This semester, I’m working as an editorial assistant with Dr. Gina Caison and Dr. Randall Harrell on a proposal of a classroom edition of The Memoir of Catharine Brown by Rufus Anderson. Originally published in 1825, The Memoir of Catharine Brown is not a traditional memoir by any means, despite being presented as one. Catharine Brown, a Cherokee woman who converted to Christianity at Brainerd Mission School, did not author most of her own memoir. Instead, a member of the American Missions Board named Rufus Anderson wrote her story, contextualizing it as a success on behalf of the missionaries. Catharine Brown was a fluent English speaker and Anderson even includes several of her diary entries before offering his own contextualization, which raises questions about the intent and presentation of the “memoir.”
More recently, Catharine Brown’s diary entries have been compiled and re-contextualized by Theresa Strouth Gaul in Cherokee Sister: The Collected Writings of Catharine Brown, 1818-1823. While Gaul’s publication considers the nuances of Brown’s upbringing and potential motivations in a way that Anderson’s did not, its density implies that its target audiences are largely graduate students, professors, and researchers. It’s especially exciting to be able to be a part of the process in proposing a classroom edition of Anderson’s The Memoir of Catharine Brown that is both accessible to undergrad students and highlights Brown’s agency and Cherokee identity.
