Levels Threaten MBTA’s Blue Line’“ — Tiya discusses her new book on Radio Boston (WBUR) with host Tiziana Dearing. June 2021.
Featured Press
Coffin site ties events to ‘All That She Carried’ book
The Levi and Catharine Coffin State Historic Site is hosting events as part of Indiana Humanities’ One State/One Story initiative based on Tiya’s book All That She Carried.
12 Books That’ll Get You in That Cozy Fall Mood
All That She Carried is a “poignant story of love and resilience that will remind you of the universal power of the ties that bind us.”
Ketanji Brown Jackson Looks Forward to Reading Fiction Again
Tiya’s book All That She Carried is on Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s night stand along with books written by Cicely Tyson, Viola Davis, Michelle Obama, Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Stephen Breyer.
7 Thrilling Tales That Upturn What We Know about Black History
Susanna Ashton recommends All That She Carried, and a few other select books that model new ways to see Black history and American history, with all of its beauty and cruelty, afresh.
Summer Reading 2024: Faculty and Staff Share What’s on Their Lists
“Tiya Miles is a gifted writer and an expert historian. As an African American woman, I enjoy learning about history from a womanist/feminist perspective, All That She Carried fulfilled this for me.”
20 Black-authored books you must read on Juneteenth
Tiya’s book, All That She Carried, is recommended reading for readers interested in non-fiction.
Library Awarded Grant for One State/One Story Programs
The Indianapolis Public Library was awarded a $750 Community Read grant from Indiana Humanities to participate in a statewide read of All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake.
Electric, poignant, exquisitely written: inside the inaugural Women’s prize for nonfiction shortlist
The award’s chair of judges explain why they chose Tiya’s book, All That She Carried, as one of the final six contenders for the inaugural Women’s prize for nonfiction.
Inaugural Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction shortlist revealed
Tiya’s book, All That She Carried, is one of six books shortlisted for the inaugural Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction.
9 Fascinating Books for Black History Month
Recent reads that explore the lives of extraordinary African Americans and their legacies including Tiya’s book All That She Carried.
Who’s on the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction longlist
Tiya is among 16 authors in contention for the inaugural Women’s Prize Non-Fiction for her book All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake.
10 Recent Works of Black History That Everyone Should Read
“It’s a treasure trove of insight into Black family life in America.” Tiya’s book, All That She Carried, is one of “10 standout titles” that PW encourages you to add to your bookshelf.
Five Local Libraries Will Be Hosts For 2024 Statewide Reading Program
Indiana Humanities and the Indiana Center for the Book recently announced the awardees for the 2023-2025 “One State/One Story” statewide reading program featuring All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake.
Five Best: Books on Unsung Women
All That She Carried was selected by Leah Redmond Chang, the author of Young Queens: Three Renaissance Women and the Price of Power as one of the five best books about unsung women.
Meet the 13 Writers on the 2023 Baillie Gifford Prize Longlist
Tiya explains how she conducted her research for All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake and how she illuminated the theme of memory throughout the book.
Titles Announced For 2023-2025 Indiana Statewide Read
Indiana Humanities and Indiana Center for the Book announced their selections for the 2023-2025 One State/One Story statewide reading program: All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake is the high school/adult selection.
Arifa Akbar and Ruth Scurr on the 2023 Baillie Gifford Prize Longlist
Arifa Akbar and Ruth Scurr, two 2023 judges for the 2023 Baillie Gifford Prize, discuss the selections of the 2023 longlist on the podcast Read Smart (September 8, 2023). The discussion of Tiya’s book, All That She Carried, described by the judges as a “brilliant” and “life-affirming” book that “absolutely had to be on our list,” begins at the 26:49 minute mark.
Van Tulleken, Miles and Branigan make £50k Baillie Gifford Prize longlist
Tiya is one of this year’s thirteen authors longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize.
The Prize announces the 2023 longlist
All That She Carried, released by Profile Books last summer, has been longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, which celebrates the best in non-fiction writing.
Read All About It
Brooke Gladstone’s interview with Tiya on her book All That She Carried is revisited in this episode of On The Media. ‘We could just throw our hands up and say, “We can’t find what we need, so we can’t tell these stories,” but that would be an additional injustice on top of the historical injustices.’
All That She Carried — the extraordinary history of a mother’s gift
Tiya’s book, All That She Carried, is “a powerful dissenting narrative and “[as] this extraordinary study goes on to show, it’s also a means by which to illuminate the experiences of millions of enslaved people whose voices have been silenced.”
