For more than a century, her true identity was lost in American
history. • Listen to the podcast. That was because she always
had written under one of two pen names -- first Ann J. Trask and
later, Semper Fidelis (Always Faithful) -- starting in 1867 for
a black, weekly San Francisco newspaper called the Elevator.
Gardner, 39, is a professor of English at Saginaw Valley State
University and champion of uncovering blacks lost to American
history. So it was he finally, through endless research, found
that that this prolific writer of essays, articles and poems
published in the Elevator for seven years was a woman named
Jennie Carter (1830-1881). In his book, Gardner serves mainly as
an editor -- publishing Carter's body of work that deals with
California and national politics, race and racism, women's
rights and suffrage, temperance, morality, education and a host
of other issues that remain as vital today as then, as well as
everyday life, such as house cleaning, gardening and two-faced
eulogies. "She wrote wi