The Negro in Literature and Art in the United States

Some day we shall work out the problems of our great country. Some day we shall not have a state government set at defiance, and the massacre of Ludlow. Some day our little children will not slave in mines and mills, but will have some chance at the glory of God's creation; and some day the Negro will cease to be a problem and become a human being. Then, in truth, we shall have the Promised Land. But until that day comes let those who mold our ideals and set the standards of our art in fiction at least be honest with themselves and independent. Ignorance we may for a time forgive; but a man has only himself to blame if he insists on not seeing the sunrise in the new day.

2. STUDY OF BIBLIOGRAPHY

THE following bibliography, while aiming at a fair degree of completeness for books and articles coming within the scope of this volume, can not be finally complete, because so to make it would be to cover very largely the great subject of the Negro Problem, only one phase of which is here considered. The aim is constantly to restrict the discussion to that of the literary and artistic life of the Negro; and books primarily on economic, social, or theological themes, however interesting within themselves, are generally not included. Booker T. Washington may seem to be an exception to this; but the general importance of the books of this author would seem to demand their inclusion, especially as some of them touch directly on the subject of present interest.

I

BOOKS BY SIX MOST PROMINENT AUTHORS

Wheatley, Phillis (Mrs. Peters).

Poem on the Death of the Reverend George Whitefield. Boston, 1770.

Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. London and Boston, 1773.

Elegy Sacred to the Memory of Dr. Samuel Cooper. Boston, 1784.

Liberty and Peace. Boston, 1784.

Letters, edited by Charles Deane. Boston, 1864.

Note. – The bibliography of the work of Phillis Wheatley is now a study within itself. Titles just enumerated are only for what may be regarded as the most important original sources. The important volume, that of 1773, is now very rare and valuable. Numerous reprints have been made, among them the following: Philadelphia, 1774; Philadelphia, 1786; Albany, 1793; Philadelphia, 1801; Walpole, N. H., 1802; Hartford, 1804; Halifax, 1813; "New England," 1816; Denver, 1887; Philadelphia, 1909 (the last being the accessible reprint by R. R. and C. C. Wright, A. M. E. Book Concern). Note also Memoir of Phillis Wheatley, by B. B. Thatcher, Boston, 1834; and Memoir and Poems of Phillis Wheatley (memoir by Margaretta Matilda Odell), Boston, 1834, 1835, and 1838, the three editions in rapid succession being due to the anti-slavery agitation. Not the least valuable part of Deane's 1864 edition of the Letters is the sketch of Phillis Wheatley, by Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, which it contains. This was first printed in the Boston Daily Advertiser, Dec. 21, 1863. It is brief, but contains several facts not to be found elsewhere. Duyckinck's Cyclopædia of American Literature (1855 and 1866) gave a good review and reprinted from the Pennsylvania Magazine the correspondence with Washington, and the poem to Washington, also "Liberty and Peace." Also important for reference is Oscar Wegelin's Compilation of the Titles of Volumes of Verse – Early American Poetry, New York, 1903. Note also The Life and Works of Phillis Wheatley, by G. Herbert Renfro, edited by Leila Amos Pendleton, Washington, 1916. The whole matter of bibliography has recently been exhaustively studied in Heartman's Historical Series, in beautiful books of limited editions, as follows: (1) Phillis Wheatley: A Critical Attempt and a Bibliography of Her Writings, by Charles Fred Heartman, New York, 1915; (2) Phillis Wheatley: Poems and Letters. First Collected Edition. Edited by Charles Fred Heartman, with an Appreciation by Arthur A. Schomburg, New York, 1915; (3) Six Broadsides relating to Phillis Wheatley, New York, 1915. These books are of the first order of importance, and yet they awaken one or two questions. One wonders why "To Mæcenas," "On Virtue," and "On Being Brought from Africa to America," all very early work, were placed near the end of the poems in "Poems and Letters"; nor is the relation between "To a Clergyman on the Death of His Lady," and "To the Rev. Mr. Pitkin on the Death of His Lady," made clear, the two poems, evidently different versions of the same subject, being placed pages apart. The great merit of the book, however, is that it adds to "Poems on Various Subjects" the four other poems not generally accessible: (1) To His Excellency, George Washington; (2) On Major-General Lee; (3) Liberty and Peace; (4) An Elegy Sacred to the Memory of Dr. Samuel Cooper. The first of Heartman's three volumes gives a list of books containing matter on Phillis Wheatley. To this may now be added the following magazine articles, none of which contain matter primarily original: (1) Christian Examiner, Vol. XVI, p. 169 (Review by W. J. Snelling of the 1834 edition of the poems); (2) Knickerbocker, Vol. IV, p. 85; (3) North American Review, Vol. 68, p. 418 (by Mrs. E. F. Ellet); (4) London Athenæum for 1835, p. 819 (by Rev. T. Flint); (5) Historical Magazine for 1858, p. 178; (6) Catholic World, Vol. 39, p. 484, July, 1884; (7) Chautauquan, Vol. 18, p. 599, February, 1894 (by Pamela McArthur Cole).

