00:00.00 archpodnet Welcome back to episode None of the archeology show and we are talking with John Lee about John Gilbert John W Lee about John so I don't know why that's funny. It's just a weird coincidences in life anyway. 00:08.27 Rachel Um. 00:20.47 Rachel He. 00:34.34 archpodnet I want to talk to you now about the structure and organization of this book because you know I've read some auto our autobiographies before you know, big prominent characters stuff like that and a lot of people I mean some of the biographies I've read they have they've really delved into. You know somewhat glossed over their early life but then really delved into some of their accomplishments and achievements. But you spend a lengthy amount of time going over like almost every you know moment you could find about John Wesley Gilwart's life in his early years you know his early schooling and and just a lot of the stuff you could find can you explain somewhat. 00:36.60 John W_I_ Lee I know. 01:45.42 archpodnet The reasoning behind that like what? what why? you thought you wanted to tell that part of the story as well. 01:14.76 John W_I_ Lee Yes, ah so first of all I mean in some ways my structure is you know it's chronological which is the obvious biographical won't have a lot of you know narrative backs and forths and I didn't originally intend to write a lot about Gilbert's early life and I had credit that um. 02:04.18 archpodnet Sure. 02:21.42 archpodnet Um. 01:54.34 John W_I_ Lee That that to my colleague Patricia Klein Cohen who's a historian of the None century United States and I thought oh there's nothing I can write because there's no documents. Um he he was enslaved. His family wasn't slaves but but Pat said you know enslaved people leave behind traces in the slave master's documents. 02:45.26 archpodnet Yeah. 03:05.62 archpodnet Oh. 02:31.26 John W_I_ Lee So start looking in those and she showed me how to look at at court cases and probate records and newspaper advertisements and I was able to trace. Gilbert's family back in time for about 40 years even more than that actually all the way into the into the late late seventeen hundreds and that is important. To my story because it helps to set the stage of his achievements. It helps to set the you know the the darkness of slavery it helps to understand that that this young boy's life was shaped by all of that came before him. 03:46.57 Rachel And he. 03:55.40 archpodnet Yeah. 04:17.12 archpodnet Um. 03:45.66 John W_I_ Lee If he were not mean know if he had not been born into slavery if he came from a prominent you know british academic family or something just for example, um, all that would be well known so I kind of felt as Pat pushed me to do that that that became more and more important to bring that story to life and that it would be part of the story and. It's also important for his own development as a scholar because from the minute that I have a document with his own writing on it right? He's seven years old he's signing his own name. He's his own name and this is an extraordinary thing because this is Georgia in 1870. 05:18.68 archpodnet Saw that? yeah. 05:12.89 Rachel And he. 05:04.60 John W_I_ Lee He won when just a few years before it was illegal for black people to to read or write. You know it was of course the law was not always followed. But but we're talking about just a few years after the end of a civil war. Ah, and so that early part of his story is really I think essential to understanding where he came from and it also helps. 05:48.42 archpodnet Ah. 05:44.14 John W_I_ Lee I think readers understand um the enormous enormous achievements of a whole generation of people who came out of slavery and and threw themselves into learning I mean it's it's I've said this you know elsewhere. It's like it's one of the greatest generations of the United States and it's not. 06:31.78 archpodnet Yeah. 06:20.64 John W_I_ Lee You know in some areas. It's recognized that that but but the kind of the the thirst for learning young people old people, men women, boys girls just freed from slavery throwing themselves into learning during the civil War and afterward it. It's a truly incredible part of our of our country's history. 07:29.82 archpodnet Do you think his unique. Well I don't even know if they were unique, but do you think his experiences in childhood. Led him to a more scholarly academic career and even an interest in those things at a young age. You know, being able to write his own name at None or sign his own name at None or do you or was that a combination of that. Ah, in addition to you know, does it seem like he was just. Ah, very very very intelligent person like maybe above average intelligence that or if you can even tell that. 07:53.86 John W_I_ Lee He was clearly as he was clearly and I mean John Gilbert was that he was a brilliant linguist right? Classical Greek Classical latin is spoken Greek french and german ah, he also. 08:41.38 archpodnet Yeah. 08:43.90 Rachel Wow. 08:54.88 archpodnet That's awesome. 08:20.58 John W_I_ Lee And and he studied as well bublical hebrew he learned some zulu and he learned in Africa for Africa 2 languages spoken in the in the congo oate tellla and shaluba so he was he was a really gifted linguist. Um, but you know in 1 respect his life story is not unusual. 