All That She Carried by Tiya Miles review – social fabric
“The Harvard historian Tiya Miles has taken a bold and innovative approach to this problem in All That She Carried, a bestseller when it came out in the US last year, now published for the first time in Britain.” Review
Profile Books scoops Miles’ National Book award-winning All That She Carried
Profile Books has scooped the “deeply moving history” All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake by Harvard professor Tiya Miles
How a cotton sack and a mother’s love outlasted slavery
Harvard historian Tiya Miles writes a different kind of history in her prize-winning book, All That She Carried. Rather than basing her work on official records of slaveholders, she turns to a physical artifact: a cotton sack with the embroidered first names of an enslaved mother and her daughter, who was sold at age nine. Tiya told IDEAS: “Love is at the centre of this story.”
The Schomburg Center Announces the Winner of the Lapidus Center’s 2022 Harriet Tubman Prize
The Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture announced Tiya as the winner of the 2022 Harriet Tubman Prize for her book All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake.
How one embroidered cotton sack tells the unique story of slavery and survival
Sara Sidner speaks with Tiya who won the 2022 Cundill History Prize for her book All That She Carried.
Harvard professor Tiya Miles wins $102K historical writing prize for book about Black American resilience
The Cundill History Prize honours the best history writing in English — “Tiya Miles’ All That She Carried is the winner, in a field of superb books, because of its clear and moving prose, its imaginative research, and the way the author illuminates the human condition through a family story,” said the chair of the jury, J.R. McNeill in a statement.
‘All That She Carried’ wins 2022 Cundill History Prize
From the announcement: The book was unanimously chosen by the judges as this year’s winner. Judge J R McNeill said, “All That She Carried is the winner, in a field of superb books, because of its clear and moving prose, its imaginative research, and the way the author illuminates the human condition through a family story.”
Yale Announces 2022 Frederick Douglass Book Prize Winners
The 2022 Frederick Douglass Book Prize will be shared by two scholars: Tiya for All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake (Random House) and Jennifer L. Morgan for Reckoning with Slavery: Gender, Kinship, and Capitalism in the Early Black Atlantic (Duke University Press).
‘All That We Carry: The Epic Stitchers and Friends’ at Sumter County Gallery of Art beginning Nov. 3
Inspired by Tiya’s book All That She Carried, this event is an earth-based art exhibition of quilts, indigo, sweetgrass baskets and ceramics curated by and featuring the art of renowned quilt artist Torreah “Cookie” Washington, is being presented by the Sumter County Gallery of Art and the Deane and Roger Ackerman Family Fund from Nov. 3 to Jan. 13, 2023.
Eight Books for the Preservationist in Your Life
The National Trust for Historic Preservation has a list of recommendations, including Tiya’s book All That She Carried, that will “further invigorate, inspire, and maybe expand the perspective of the preservationist in your life.”
2022 Cundill History Prize finalists announced
The jurors announced Tiya’s book All That She Carried as a one of three finalists for the 2022 Cundill History Prize. Administered by McGill University in Montreal and awarded by a distinguished jury, the Cundill History Prize winner will be celebrated at the Cundill History Prize Festival on December 1st.
American Historical Association Announces 2022 Prize Winners
Tiya’s book All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake is the award winner of the Joan Kelly Memorial Prize in women’s history and/or feminist theory.
Tiya is the prize winner of the Individual Award of the 2022 Equity Awards.
22nd Annual Massachusetts Book Awards Announced
Massachusetts Center for the Book announced Tiya ‘s book All That She Carried as the winner of the 2022 Nonfiction Award.
Shortlist for the 2022 Cundill History Prize Announced
Jurors for the 2022 Cundill History Prize announced Tiya’s book All That She Carried as a finalist on their eight-book shortlist. The winner will be celebrated at the Cundill History Prize Festival on December 1st.
The Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards
Tiya attended Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards first in-person awards ceremony since 2019 to celebrate the winning class of 2022. Tiya’s book All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake won the award for best nonfiction in April 2022. Read more about Tiya and why her book was selected.
The Schomburg Center Announces Finalists for the Lapidus Center’s 2022 Harriet Tubman Prize
The Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture announced Tiya as one of the three finalists for the 2022 Harriet Tubman Prize.
2022 MAAH Stone Book Award Short List
Tiya’s book, All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, A Black Family Keepsake, is one of sixteen finalists from 111 eligible submissions for the 2022 MAAH Stone Book Award.