Dunbar, Paul Laurence.

Life and Works, edited by Lida Keck Wiggins. J. L. Nichols & Co., Naperville, Ill., 1907.

The following, with the exception of the sketch at the end, were all published by Dodd, Mead & Co., New York.

Poems:

Lyrics of Lowly Life, 1896.

Lyrics of the Hearthside, 1899.

Lyrics of Love and Laughter, 1903.

Lyrics of Sunshine and Shadow, 1905.

Complete Poems, 1913.

Specially Illustrated Volumes of Poems:

Poems of Cabin and Field, 1899.

Candle-Lightin' Time, 1901.

When Malindy Sings, 1903.

Li'l' Gal, 1904.

Howdy, Honey, Howdy, 1905.

Joggin' Erlong, 1906.

Speakin' o' Christmas, 1914.

Novels:

The Uncalled, 1896.

The Love of Landry, 1900.

The Fanatics, 1901.

The Sport of the Gods, 1902.

Stories and Sketches:

Folks from Dixie, 1898.

The Strength of Gideon, and Other Stories, 1900.

In Old Plantation Days, 1903.

The Heart of Happy Hollow, 1904.

Uncle Eph's Christmas, a one-act musical sketch, Washington, 1900.

Chesnutt, Charles Waddell.

Frederick Douglass: A Biography. Small, Maynard & Co., Boston, 1899.

The Conjure Woman (stories). Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1899.

The Wife of His Youth, and Other Stories of the Color-line. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1899.

The House Behind the Cedars (novel). Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1900.

The Marrow of Tradition (novel). Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1901.

The Colonel's Dream (novel). Doubleday, Page & Co., New York, 1905.

DuBois, William Edward Burghardt.

Suppression of the African Slave-Trade. Longmans, Green & Co., New York, 1896 (now handled through Harvard University Press, Cambridge).

The Philadelphia Negro. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1899.

The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches. A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago, 1903.

The Negro in the South (with Booker T. Washington). Geo. W. Jacobs & Co., Philadelphia, 1907.

John Brown (in American Crisis Biographies). Geo. W. Jacobs & Co., Philadelphia, 1909.

The Quest of the Silver Fleece (novel). A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago, 1911.

The Negro (in Home University Library Series). Henry Holt & Co., New York, 1915.

Braithwaite, William Stanley.

Lyrics of Life and Love. H. B. Turner & Co., Boston, 1904.

The House of Falling Leaves (poems). J. W. Luce & Co., Boston, 1908.

The Book of Elizabethan Verse (anthology). H. B. Turner & Co., Boston, 1906.

The Book of Georgian Verse (anthology). Brentano's, New York, 1908.

The Book of Restoration Verse (anthology). Brentano's, New York, 1909.

Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1913 (including the Magazines and the Poets, a review). Cambridge, Mass., 1913.

Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1914. Cambridge, Mass., 1914.

Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1915. Gomme & Marshall, New York, 1915.

Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1916. Laurence J. Gomme, New York, 1916.

The Poetic Year (for 1916): A Critical Anthology. Small, Maynard & Co., Boston, 1917.

Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1917. Small, Maynard & Co., Boston.

Edwin Arlington Robinson, in "Contemporary American Poets Series," announced for early publication by the Poetry Review Co., Cambridge, Mass.

Washington, Booker Taliaferro.

The Future of the American Negro. Small, Maynard & Co., Boston, 1899.

The Story of My Life and Work. Nichols & Co., Naperville, Ill., 1900.

Up from Slavery: An Autobiography. Doubleday, Page & Co., New York, 1901.

Character Building. Doubleday, Page & Co., New York, 1902.

Working With the Hands. Doubleday, Page & Co., New York, 1904.

Putting the Most Into Life. Crowell & Co., New York, 1906.

Frederick Douglass (in American Crisis Biographies). Geo. W. Jacobs & Co., Philadelphia, 1906.

The Negro in the South (with W. E. B. DuBois). Geo. W. Jacobs & Co., Philadelphia, 1907.

The Negro in Business. Hertel, Jenkins & Co., Chicago, 1907.

 

The Story of the Negro. Doubleday, Page & Co., New York, 1909.

My Larger Education. Doubleday, Page & Co., Garden City, N. Y., 1911.

The Man Farthest Down (with Robert Emory Park). Doubleday, Page & Co., Garden City, N. Y., 1912.

II

ORIGINAL WORKS BY OTHER AUTHORS

Brown, William Wells:

Clotelle: A Tale of the Southern States. Redpath, Boston, 1864 (first printed London, 1853).

Carmichael, Waverley Turner:

From the Heart of a Folk, and Other Poems. The Cornhill Co., Boston, 1917.

Douglass, Frederick:

Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. Park Publishing Co., Hartford, Conn., 1881 (note also "Narrative of Life," Boston, 1846; and "My Bondage and My Freedom," Miller, New York, 1855).

Dunbar, Alice Moore (Mrs. Nelson):

The Goodness of St. Rocque, and Other Stories. Dodd, Mead & Co., New York, 1899. Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence (edited). The Bookery Publishing Co., New York, 1914.

Harper, Frances Ellen Watkins:

Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects. Boston, 1854, 1856; also Merrihew & Son, Philadelphia, 1857, 1866 (second series), 1871.

Moses: A Story of the Nile. Merrihew & Son, Philadelphia, 1869. Sketches of Southern life. Merrihew & Son, Philadelphia, 1872.

Horton, George Moses:

The Hope of Liberty. Gales & Son, Raleigh, N. C., 1829 (note also "Poems by a Slave," bound with Poems of Phillis Wheatley, Boston, 1838).

Johnson, Georgia Douglas:

The Heart of a Woman, and Other Poems. The Cornhill Co., Boston, 1917.

Johnson, Fenton:

A Little Dreaming. Peterson Linotyping Co., Chicago, 1913.

Visions of the Dusk. Trachlenburg Co., New York, 1915.

Songs of the Soil. Trachlenburg Co., New York, 1916.

Johnson, James W.:

Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (published anonymously). Sherman, French & Co., Boston, 1912.

Fifty Years and Other Poems, with an Introduction by Brander Matthews. The Cornhill Co., Boston, 1917.

Margetson, George Reginald:

The Fledgling Bard and the Poetry Society. R. G. Badger, Boston, 1916.

McGirt, James E.:

For Your Sweet Sake. John C. Winston Co., Philadelphia, 1909.

Miller, Kelly:

Race Adjustment. The Neale Publishing Co., New York and Washington, 1908.

Out of the House of Bondage. The Neale Publishing Co., New York and Washington, 1914.

Whitman, Albery A.:

Not a Man and Yet a Man. Springfield, Ohio, 1877.

Twasinta's Seminoles, or The Rape of Florida. Nixon-Jones Printing Co., St. Louis, Mo., 1884.

