Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum

In October 1862, Julia Wilbur traveled alone from Rochester, New York, with the well-intentioned, but ill-formed idea to help African Americans escaping slavery by crossing into Union controlled areas. She ended up in Alexandria, Virginia, where she worked closely with Harriet Jacobs and against the male powers-that-be.

Join us at the Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office on Thursday, December 14 at 6 PM as author Paula Tarnapol Whitacre discusses her research into the Civil War experiences of Julia Wilbur.

A Civil Life in an Uncivil Time: Julia Wilbur’s Struggle for Purpose is the first biography about this unheralded, but remarkable woman. Using Wilbur’s diaries and other primary sources, Whitacre traces how Wilbur took this bold step and what she accomplished when she came south. After the war and until her death in 1895, Wilbur lived in Washington, following in the footsteps of Clara Barton (whom she knew) by working in the Patent Office and fighting for women’s rights.

Whitacre is a writer and editor who has lived in Alexandria since the mid-1980s. A graduate of Johns Hopkins University, she worked at The Washington Post and as a Foreign Service Officer earlier in her career. She is on the boards of Friends of Alexandria Archaeology and the Civil War Roundtable of Washington, DC.

This is a pay-what-you-please event.

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