Yale Announces 2022 Frederick Douglass Book Prize Finalists
Yale University’s Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition announced Tiya for “All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake” (Random House) as one of the finalists for the twenty-fourth annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize.
The 19 Best Memoirs to Curl Up with on the Couch (or the Beach Blanket)
Find out where Tiya’s All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake lands on Oprah Daily’s curated list of recently released and well-known memoirs.
All That She Carried wins the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Nonfiction
The Cleveland Foundation unveiled the winners of its 87th Annual Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards and Tiya’s book, All That She Carried, won the award in Nonfiction. The 2022 recipients of the only national juried prize for literature that confronts racism and explores diversity.
All That She Carried wins Darlene Clark Hine Award for the best book in African American women’s and gender history
“More than a recovery narrative, this work is a testament to the power of intergenerational love and survival in slavery and freedom. Her use of a variety of sources and her ability to tell an environmental as well as a geographic history sets her book apart. She has advanced the field of African American women’s and gender history by giving us a model rooted in creativity for how to bear witness to the experiences of people left out of archives.”
All That She Carried wins the Lawrence W. Levine Award for the best book in American cultural history
“This book honors Lawrence Levine’s legacy by revealing the importance of cultural objects, quite literally, from the ground up: the cotton that fueled plantation slavery is transformed through the skill and creativity of specific Black women into fabric that becomes, first, a family heirloom and, in recent years, an object of public history, preserved and displayed in museums.”
Just Announced: “All That She Carried” is a 2022 PEN America Literary Award Winner
Tiya’s book, All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family’s Keepsake, won the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Non-Fiction — the PEN America prize awarded to “a distinguished book of general nonfiction published, possessing notable literary merit and critical perspective that illuminates important contemporary issues.”
Columbia Journalism School Announces the 2022 J. Anthony Lukas Prize Project Awards Shortlists
Tiya’s book, All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake, is nominated for The Mark Lynton History Prize. The winners and finalists of the 2022 Lukas Prizes will be announced on Wednesday, March 16, 2022 and awards will be presented at a ceremony on Tuesday, May 3, 2022.
Behind the Mic: Janina Edwards on All That She Carried
Narrator Janina Edwards shares her experience narrating Tiya Miles’s National Book Award-winning All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake.
“All That She Carried” Paperback Edition is Now Available
Tiya’s highly acclaimed book, All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake, is now available for purchase in paperback. Publisher: Penguin Random House. Order now.
5 Books To Kick Off Black History Month
Tiya’s book, All That She Carried, is one of five books published by Black women historians that Essence recommends you add to your library.
Want to read more in 2022? Here are 4 books to get you started
“Want to read more in 2022? Here are 4 books to get you started” — Jason Mott, author of “Hell of a Book,” joined TODAY to share his four recommendations to read in the first month of 2022 including All That She Carried. Published January 4, 2022.
Give the Gift of Books This Holiday Season
“Give the Gift of Books This Holiday Season” — Joshunda Sanders, editor at Oprah Daily, recommends All That She Carried as a gift book this holiday season. She writes, “Even before it won the National Book Award, I had been thinking a lot about All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake—how often Black women must keep the family record, so even if we lose track of one another, our stories will outlast us. Here, the noted historian follows the trail of an object handed down through three generations of Black women, and I am…blown away.” Published December 23, 2021.
Reads for the Rest of Us: 2021 Best of the Rest
“Reads for the Rest of Us: 2021 Best of the Rest” — Karla Strand, gender and women’s studies librarian at Ms. Magazine, chose Tiya’s book All That She Carried as one of her favorite books of the year. Published December 20, 2021.
PEN AMERICA ANNOUNCES 2022 LITERARY AWARDS LONGLISTS
“PEN America announces 2022 Literary Award Longlists” — PEN America announced the Longlists for its Literary Awards. Tiya’s book, All That She Carried, is one of ten books longlisted for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction; the winner is considered “a distinguished book of general nonfiction possessing notable literary merit and critical perspective that illuminates important contemporary issues.” The finalists for the Literary Awards will be announced in late January 2022, with an in-person ceremony in late February. Published December 2021.
The Best Books of 2021
“The Best Books of 2021” — Vulture’s Hillary Kelly writes, “All That She Carried balances two aims: to share what it can of Ruth Middleton’s matrilineal family and to explore what their lives might tell us about the experiences of other Black women connected, thread by thread, to an uncertain past. The result is as delicate and determined as the story that inspired it.” Published December 15, 2021.
