When six students and the center’s director showcased Legacies scholarship at this year’s Virginia Forum, held in Richmond in April, their number included doctoral student David Armstrong. For the Q&A below, we asked David about his experience as part of a three-person Mason panel on “Inheritance: Slavery & The Cost of ‘Motherhood.’” David based his presentation on his CML digital project, “Not Satisfied with the Provisions Made for Her”: Elizabeth Mary Ann Barnes Hooe, the Mason Family, and the Transfer of Property in Early Virginia, which arose from his participation in the center’s ongoing Mason Family Account Book project.
David is a second-year PhD student and a Graduate Research Assistant for the Center for Mason Legacies. He is the 2024 recipient of the Evelyn Pugh Memorial Graduate Endowed Fellowship and, in 2021, as he completed his Mason master’s degree, received the Josephine Pacheco Award for Best History M.A. Research Paper. While working toward his degree, David also teaches high school history here in Fairfax County, Va.
CML: Your presentation on a savvy 18th-century Mason widow, Elizabeth Mason, who used law and custom to protect her fortune and secure her children’s inheritance after the death of her husband, was warmly received. What were the main questions you focused on at the Forum?
David Armstrong: My presentation highlighted Virginia’s dowry and inheritance laws and, more specifically, how they protected or undermined women like Elizabeth. On the methodology side, I also discussed how we look for the best ways to present and share CML’s research with both academic and casual audiences.
CML: Did your Forum conversations spur further questions for you about Elizabeth and the inheritance laws that governed her?
David: I recently found that Elizabeth contested the will of her late husband because, it appears, he tried to redirect her enslaved property according to his own purposes. In other words, when he wrote his will, it seems he specified who would inherit specific people enslaved by Elizabeth. Likewise, in his estate account, he listed the enslaved people as if they were his, rather than Elizabeth’s, property. I’m still untangling the details, but the curiosity of the Forum participants – combined with CML’s contributions to the Enslaved.org project (a project I am working for CML) – has piqued my curiosity to dig deeper into these suggestions arising from the account books’ lines.
CML: As a second-year doctoral student, what stood out for you about the experience of being in front of an academic audience at the Forum? How did it compare to your past speaking experiences?
David: At my very first graduate student conference last year, I found the structure formal and cold – we read our papers, we were kept on a very tight leash for time, and questions seemed highly controlled. That was a night-and-day difference from the Virginia Forum. At the Forum, scholars bantered with the audience during their presentations, verbatim readings of papers and research was discouraged, there was laughter by presenters and the audience. I also found the Q&A time extremely helpful as a scholar and presenter.
I’m a high school teacher, so speaking in front of audiences is not something that makes me nervous. But when it comes to speaking to fellow historians, the Virginia Forum gave me more confidence and has redeemed the conference experience from the so-so first impression I gained last year.
CML: Besides the scholarly give-and-take you’ve described, are there other benefits you took away from your participation at this year’s Virginia Forum?
David: Presenting at the Forum gave me the chance to meet several individuals from the Library of Virginia, who were extremely supportive and asked good questions. It also showed me the tight-knit nature of the community of Virginia scholars. And I met several GMU alums, which opened up opportunities to share experiences and to make contact with people who have progressed in their careers.
Lastly, I was alerted to other leads for my research from fellow CML scholars and from peers at nearby universities, like the University of Mary Washington. While I have interacted before with CML peers, having a dedicated time apart with them made it easier to share information and ideas about the Masons.
June 28, 2024