09:16.10 archpodnet She's. 09:23.20 archpodnet Yeah. Ah. 08:59.34 John W_I_ Lee I mentioned that for learning so you know, um, African Americans after the Civil War they the whole just the the the interest in learning in education and advancement was so enormous. So in that respect. He's not you know he's not extraordinary. There are many like him but he has a combination of Drive. Of Intelligence good luck and connections Providence you could say um that helps advance in a way that that not all of his contemporaries are able to do So I mean I know that I mentioned his elementary school I'm able to trace some of his classmates from elementary school who end up. 10:20.36 archpodnet Moon. 10:10.54 John W_I_ Lee Being know they they drive their their wagon drivers or their laborers and you can see them in the city directories of Augusta when John Gilbert's on his way to Greece so in that sense he was both not unusual but also an extraordinary extraordinary person. 10:56.26 archpodnet Um, yeah. 11:16.80 archpodnet Wow. 11:13.15 Rachel I think you may have given us a bit of a hint when you were listing off the languages that he knows or knew some of but it sounds like he worked a lot in Greece but was there anywhere else or what sort of places did he tend to focus on. 10:51.46 John W_I_ Lee Um, a more. 11:16.10 John W_I_ Lee Yeah, so I mentioned but let's see I mentioned he grew up in Augusta from augusta he studied in Atlanta for a time at the a predecessor of what's today morehouse college he returned and finishes education at pain. 11:48.63 Rachel Throughout his career. 12:18.10 archpodnet Um. 11:51.94 John W_I_ Lee Ah, college it was called paint institute in those days he went to brown university he was the None african american to graduate from brown and then in 90 he was the first african american to go to Greece to do archaeological work and so his archaeological work both excavation and survey and topography was was. 12:45.63 Rachel On. 12:31.40 John W_I_ Lee In Greece specifically at the ancient city of Erreria which is north of of Athens on the island of ubeah. 13:17.36 archpodnet Um, yeah, nice. Wow! That's really crazy. Do you know? I'm curious how he got his interest in that part of the world did that come up in your research. 13:09.21 Rachel M. 13:04.84 John W_I_ Lee Yeah, it does. So um, we don't I mean today you know Greek and latin as seen as a niche I guess there are cultural discussions about Greek and latin in the None century for both black educators and white educators classical learning was the standard so to have. 13:53.10 archpodnet Yeah. 14:12.30 archpodnet Oh. 13:41.14 John W_I_ Lee Classical education was to be an educated person was to have access to the you know the the best that the culture could could offer and so Gilbert was not the only person only african-american student who was interested in in classics and that was his none entry but he was like kind of unusual for the archeology part because. When he went to Greece and 90 you know archaeology as we know it was really kind of just forming as a professional discipline I mean you know there had been diggers treasure hunters both in italy and in Greece people were working towards a more scientific archeology. Ah. 15:07.66 archpodnet Yeah, yeah. 14:56.26 John W_I_ Lee But I mean 90 there probably was not really a person in the us you could call you know a full-fledged professional archaeology so he's really in this transition period I mean he's one of the None americans of any background any race, any ethnicity. 15:42.12 archpodnet Oh. 15:23.92 John W_I_ Lee Any any background to go to Greece to do archaeology in a time when you know the old kind of let's dig for treasure is giving way to let's think about you know, stratigraphy and survey and and sort of scientific presentation of our of our research. 16:05.10 Rachel This is. 16:30.98 archpodnet Well so I guess that begs a question too like what? Even what even got him interested in I guess ancient ancient learning I mean sure a classical education and he goes to Greece but you know you can go to Greece for a number of reasons you can go to Greece to study. Current Greek people or certain periods. You know if if that's your thing but I'm just trying to figure out what was his did did you uncover any like direct influences in probably his university education that said you know hey I'm going to go study these ancient questions that we don't know the answer to. 16:54.54 John W_I_ Lee But we no absolutely. That's that that's a great question. So actually it's worth saying here that um there were 2 other african americans who had wanted to go to Greece before Gilbert and 1 of them was. 17:54.56 archpodnet Oh. 17:23.26 John W_I_ Lee Brilliant young man named Wiley Lane from Howard University and and if professor lane had gone to Greece he would have focused on modern Greek literature and modern Greek language but he died of pneumonia so he was never able to ah and the other scholar William Sanders Scarborough was never able to to raise the money so Gilbert would be the None although others had been invited. 18:16.90 archpodnet Oh jez. 18:35.54 archpodnet Ah. 18:02.82 John W_I_ Lee Um, and I think Gilbert's interest in the archaeological part and going to greece um, was a result of his mentor at Brown University who was a guy named Albert Harkness who nobody knows about today. Um, but Albert Harkness was ah a brilliant. Classic scholar and he was unusual for the time because he was interested in archaeology he was the one who told John Wesley Gliber you know there is this this new school in Athens and you can get a fellowship to go to Athens Greece. 19:19.32 archpodnet Oh. 19:08.70 John W_I_ Lee To study archaeology and to read that your greek classics there and and I think that's where not I think that's pretty clearly where Gilbert was was inspired to to go to Greece. 