Times Critics’ Top Books of 2021
“Times Critics’ Top Books of 2021” — The New York Times’s staff critics give their choices of the best fiction and nonfiction works of the year. One of Jennifer Szalai’s recommendations is Tiya’s book All That She Carried. Published December 15, 2021.
Who Read What: Writers Share Their Favorite Books of 2021
“Who Read What: Writers Share Their Favorite Books of 2021” — Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, author of “The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois”, writes of Tiya’s book “All That She Carried” in the Wall Street Journal, ‘In “All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake,” renowned scholar Tiya Miles examines the intersections between material and human history by focusing on a burlap sack that was passed down through generations. …More than the story of the sack and the symbolic love it contained—given by a devoted, enslaved mother whose child is about to be sold away from her—Ms. Miles’s book explains (with a light hand) the importance of historical memory, when some in this country still are intent upon erasing black lives.’ Published December 8, 2021.
Year in review: Best Books of 2021
“Year in review: Best Books of 2021” — “Starting with a simple, humble item — a cotton sack with hand-stitched words on it — Harvard historian Miles embarks on a journey over time and space, through slavery and freedom, and into a revolutionary understanding of the brilliance and power of Black maternal love,” writes Kate Tuttle at The Boston Globe. Published December 2021.
Book Riot’s Best Books of 2021
“Book Riot’s Best Books of 2021” — Isabelle Popp at Book Riot describes Tiya’s All That She Carried as “A true gem.” Published December 10, 2021.
Nonfiction food titles to feed the soul for the holidays
“Nonfiction food titles to feed the soul for the holidays” — From the Times Union on All That She Carried: “This stunning read is an analysis of an embroidered sack that’s the artifact of the sale of an enslaved child and her mother’s devotion.” Published December 8, 2021.
The Best Books of 2021
“The Best Books of 2021” — All That She Carried landed on Laura Miller’s list of ten most enjoyed books of 2021. She writes, “This National Book Award winner is a beautiful and heartbreaking evocation of the stories history so often fails to tell. ” Published by Slate on December 8, 2021.
BILL’S BOOKS
“Bill’s Books” — Bill Goldstein included Tiya’s book, All That She Carried, as one of his favorite books of the year during his “Bill’s Books” segment on NBC Weekend Today in New York. This segment aired December 5, 2021.
NPR’S BOOK OF THE DAY: ‘All That She Carried’ weaves together generations of Black women
“NPR’S BOOK OF THE DAY: ‘All That She Carried’ weaves together generations of Black women” — Hear why Tiya’s All That She Carried was selected as NPR’s Book of the Day. Published December 1, 2021.
THE 100 MUST-READ BOOKS OF 2021
“The 100 Must-Read Books of 2021” — Tiya’s book All That She Carried is on Time Magazine’s list of 100 must-read books of 2021.
Smithsonian Scholars Pick Their Favorite Books of 2021
“Smithsonian Scholars Pick Their Favorite Books of 2021” — All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake is recommended by Paul Gardullo, director, Center for Global Slavery, National Museum of African American History and Culture. He writes, “God bless Tiya Miles for giving us this beautiful, heartbreaking book about this simple object that a mother gave her daughter before they were to be sold away and a granddaughter who embroidered and made visible its enduring message of love. Miles finds it bottomless because it is filled with love across generations that cannot be quenched by slavery. The author puts her whole heart and soul all the way into it.” Smithsonian Magazine. Published November 24, 2021.
HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE
“Holiday Gift Guide” — “It’s on so many lists!” Tiya’s book All That She Carried was mentioned on Book Riot’s Holiday Gift Guide episode November 23, 2021.
Meet the Recently Announced 2021 National Book Award Winners & Runners-Up
“Meet the Recently Announced 2021 National Book Award Winners & Runners-Up” — The Mary Sue introduces the 2021 National Book Award winners. From their description of Tiya’s All That She Carried, “In addition to the anthropological elements, Miles unpacks the metaphorical and invaluable elements of these objects. Historian Tiya Miles gives us a narrative, object history, and social history of this family and relates it to the wider shared experience of Black Americans through and after slavery.” Published November 22, 2021.
Getting through those tough Thanksgiving conversations
“Getting through those tough Thanksgiving conversations” — NPR revisits a conversation with Tiya about the book All That She Carried. NPR spoke with Tiya back in June (2021). This program aired on November 22, 2021.
