The Portable Nineteenth-Century African American Women Writers
Page 67
Miss Jane E. Wood
There is a dash of freshness, a breezyness in Miss Wood’s writings, a clear, decided ring which will yet be heard in louder tones. She has pronounced views on total abstinence and is an enthusiastic member of the Woman’s National Suffrage Association. She contributed several stories to The Ivy and now edits the Temperance Department of Our Women and Children magazine. Miss Wood will make a clever reporter. She is now tutor in Greek in the Kentucky State University.
Miss Kate D. Chapman
sends from her faraway Dakota home spritely poems and other contributions to racial journals. She is only eighteen, but the public is becoming familiar with her bright thoughts and unique expressions. She has read much and will write much. Her contributions have appeared principally in The Christian Recorder and Our Women and Children. Her ambition was stirred when but five years old by receiving a book as reward for committing a poem. She will devote her talent to juvenile literature.
Occasional Contributors—Among those who do special work and contribute valuable articles to weeklies and monthlies are Mesdames Francis E. W. Harper and L. F. Grimké [Angelina], Philadelphia. Cora C. Calhoun, former editor of the Woman’s Department in the Chattanooga Justice; Olive B. Clanton, New Orleans; Lavinia E. Sneed, Ky.; Josephine Turpin Washington, Selma; Misses Georgia M. DeBaptiste, Ill.; Julia K. Mason, D.C.; Alice Henderson, Ark., and Meta Pelham, one of the essentials on the Plaindealer staff.
Editors—The Western Herald was edited by Mrs. Amos Johnson, Keokuk, Ia.; The Lancet, by Miss Carrie Bragg, Petersburg, Va.; The Musical Messenger by Miss Amelia L. Tighlman, Montgomery, Ala.; The St. Matthew’s Lyceum, by Mrs. M. E. Lambert, Detroit, Mich.; The Ivy, by Mrs. A. E. Johnson, Baltimore, Md.; and Miss A. E. McEwen is Assistant Editor of the Herald, Montgomery, Ala.
This article includes only a few of our writers. When we remember the very difficult circumstances of the past, the trials and discomforts of the present, we are indeed cheered with the prospects. In the busy hum of life it is difficult to make one’s way to the front, and this is true of all races, hence, we are not at all discouraged since our sisters have had such ready access to the great journals of the land. When the edge of prejudice shall have become rusted and worn out, the Negro woman shall be heard most potently in the realm of thought, till then shall we strive.
LUCY WILMOT SMITH IN THE JOURNALIST.
Acknowledgments
Our thanks to Cody Ernst, poet and researcher in the Center for Africana Studies at Johns Hopkins, for his care in compiling and organizing our selections, as well as Erica Tempesta, graduate student in English at Johns Hopkins, who provided essential research assistance in collecting hard-to-find works and suggesting key writings. We thank also the scholars who reviewed and made recommendations on our list of authors and proposed texts: William L. Andrews, Mia Bay, Tara Bynum, Richard Ellis, P. Gabrielle Foreman, Kim Gallon, Eric Gardner, Gretchen Gerzina, Bill Gleason, John Gruesser, Gregg Hecimovich, Desiree Henderson, Donald Yacovone, Sarah Patterson, John Stauffer, and Teresa Zackodnik. Thanks also to Beverly Wendland, Craig Jefferson, Jessica Fedderly, Sydney Van Morgan, Lester K. Spence, James Calvin, Michael Hanchard, Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Abby Wolf, Kevin Burke, Amy Gosdanian, Carra Glatt, Steven Niven, Marial Iglesias Utset, Bennett Ashley, and Paul Lucas. And finally, thank you to our fabulous editors at Penguin, Elda Rotor and Elizabeth Vogt.
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