What is All That She Carried About?

All That She Carried by Tiya Miles is a deeply moving historical book that brings to life the story of three Black women connected across generations through a simple cotton sack. Published in 2021, this National Book Award-winning work follows the journey of an object that carries within it centuries of love, pain, and survival.

The book centers on Ashley’s Sack, a cotton bag given by Rose, an enslaved woman in 1850s South Carolina, to her nine-year-old daughter Ashley before they were separated forever at a slave auction. Decades later, Ashley’s granddaughter Ruth embroidered the family’s story onto the sack in 1921, creating a rare historical document that preserves their experiences.

Tiya Miles, a Harvard University professor and MacArthur Fellow, uses this single object to explore broader themes of slavery, family bonds, and Black women’s resilience. Through careful research and imaginative reconstruction, she brings dignity and humanity to lives that were largely erased from official records.

Main Characters in All That She Carried

The book focuses on three remarkable women whose lives span nearly a century of American history:

Rose was an enslaved woman living in South Carolina during the 1850s. Research suggests she was likely owned by Robert Martin, a Charleston plantation owner, and was valued at $700 – making her the most expensive woman on Martin’s estate, possibly indicating special skills in sewing or cooking. Rose represents the countless mothers who faced the nightmare of family separation under slavery. Her foresight in packing the sack shows intelligence, love, and what Miles calls “radical hope” for her daughter’s future.

Ashley was Rose’s nine-year-old daughter who received the sack before being sold away from her mother. She represents both the tragedy of family separation and the hope that sustained enslaved people through unimaginable hardships. Ashley carried the sack throughout her life, eventually passing it down to her descendants and ensuring her mother’s story would survive.

Ruth Middleton was Ashley’s granddaughter and Rose’s great-granddaughter. Born free after the Civil War, Ruth moved from South Carolina to Philadelphia as part of the Great Migration. In 1921, she embroidered the family’s story onto the sack, transforming it from a personal keepsake into a historical document. Ruth’s needlework preserved the memory of her ancestors and gave voice to experiences that might otherwise have been lost.

Summary of All That She Carried

All That She Carried follows the journey of a humble cotton sack that binds three generations of Black women across nearly a century of American history. In 1852 on a South Carolina plantation, an enslaved mother named Rose learns her nine-year-old daughter, Ashley, will be sold away at auction. With little time and fewer options, Rose fills a small cotton bag with four precious items: a tattered dress, three handfuls of pecans, a braid of her own hair, and—most importantly—her abiding love. She tells Ashley that as long as she carries the sack, she will also carry Rose’s love, giving Ashley both physical sustenance and emotional strength to face an uncertain future.

Ashley drags the sack with her through years of bondage, its contents offering practical aid and deep comfort. The dress, though worn and patched, stands for dignity and protection, while the pecans recall moments of small sweetness in a world designed to rob her of both. The strand of hair, jet-black and soft, becomes a living connection to her mother’s presence, preserving memory when words alone could not. Despite endless uncertainty, Ashley survives enslavement, moves north after emancipation, marries, and builds a family—always with the sack at her side.

Decades later in 1921, Ashley’s granddaughter, Ruth Middleton, now living in Philadelphia after joining the Great Migration, transforms the sack into a rare textile archive. With meticulous needlework, Ruth stitches a heartfelt inscription:

“My great grandmother Rose mother of Ashley gave her this sack when she was sold at age 9 in South Carolina it held a tattered dress 3 handfulls of pecans a braid of Roses hair. Told her It be filled with my Love always she never saw her again Ashley is my grandmother Ruth Middleton 1921.”

This embroidered record weaves together past and present, ensuring that the lives of Rose and Ashley—otherwise relegated to ledger entries and sale records—will endure in living memory. Ruth’s act of commemoration elevates the sack from personal memento to powerful testimony, demonstrating how marginalized people used objects and storytelling to claim their own histories.

After Ruth and her daughter Dorothy pass away, the sack vanishes from family hands until a white antiques collector discovers it at a Tennessee flea market in 2007. Recognizing its significance, she returns it to Middleton Place, a former plantation turned museum in South Carolina. There, visitors are moved to tears as they read Ruth’s simple, devastating text—so often that staff keep boxes of tissues at the ready. In 2016, the sack is loaned to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, where it becomes one of the most visited and emotionally resonant objects in the collection. In 2021, it returns to Middleton Place and later travels to the International African American Museum in Charleston.

Tiya Miles reconstructs this saga with the rigor of a historian and the empathy of a storyteller. Because official records of enslaved people typically list only names, ages, and monetary values, Miles collaborates with an anthropologist to match the names “Rose” and “Ashley” to the estate records of Charleston planter Robert Martin. Though absolute certainty is impossible, the evidence aligns closely: a nine-year-old girl named Ashley, her mother Rose valued at $700 (a high price suggesting special skills), and a timeline that fits Ruth’s embroidery.

