Table of Contents

Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction Prologue 1. Migrant of Necessity 2. Growing Up with the Community Expectations Rising 3. Family Life amid Racial Turmoil 4. Beyond Uplift: A New Spirit of Resistance 5. A Black Middle Class Takes Shape in Time of War Expectations at Work 6. Nelson Primus: The Artist in Boston 7. Rebecca Primus: The Teacher in Royal Oak 8. Addie Brown: The Working Girl in Hartford Expectations Deferred 9. Growth and Decline 10. Loss and Persistence Epilogue Appendix A. Blacks in Hartford 1830-1880 Appendix B. Primus Timeline with Pertinent Historical Events Notes Bibliography Index

About the Author

Now retired, Barbara J. Beeching spent many years working in public relations in Connecticut and received a PhD in US history in 2010.

Reviews

"This is a powerful book and a truly important story. Beeching provides a richly detailed survey of life in Connecticut, the political and racial climates at various historical moments, and the web of intraracial and interracial networks that informed the Primus family experiences. Multifaceted and thoroughly absorbing, Hopes and Expectations will reintroduce people to a New England that they thought they knew." - Lois Brown, author of Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins: Black Daughter of the Revolution