Forgotten Readers: Recovering the Lost History of African American Literary Societies

Elizabeth McHenry

Published by Duke University Press 2002

Forgotten Readers

Recovering the Lost History of African American Literary Societies

Elizabeth McHenry
Edited by: Donald E. Pease

In the series A John Hope Franklin Center Book

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822384144

Overview
Contents

About this book

Recovers the history of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century African American reading societies.

Author / Editor information

Elizabeth McHenry is Assistant Professor of English at New York University.

Reviews

“Forgotten Readers focuses upon an aspect of African American culture that was extraordinarily significant in the development of its literary tradition and in its political and social development as well, but one that, as Elizabeth McHenry notes, has been ignored or simplistically described. This book will be instrumental in challenging and changing some erroneous notions about African American history and literature specifically, and American culture in general.”—Frances Smith Foster, Emory University

“Elizabeth McHenry’s Forgotten Readers is a seminal study of the pivotal role that literary societies played in the shaping of African American culture in the nineteenth century. While many scholars knew of the existence of these societies, most of us had presumed their records to be lost or nonexistent. Through meticulous research, McHenry has managed to reconstruct the nature and function of these curious arenas of literary culture in splendid detail. The study is a major contribution to the history of literacy in the African American community. No scholar or student can understand nineteenth-century African American literary history without reading this book.”—Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Harvard University

“This book is for all those people who thought book clubs began with Oprah.”

-- Karla Holloway News & Observer

"Forgotten Readers is that rare breed of book that both opens new avenues of scholarship and that your mother . . . will want to devour and then discuss with her mother and friends. . . . Like my best friend’s cooking or a can’t-put-it-down novel, Forgotten Readers leaves me both satisfied and wanting more. . . . McHenry brings African American literary studies into an exciting conversation about the inter-relation between writing, reading, authorship and publishing. Forgotten Readers is a signal contribution to nineteenth-century literary history, as enjoyable as it is important."

-- Gabrielle Foreman Women's Review of Books

"Forgotten Readers shows that the African-American literary past that we tend to think of as recently rediscovered has been lost and found more than once. . . . Forgotten Readers makes the point that so much emphasis has been placed on the importance of oral culture in black life that we forget how much learning to read and write meant to black people, how they longed to appear as themselves in American literature."

-- Darryl Pinckney New York Review of Books

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction: In Search of Black Readers Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1 ‘‘Dreaded Eloquence’’: The Origins and Rise of African American Literary Societies Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	23
2 Spreading the Word: The Cultural Work of the Black Press Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	84
3 Literary Coalitions in the Age of Washington Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	141
4 Reading, Writing, and Reform in the Woman’s Era Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	187
5 Georgia Douglas Johnson and the Saturday Nighters Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	251
Epilogue: Building Community in Contemporary Reading Groups Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	297
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	317
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	387
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	401

Language: English
Publisher: Duke University Press
Pages
- Main content: 440
Illustrations
- Other: 4 b&w photos

eBook

Published: October 31, 2002
ISBN: 9780822384144