Drifted Leaves. Nixon-Jones Printing Co., St. Louis, 1890 (this being a collection of two former works with miscellanies).

An Idyl of the South, an epic poem in two parts (Part I, The Octoroon; Part II, The Southland's Charms and Freedom's Magnitude). The Metaphysical Publishing Co., New York, 1901.

III

BOOKS DEALING IN SOME MEASURE WITH THE LITERARY AND ARTISTIC LIFE OF THE NEGRO

Brown, William Wells:

The Black Man, His Antecedents, His Genius, and His Achievements. Hamilton, New York, 1863.

Child, Lydia Maria:

The Freedman's Book. Ticknor & Fields, Boston, 1865.

Cromwell, John W.:

The Negro in American History. The American Negro Academy, Washington, 1914.

Culp, D. W.:

Twentieth Century Negro Literature. J. L. Nichols & Co., Naperville, Ill., 1902.

Ellis, George W.:

Negro Culture in West Africa. The Neale Publishing Co., New York, 1914.

Fenner, Thomas P.:

Religious Folk-Songs of the Negro (new edition). The Institute Press, Hampton, Va., 1909.

Gregory, James M.:

Frederick Douglass the Orator. Willey & Son, Springfield, Mass., 1893 (note also "In Memoriam: Frederick Douglass," John C. Yorston & Co., Philadelphia, 1897).

Hatcher, William E.:

John Jasper. Fleming H. Revell Co., New York, 1908.

Holland, Frederic May:

Frederick Douglass, the Colored Orator. Funk & Wagnalls, New York, 1891 (rev. 1895).

Hubbard, Elbert:

Booker Washington in "Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Teachers." The Roycrofters, East Aurora, N. Y., 1908.

Krehbiel, Henry E.:

Afro-American Folk-Songs. G. Schirmer, New York & London, 1914.

Pike, G. D.:

The Jubilee Singers. Lee & Shepard, Boston, 1873.

Riley, Benjamin F.:

The Life and Times of Booker T. Washington. Fleming H. Revell Co., New York, 1916.

Sayers, W. C. Berwick:

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Musician; His Life and Letters. Cassell & Co., London and New York, 1915.

Schomburg, Arthur A.:

A Bibliographical Checklist of American Negro Poetry. New York, 1916.

Scott, Emmett J., and Stowe, Lyman Beecher:

Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization. Doubleday, Page & Co., Garden City, N. Y. 1916 (note also Memorial Addresses of Dr. Booker T. Washington in Occasional Papers of the John F. Slater Fund, 1916).

Simmons, William J.:

Men of Mark. Geo. M. Rewell & Co., Cleveland, Ohio, 1887.

Trotter, James M.:

Music and Some Highly Musical People. Boston, 1878.

Williams, George W.:

History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. 2 vols. G. P. Putnam's Sons. New York and London, 1915.

IV

SELECT LIST OF THIRTY-SIX MAGAZINE ARTICLES

(The arrangement is chronological, and articles of unusual scholarship or interest are marked *.)

* Negro Spirituals, by Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Atlantic, Vol. 19, p. 685 (June, 1867).

Plantation Music, by Joel Chandler Harris. Critic, Vol. 3, p. 505 (December 15, 1883).

* The Negro on the Stage, by Laurence Hutton. Harper's, Vol. 79, p. 131 (June, 1889).

Old Plantation Hymns, Hymns of the Slave and the Freedman, Recent Negro Melodies: a series of three articles by William E. Barton. New England Magazine, Vol. 19, pp. 443, 609, 707 (December, 1898, January and February, 1899).

Mr. Charles W. Chesnutt's Stories, by W. D. Howells, Atlantic, Vol. 85, p. 70 (May, 1900).

The American Negro at Paris, by W. E. Burghardt DuBois. Review of Reviews, Vol. 22, p. 575 (November, 1900).

Sojourner Truth, by Lillie Chace Wyman. New England Magazine, Vol. 24, p. 59 (March, 1901).