20:08.80 archpodnet Okay, and you know another thing I'm interested in is I mean I don't know a lot about this. So maybe it's a naive question but and ah young because it sounds like when he went to greece I think he was like 27 of I'm doing my math right? A young african-american scholar getting the the funding and the. 19:54.42 John W_I_ Lee Um, yeah, um, um. 20:47.82 archpodnet I guess permissions and all that stuff to travel to Greece and not only that but to come back and you know maintain that I guess academic lifestyle how did that happen. How did he get the the funding for that. Okay. 20:33.12 John W_I_ Lee So to go to Greece it was. It was brown university and I think brown and and ah Professor Harkness deserve the credit for that because Harkness got him a graduate fellowship which meant he could go for a whole year and have you know have the full year to 21:33.40 archpodnet Oh wow. 21:08.44 John W_I_ Lee Um, to study and I talked about you know William Sanders Scarborough the other black classic scholar. You know scarborough can never get never find the money so it was thanks to Gilbert's studies at Brown that he was able at that brown fellowship to go and there's another part of the story which is it's worth remembering is that. 22:03.86 archpodnet No. 21:44.90 John W_I_ Lee By the time he went to Greece Gilbert was already teaching at Painne Institute or Payne College and his his mentor there um a white minister named George Williams Walker also approved of his going. He gave him you know, basically a sabbatical to go. 22:29.92 archpodnet Um, yeah. 22:18.62 John W_I_ Lee Ah, to Greece and he also got it wasn't a whole lot of money but but Walker also got some additional money to help Gilbert support himself and his family because he left Gilbert left behind his wife and a baby daughter when he went so he had funding Gilbert had funding and that enabled him to go and. 23:18.54 archpodnet Ah. 22:58.12 John W_I_ Lee I think Walker also realized that that ah you know sending a scholar to Greece would put you know, put Payne College Pain Institute as it was then it would increase the school's reputation and and whatever Gilbert learned there he would bring back and share it with other students at pain. 23:53.69 Rachel Me. 24:08.72 archpodnet Okay. 23:37.56 John W_I_ Lee So you know it's it Gilbert back to your question about was he unusual or or ah or or not I mean 1 thing is unusual. He is he has he's able to find funding and you know whether it's the None century or now everybody knows that the funding funding is a crucial thing. 24:44.20 archpodnet Some things never change. Ah I'm curious I'll go ahead. Rachel. 24:39.13 Rachel Yeah, so oh sorry sorry I sure raised my hand. Um, so I am curious because you know this is the 1890 s ish that we're talking about here and. 24:36.32 John W_I_ Lee Yeah, more. 25:12.30 Rachel You know archeology is still a pretty new field at that time. So you know today when somebody goes to a different country to to study. They usually have some niche thing that they're going there to to learn about and to really focus on and I'm wondering if in the 1890 s it was more just like let's excavate this big city and see what we find or if he did have a truly like niche topic that he was very focused on learning about at at a tray I think you said it was in greece a rich a rerea okay got it. 25:33.56 John W_I_ Lee Yeah, um, Errea and you know if you're if you type errerea e r e t r I a into a search engine or you type in your word processor. It's going to want to auto correctct it to Eritrea. Ah. 26:11.80 archpodnet I read for you? yeah. 26:32.65 Rachel Ah. 26:41.20 archpodnet Um. 26:09.56 John W_I_ Lee And he's Northeast Africa and and that happens all the time but it's arerea not Eritrea. Um, so you know I mentioned archaeology was in its infancy. Um Gilbert went as students do still today to the american school with the idea of getting a broad overview of Greece. 26:42.29 Rachel Got it. 27:04.85 Rachel Yeah. 27:13.30 archpodnet Oh. 26:42.54 John W_I_ Lee But when he got there his the program was determined by the interests of his None professors and one of them was a man named Rufus Richardson from Dartmouth and Rufus Richardson liked to hike and he liked to read the roman writer pausanius who was kind of like a Roman Empire tourist traveler who who went all through Greece when it was part of the of the Roman Empire and he wrote about it and so Richardson was ah they called him a paussaniac they were all pasanias in those days like looking at their pausanias walking to the site trying to see if they could find what passanias had tried and that's None thing that that Gilbert did they did a lot of that. 28:11.39 Rachel I. 27:58.30 John W_I_ Lee And the other kind of focus was determined by ah the american school's permanent director who was ah he was american in origin he was a german jewishwish new yorker Charles Volgstein but he had a position at Cambridge and Cambridge not Cambridge. Sorry excuse me volgstein. 28:46.68 archpodnet Ah. 28:35.62 John W_I_ Lee Was you might say kind of also a transitional figure. He was very interested in ancient art. Um, he was a brilliant and critic of ancient art but he was really looking for pretty stuff so when he went digging. He didn't care about this stratigraphy or the ceramics. What he cared about was finding jewelry or sculpture or temples kinds of things that that the treasure hunting mindset and mindset had so Gilbert had these None directions one was topography pausanius. 29:40.27 Rachel And. 29:36.82 John W_I_ Lee Walking the landscape the other was excavation looking for looking for beautiful objects. 30:15.51 Rachel Um, that's now it's about like the 1890 s yeah. 30:31.34 archpodnet That's really cool all right? Well let's go ahead. 29:57.64 John W_I_ Lee Yeah, so it's a really interesting time. 30:40.60 archpodnet Ah, yeah, all right? Well with that. Let's take our final break and talk about some of his bigger accomplishments and I guess the the middle to end of um John Wesley Gilbert's career back in a minute.