Authors Jason Mott and Tiya Miles Win National Book Awards
“Authors Jason Mott and Tiya Miles Win National Book Awards” — Ebony announced, “Noted historian and Harvard University professor Tiya Miles won the nonfiction prize for All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake.” Published November 19, 2021.
Tiya is the Winner of the National Book Award 2021 for Nonfiction
“Tiya is the Winner of the National Book Award 2021 for Nonfiction” —The National Book Foundation announced Tiya as the winner of the 2021 National Book Award for nonfiction prize.
Watch Tiya accept the award at The 72nd National Book Awards Ceremony (1:40 mark in the event recording).
Jason Mott Wins National Book Award for ‘Hell of a Book’
“Jason Mott Wins National Book Award for ‘Hell of a Book’” — The New York Times announced Tiya and her book All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake as the winner of the National Book Award for nonfiction prize. The judges called All That She Carried “a brilliant, original work,” examining a compilation of lives “that ordinary archives suppress.”
3 Massachusetts authors win National Book Awards
“3 Massachusetts authors win National Book Awards” — Tiya told The Boston Globe, “It feels like an earth-moving kind of experience to have my work on this particular subject recognized in this way… The subject matter of the book is really what’s most important, and the opportunity to introduce ideas and enlarge ideas in the public sphere is so precious.” Published November 18, 2021 in The Boston Globe.
Here are the Winners of the 2021 National Book Awards
“Here are the Winners of the 2021 National Book Awards” — “On its surface, Ashley’s sack is an intimate family heirloom. In Miles’s artful hands, though, the object is transformed—an embodied memoir of Black women traveling from slavery to freedom, South to North, carrying relics and hopes as they seek new lives.” Published November 18, 2021 in Oprah Daily.
The 10 Best Books of 2021
“The 10 Best Books of 2021” — The Washington Post Editors and Reviewers have All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake on their list of the ten best books of 2021: “These 10 standouts are an eclectic bunch, but all will make you see the world a little differently.” Published Nov. 18, 2021.
Finalists Announced for This Year’s National Book Awards
“Finalists Announced for This Year’s National Book Awards” — Tiya’s All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake was announced as one of five finalists for the 2021 National Book Award in the nonfiction category. The finalist for this award will be announced live on Wednesday, November 17 at the 72nd National Book Awards Ceremony (online event). Published Oct 5, 2021.
2021 National Book Foundation Longlists Announced
“2021 NBA Longlists Announced” —Tiya’s All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake was announced as a nominee for the 2021 National Book Award in the nonfiction category. The five finalists for this award will be named on October 5 and the winner will be announced during the awards ceremony on November 17. Published Sep 16, 2021. Read the full announcement on Publishers Weekly.
Finalists for 2021 Kirkus Prize Are Announced
“Finalists for 2021 Kirkus Prize Are Revealed” — Kirkus announced that Tiya is one of 18 finalists in three categories for the annual Kirkus Prize, one of the richest literary awards in the world. Tiya’s All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake is a finalist in the nonfiction category. This year’s winners will be announced at a virtual ceremony livestreamed from the Austin Public Library in Austin, Texas, on Oct. 28.
Whitehead’s ‘Harlem Shuffle’ among Kirkus Prize nominees
“Whitehead’s ‘Harlem Shuffle’ among Kirkus Prize nominees” — Tiya’s All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake is a finalist for the annual Kirkus Prize in the nonfiction category. Published September 13, 2021. AP News.
Briefly Noted
“Briefly Noted” — From The New Yorker Books section: “This powerful history of women and slavery revolves around a nineteenth-century cotton sack found at a flea market in 2007, now on view at the Smithsonian. An enslaved woman named Rose gave it to her daughter Ashley when she was sold and they were separated. As Miles tries to add to this information, embroidered on the sack by Ashley’s granddaughter, she finds that reconstructing marginalized histories “requires an attentiveness to absence as well as presence.” She uses the item and its contents—a tattered dress, a handful of pecans, and a braid of hair—to explore the lives of Black women in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and her meticulous research ultimately reveals the probable origins of the keepsake’s former owners.” The New Yorker. Published July 26, 2021.
Shelf Life
“Shelf Life” — From the Jacksonville Journal-Courier, a list of new books at the Jacksonville Public Library: “All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake” by Tiya Miles: ‘This is the poignant story of love passed down through generations of women and a testament to the creativity and resourcefulness it takes to keep and to reveal the histories of people left out of the archives.’ Published July 10, 2021.