A New Element in Fiction, by Elizabeth L. Cary. Book Buyer, Vol. 23, p. 26 (August, 1901).

The True Negro Music and its Decline, by Jeannette Robinson Murphy. Independent, Vol. 55, p. 1723 (July 23, 1903).

Biographia – Africana, by Daniel Murray. Voice of the Negro, Vol. 1, p. 186 (May, 1904).

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, by William V. Tunnell. Colored American Magazine (New York), Vol. 8, p. 43 (January, 1905).

The Negro of To-Day in Music, by James W. Johnson. Charities, Vol. 15, p. 58 (October 7, 1905).

William A. Harper, by Florence L. Bentley. Voice of the Negro, Vol. 3, p. 117 (February, 1906).

Paul Laurence Dunbar, by Mary Church Terrell. Voice of the Negro, Vol. 3, p. 271 (April, 1906).

Dunbar's Best Book. Bookman, Vol. 23, p. 122 (April, 1906). Tribute by W. D. Howells in same issue, p. 185.

Chief Singer of the Negro Race. Current Literature, Vol. 40, p. 400 (April, 1906).

Meta Warrick, Sculptor of Horrors, by William Francis O'Donnell. World To-Day, Vol. 13, p. 1139 (November, 1907). See also Current Literature, Vol. 44, p. 55 (January, 1908).

Afro-American Painter Who Has Become Famous in Paris. Current Literature, Vol. 45, p. 404 (October, 1908).

* The Story of an Artist's Life, by H. O. Tanner. World's Work, Vol. 18, pp. 11661, 11769 (June and July, 1909).

Indian and Negro in Music. Literary Digest, Vol. 44, p. 1346 (June 29, 1912).

The Higher Music of Negroes (mainly on Coleridge-Taylor). Literary Digest, Vol. 45, p. 565 (October 5, 1912).

* The Negro's Contribution to the Music of America, by Natalie Curtis. Craftsman, Vol. 23, p. 660 (March, 1913).

Legitimizing the Music of the Negro. Current Opinion, Vol. 54, p. 384 (May, 1913).

The Soul of the Black (Herbert Ward's Bronzes). Independent, Vol. 74, p. 994 (May 1, 1913).

A Poet Painter of Palestine (H. O. Tanner), by Clara T. MacChesney. International Studio (July, 1913).

The Negro in Literature and Art, by W. E. Burghardt DuBois. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 49, p. 233 (September, 1913).

Afro-American Folksongs (review of book by Henry Edward Krehbiel). Nation, Vol. 98, p. 311 (March 19, 1914).

Negro Music in the Land of Freedom, and The Promise of Negro Music. Outlook, Vol. 106, p. 611 (March 21, 1914).

Beginnings of a Negro Drama. Literary Digest, Vol. 48, p. 1114 (May 9, 1914).

George Moses Horton: Slave Poet, by Stephen B. Weeks. Southern Workman, Vol. 43, p. 571 (October, 1914).

The Rise and Fall of Negro Minstrelsy, by Brander Matthews. Scribner's, Vol. 57, p. 754 (June, 1915).

The Negro in the Southern Short Story, by H. E. Rollins. Sewanee Review, Vol. 24, p. 42 (January, 1916).

H. T. Burleigh: Composer by Divine Right, and the American Coleridge-Taylor. Musical America, Vol. 23, No. 26 (April 29, 1916). (Note also An American Negro Whose Music Stirs the Blood of Warring Italy. Current Opinion, August, 1916, p. 100.)

The Drama Among Black Folk, by W. E. B. DuBois. Crisis, Vol. 12, p. 169 (August, 1916).

Afro-American Folk-Song Contribution, by Maud Cuney Hare. Musical Observer, Vol. 15. No. 2, p. 13 (February, 1917).

After the Play (criticism of recent plays by Ridgely Torrence), by "F. H." New Republic, Vol. 10, p. 325 (April 14, 1917).

THE END