Where the documentary trail grows cold, Miles uses imaginative restraint—drawing on the material clues of the sack itself and the broader social world of antebellum South Carolina. She explores plantation life, the domestic slave trade, West African and Indigenous foodways, and the everyday acts of care that enslaved people took to sustain themselves. The peach-sized pecans become a gateway to understanding how people supplemented meager slave rations by harvesting native foods. The battered dress tells of the secondhand clothing inflicted on enslaved people, yet it also reveals the resourcefulness of those who repaired and refashioned possessions to affirm personal dignity.

Miles places Rose’s sacrifice and Ashley’s endurance within the larger sweep of American history: the expansion of cotton plantations, the internal slave trade that tore families apart, the uneasy promise of freedom after the Civil War, and the Great Migration that drew Ruth northward. Throughout, the sack remains a constant—an emblem of both harsh separation and unbreakable love.

By the final pages, readers grasp not only the personal saga of one family but also the broader truths it reveals: the brutality of a system that treated human beings as chattel, the resilience of those who endured it, and the power of storytelling and material culture to reclaim erased voices. In five concise objects—a dress, pecans, hair, cloth, and thread—the book captures nearly a century of Black women’s history. Their journey reminds us that love can outlast violence, and that ordinary items, when cherished and passed down, can carry extraordinary stories across generations.

Major Themes in All That She Carried

Family and Lineage in All That She Carried

The book’s central theme explores how Black families created and maintained bonds despite systematic attempts to destroy them. Slavery deliberately separated families to maximize profit and control, yet people like Rose found ways to preserve connections across time and distance.

Ruth’s embroidery represents the power of family storytelling to preserve memory and identity. Her careful documentation ensures that Rose’s love reaches across generations, fulfilling the promise that the sack would be “filled with my Love always”.

Love and Care as Resistance in All That She Carried

Miles examines how acts of love became forms of resistance under slavery. When society denied the humanity of enslaved people, expressions of care and affection asserted their full personhood.

Rose’s careful selection of items for the sack demonstrates what Miles calls “love made manifest” – turning emotion into action under impossible circumstances. Each object represents both practical survival needs and spiritual sustenance.

Material Culture and Memory in All That She Carried

The book shows how objects can serve as archives for people excluded from written records. When official documents reduce enslaved people to property listings, personal belongings preserve their humanity and individual stories.

Ashley’s Sack becomes what Miles calls a “textile archive” – a form of documentation that carries emotional and spiritual meaning alongside historical information. The sack itself, the items within it, and Ruth’s embroidery all contribute to this alternative form of record-keeping.

The Politics of Archives in All That She Carried

Miles critiques traditional historical archives that privilege the perspectives of those in power while marginalizing the experiences of enslaved people. She argues for new methodologies that value objects, oral traditions, and creative reconstruction alongside written documents.

This theme has contemporary relevance as scholars and communities work to recover stories that have been suppressed or forgotten. Miles demonstrates how material objects can fill gaps left by incomplete official records.

Environmental Knowledge and Survival in All That She Carried

The book explores how enslaved people used knowledge of plants, animals, and landscapes to survive and maintain cultural practices. The pecans in Ashley’s sack represent this connection to the natural world and the importance of environmental knowledge for survival.

Miles shows how enslaved communities combined African, Indigenous, and European traditions to create new forms of survival culture. This environmental theme connects to her broader work on Black environmental consciousness and ecological history.

Trauma and Healing in All That She Carried

The book honestly confronts the trauma of slavery while also celebrating the resilience of those who survived it. Miles doesn’t minimize the horror of family separation or the brutality of enslavement, but she also shows how people found ways to heal and continue.

Ruth’s embroidery represents a form of healing through storytelling and commemoration. By honoring her ancestors’ experiences, she transforms trauma into testimony and ensures their sacrifices are remembered.

Background

Historical Setting

All That She Carried is set primarily in South Carolina during the 1850s, a period when the domestic slave trade was reaching its peak intensity. Charleston served as a major port for the slave trade, both for ships arriving from Africa and for the internal trafficking of enslaved people within the United States.

The cotton boom of the early 19th century created enormous demand for enslaved labor in the expanding western territories. This economic pressure led to increased family separations as enslaved people were bought and sold like any other commodity.

About the Author

Tiya Miles is the Michael Garvey Professor of History at Harvard University and Radcliffe Alumnae Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, she earned her undergraduate degree from Harvard, a master’s degree from Emory University, and a PhD in American Studies from the University of Minnesota.

Miles is a 2011 MacArthur Fellow, often called a “genius grant” recipient. She specializes in the intersections of African American, Native American, and women’s histories, with particular focus on the 19th-century American South.

Her previous books include “Ties That Bind: The Story of an Afro-Cherokee Family in Slavery and Freedom” and “The Dawn of Detroit: A Chronicle of Bondage and Freedom in the City of the Straits,” both of which won the Frederick Douglass Prize. She is the only current two-time winner of this prestigious award for the study of slavery, abolition, and resistance.