Your 2021 summer reading list, recommended by Capital Area District Libraries
“Your 2021 summer reading list, recommended by Capital Area District Libraries” — All That She Carried is on the Lansing State Journal’s summer reading list. “Professor and historian Tiya Miles pieces together a deeply moving story of love and loss passed through three generations of women, starting in the 1850s.” Published July 1, 2021.
New in Nonfiction
“New in Nonfiction” (link unavailable) — All That She Carried was highlighted in People Magazine, “A bag of totemic belongings passed from an enslaved mother to her daughter starts historian Miles on a journey to document their lives.” Published June 2021.
A Simple Cotton Sack Tells an Intergenerational Story of Separation Under Slavery
“A Simple Cotton Sack Tells an Intergenerational Story of Separation Under Slavery” — An overview of Tiya’s work tracing the lives of three Black women through an embroidered family heirloom known as “Ashley’s sack” in Smithsonian Magazine. Published June 18, 2021.
EDITORS’ CHOICE: 9 New Books We Recommend This Week
“9 New Books We Recommend This Week” — All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, A Black Family Keepsake is an editors’ choice for The New York Times list of recommended reading the week of June 17: ‘Our critic Jennifer Szalai calls it “a remarkable book, striking a delicate balance between two seemingly incommensurate approaches: Miles’s fidelity to her archival material, as she coaxes out facts grounded in the evidence; and her conjectures about this singular object, as she uses what is known about other enslaved women’s lives to suppose what could have been.”’ Published June 17, 2021.
A Testament To The Horrors Of Slavery & The Perseverance Of Black Women, Rendered In Needle And Thread
“A Testament To The Horrors Of Slavery & The Perseverance Of Black Women, Rendered In Needle And Thread” — ‘Nevertheless, with steady hands we can thread the eye of this needle and ask what Ruth’s record can tell us about Black women, Black families, women crafters, and Black material, as well as social, worlds. By doing so, we refuse to give up on those many people of the past who did not—could not—leave behind troves of documents.’ This piece is excerpted from Tiya’s book All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, A Black Family Keepsake and can be read online at Jezebel. Published June 14, 2021.
How The Survivors Of Slavery Used Material Objects To Preserve Intergenerational Wisdom
“How The Survivors Of Slavery Used Material Objects To Preserve Intergenerational Wisdom” — ‘Having been treated as possessions and deprived of ownership of themselves, their families, crops they nurtured, and objects they made and maintained, African American survivors of slavery recognized the world of things. They lived each day in haunted awareness of the thin boundary line between human and non-human, a thinness daily exposed and abused by slave societies. Despite the prominence of a Cartesian duality in Western philosophy that proposed a clear split between spirit and matter, enslaved Blacks knew that people could be treated like things and things prized over people.’ This piece is excerpted from Tiya’s book All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, A Black Family Keepsake and can be read online at Literary Hub. Published June 10, 2021.
To Find The History Of African American Women, Look To Their Handiwork
“To Find The History Of African American Women, Look To Their Handiwork” — ‘A granddaughter, mother, sewer, and storyteller imbued a piece of old cloth with all the drama and pathos of ancient tapestries depicting the deeds of queens and goddesses. She preserved the memory of her foremothers and also venerated these women, shaping their image for the next generations. Without Ruth, there would be no record. Without her record, there would be no history.’ This piece is excerpted from Tiya’s book All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, A Black Family Keepsake and can be read in The Atlantic. Published June 9, 2021.
Five Books To Get You Through The Month of June
“Five Books To Get You Through The Month of June” — All That She Carried is one of five books on BET‘s recommended reading for the month of June. Cheryl S. Grant writes, “Miles beautifully crafts their stories and that of other women like them through archival records, objects, and art that captures traces of lives and love through generations.” Published June 8, 2021.
Summer reads: 20 books to savor this season
“Summer reads: 20 books to savor this season.” — The Washington Post editors and reviewers added Tiya’s most recent book, All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake, to their recommended summer reading list. Published by The Washington Post, June 2, 2021.
New & Noteworthy, From Hidden Treasure to a Relic of Slavery
“New & Noteworthy, From Hidden Treasure to a Relic of Slavery.” — Tiya’s latest book, All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, A Black Family Keepsake, is considered one of The New York Times “recent titles of interest.” Published by The New York Times, June 1, 2021.
Hot new Southern books put the sizzle in summer 2021
“Hot new Southern books put the sizzle in summer 2021” — All That She Carried is one of “10 Southern books we’re eager to read this summer” writes Suzanne Van Atten of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Published May 11, 2021.
