Happy James McCune Smith’s Birthday!
From Edinburgh Airport to the New York City archives
As I write this, I’m sitting at Edinburgh Airport, en route to the United States. For the final two weeks of my nearly three-week trip, I’ll be in New York City, conducting long-delayed archival research for my biography of James McCune Smith. My research trip to New York was originally booked for May 2020. It won’t be too hard for you to guess why it didn’t happen. Thanks to the kindness of so many archivists and organizations and fellow scholars, many of whom I’d never met, I was able to access enough sources to write my biographical thesis on McCune Smith, which I completed in the fall of 2021. With the archives mostly closed or greatly restricted for about two years, many who had written about McCune Smith, or related people or topics, sent me their copies of sources I was looking for from their own past research. Online research databases also generously offered limited-time free access to students and researchers so that as many as possible could complete their projects on time. But since many sources had never been digitized, or photographed or scanned by others (at least, not that I could find), there were many more documents, artifacts, and collections I was never able to access. Now, I’ll finally be able to access many of them.
I didn’t plan to set off on this trip to the US on McCune Smith’s birthday*; it’s a happy accident. But it’s a lovely way to remember him on the anniversary of his birth, looking forward to finding out a great deal more about his extraordinary life. I’ll be sharing as much with you as I go as time allows.
*This should read: “I didn’t plan to set off on this trip to the US so that I could be in his home town of New York City on McCune Smith’s birthday.” James McCune Smith’s birthday is 18 April 1813.