The Sack’s Discovery and Journey

Ashley’s Sack has a remarkable modern history that mirrors its historical significance. After Ruth Middleton’s death, the sack was passed to her daughter Dorothy, who died in 1988. The family artifact was then lost for nearly twenty years.

In 2007, a white woman found the sack at a flea market in Nashville, Tennessee, purchasing it for just $20. When she saw the embroidered message about slavery and the Middleton name, she researched online and decided to donate the sack to Middleton Place, a former plantation turned museum in South Carolina.

The sack was displayed at Middleton Place from 2009 to 2013, where it had a profound emotional impact on visitors. Many people were moved to tears by Ruth’s simple but powerful words, leading museum staff to keep a box of tissues nearby.

In 2016, Middleton Place loaned the sack to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, where it became one of the most memorable exhibits. The sack returned to Middleton Place in 2021 and is now displayed at the International African American Museum in Charleston.

Awards and Recognition

All That She Carried has received numerous prestigious awards, reflecting its significance as both historical scholarship and literary achievement. The book won the 2021 National Book Award for Nonfiction, one of the most important literary prizes in the United States.

Other major awards include the 2022 Cundill History Prize, the Frederick Douglass Book Prize, the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction, and the Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize from Phi Beta Kappa. The book was also selected as one of the best books of the year by major publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, and Time magazine.

Research Challenges and Methodology

Writing about enslaved people presents unique challenges because official records were typically kept by enslavers and focused on economic rather than personal information. Miles acknowledges these limitations while developing innovative approaches to historical research.

She works closely with anthropologist Mark Auslander, who helped identify the likely connection between Ruth’s ancestors and Robert Martin’s plantation records. However, Miles is careful to note that while the evidence is strong, it cannot be considered absolutely certain.

When archival records fail, Miles turns to what she calls “critical fabulation” – a method developed by scholar Saidiya Hartman that uses informed imagination to fill gaps in the historical record. This approach requires careful attention to historical context and what Miles calls “imaginative restraint”.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Ashley’s Sack?

Ashley’s Sack is a cotton seed bag from the 1850s that an enslaved mother named Rose gave to her nine-year-old daughter Ashley before they were separated at a slave auction. The sack contained a tattered dress, three handfuls of pecans, and a braid of Rose’s hair. In 1921, Ashley’s granddaughter Ruth embroidered the family’s story onto the sack, creating a rare historical document.

Where can I see Ashley’s Sack today?

The sack is currently on display at the International African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina, on loan from the Middleton Place Foundation. It was previously exhibited at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture from 2016 to 2021.

How did researchers identify Rose and Ashley?

Professor Tiya Miles worked with anthropologist Mark Auslander to match the names and details from Ruth’s embroidery with historical records. They found likely matches in the estate records of Robert Martin, a Charleston plantation owner who died in 1852. While the evidence is strong, Miles notes that the identification cannot be considered absolutely certain.

Why is this book important?

All That She Carried demonstrates how material objects can preserve the stories of people who were excluded from official historical records. It shows new ways of writing history that honor the experiences of enslaved people and their descendants. The book also illustrates the power of love and family bonds to survive even the most dehumanizing circumstances.

What awards has the book won?

The book has received numerous prestigious awards, including the 2021 National Book Award for Nonfiction, the 2022 Cundill History Prize, the Frederick Douglass Book Prize, and the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award. It was also selected as one of the best books of the year by major publications including The New York Times and The Washington Post.

What research methods does Tiya Miles use?

Miles combines traditional archival research with innovative approaches that examine material objects, environmental history, and cultural practices. She uses a method called “critical fabulation,” which involves careful imagination to fill gaps in the historical record while maintaining scholarly rigor. She is transparent about the limitations of available evidence and the boundaries between fact and informed speculation.

How does this book contribute to understanding slavery?

The book provides an intimate look at how slavery affected families and individuals, moving beyond statistics to explore the emotional and spiritual dimensions of the experience. It shows how enslaved people maintained their humanity and family connections despite systematic dehumanization. The book also demonstrates how survivors preserved their stories through objects, oral traditions, and creative forms of documentation.

Conclusion

All That She Carried by Tiya Miles stands as a powerful testament to the enduring strength of love and family bonds even in the face of unimaginable cruelty. Through the story of a simple cotton sack, Miles illuminates the experiences of three remarkable women whose lives span nearly a century of American history.

The book’s greatest achievement lies in restoring humanity and dignity to people who were deliberately erased from historical records. Rose, Ashley, and Ruth emerge not as anonymous victims but as individuals with names, relationships, and the full range of human emotions. Miles shows how acts of love became forms of resistance under slavery, challenging a system that sought to reduce human beings to their economic value.