A Small Nation of People: W. E. B. Du Bois and African American Portraits of Progress
4/5
()
About this ebook
An incredible treasure trove of more than 150 illustrations detailing a small nation of African Americans prepared to make their mark on America
David Levering Lewis
David Levering Lewis is the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of the two-volume biography of W. E. B. Du Bois. He has been awarded numerous prizes and fellowships, including a MacArthur Fellowship. Twice a finalist for the National Book Award, Lewis lives in Manhattan and Stanfordville, New York, with his wife.
Read more from David Levering Lewis
W.E.B. Du Bois: A Biography 1868-1963 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sanctuary Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Darkwater: The Givens Collection Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Child of Mine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5W. E. B. Du Bois, 1868-1919: Biography of a Race Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Life of St. Teresa of Jesus, of the Order of Our Lady of Carmel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsComing Home Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Corporate Wasteland: The Landscape and Memory of Deindustrialization Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAnthropology and Development: Challenges for the Twenty-First Century Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSaving Alice Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Triumph of the Will?: How Two Men Hypnotised Hitler and Changed the World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSecrets of Inspirational Selling Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRiver Ouse Bargeman: A Lifetime on the Yorkshire Ouse Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSchool Matters Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTotal Environmental Control: The Economics of Cross-Media Pollution Transfers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Word from the Lost: Remarks on James Nayler's Love to the lost And a Hand held forth to the Helpless to Lead out of the Dark Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhat Should You Do Before You Say I Do? Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Secret Language of Your Child: How Children Talk Before They Can Speak Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Emmett J. Scott: Power Broker of the Tuskegee Machine Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWinners Versus Losers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSpider Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to A Small Nation of People
Photography For You
Betty Page Confidential: Featuring Never-Before Seen Photographs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Book Of Legs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The iPhone Photography Book Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bloodbath Nation Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Conscious Creativity: Look, Connect, Create Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Photography Exercise Book: Training Your Eye to Shoot Like a Pro (250+ color photographs make it come to life) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Photographer's Guide to Posing: Techniques to Flatter Everyone Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Bare Bones Camera Course for Film and Video Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On Photography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Astrophotography Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Haunted New Orleans: History & Hauntings of the Crescent City Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Let Us Now Praise Famous Men Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Through the Lens of Whiteness: Challenging Racialized Imagery in Pop Culture Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWisconsin Death Trip Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fifty Places to Hike Before You Die: Outdoor Experts Share the World's Greatest Destinations Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Ballet for Everybody: The Basics of Ballet for Beginners of all Ages Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Extreme Art Nudes: Artistic Erotic Photo Essays Far Outside of the Boudoir Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Edward's Menagerie: Dogs: 50 canine crochet patterns Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Photography Bible: A Complete Guide for the 21st Century Photographer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Patterns in Nature: Why the Natural World Looks the Way It Does Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Workin' It!: RuPaul's Guide to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Style Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Photography for Beginners: The Ultimate Photography Guide for Mastering DSLR Photography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fucked at Birth: Recalibrating the American Dream for the 2020s Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Humans of New York: Stories Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Cinematography: Third Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Historic Photos of West Virginia Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Declutter Your Photo Life: Curating, Preserving, Organizing, and Sharing Your Photos Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSix Flags Over Georgia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jonesboro and Arkansas's Historic Northeast Corner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for A Small Nation of People
3 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
A Small Nation of People - David Levering Lewis
A SMALL NATION of PEOPLE
W. E. B. DU BOIS AND AFRICAN AMERICAN PORTRAITS OF PROGRESS
PNGTHE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
with essays by
David Levering Lewis and Deborah Willis
PNG"… an honest, straightforward exhibit of a
small nation of people, picturing their life and development
without apology or gloss, and above all made by themselves…."
- W. E. B. DU BOIS
PNGCONTENTS
PNGPreface
Introduction
A Small Nation of People:
W. E. B. Du Bois and Black Americans
at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
by David Levering Lewis
The Sociologist’s Eye:
W. E. B. Du Bois and the Paris Exposition
by Deborah Willis
Selections from the Photographs at the Exposition des Nègres d’Amérique,
Exhibit of American Negroes,
Paris Exposition, 1900
About the Photographs
Acknowledgments
Copyright
About the Publisher
Notes
PREFACE
PNGThe true test of the progress of a people is to be found in their literature," Daniel Alexander Payne Murray, the Assistant Librarian of Congress, wrote more than one hundred years ago. His untiring efforts to compile a collection of works by African Americans, which would otherwise have been lost, vastly enriched the holdings of the nation’s Library. Among the treasures Murray brought to the Library of Congress were books, pamphlets, and photographs displayed as part of the American Negro Exhibit at the 1900 Paris Exposition. Murray collaborated with Thomas Calloway, a lawyer, educator, and organizer of the exhibit, and W. E. B. Du Bois, then a sociology professor at Atlanta University, who concentrated on a study of Georgia, to assemble this compelling testament to the accomplishments of black Americans since Emancipation.
The American Negro Exhibit included some five hundred photographs of people, homes, churches, businesses, and landscapes that captured the lives and communities of African Americans at the turn of the twentieth century. One hundred and fifty of these photos are featured in this book. Although a few have been published before, this is the first time that a significant number of these images are brought together in a single volume. The essays by noted scholars David Levering Lewis and Deborah Willis shed new light on pivotal events in American history and the history of black photography that provide the context for the choice of these photographs in 1900 and their importance today.
The Paris Expostrion photographs form part of Murray’s legacy to the Library of Congress, an institution he served for fifty-two years. Bom to freed slaves, he had little formal education when he became a personal assistant to Librarian of Congress Ainsworth Spofford in 1871. He soon mastered several foreign languages and was a remarkable researcher. These skills led to his appointment as Assistant Librarian in just ten years icated himself to searching for works by black authors and compiling an impressive bibliography. He built the Library’s collection of books and other written materials demonstrating the achievements of African Americans. At his death in 1925, he also bequeathed his personal library of nearly fifteen hundred volumes to the Library. In his life and work, Daniel Murray embodied the spirit of the institution he loved as a seeker and disseminator of knowledge.
Today the Library of Congress-which holds more than 126 million items, most of them housed in three buildings on Capitol Hill-continues to serve the legislators of the United States and the public, as Murray did. Each day we add new material to the Library’s website (www.loc.gov) in an effort to make our resources available to people around the world. All of the 1900 Paris Exposition photographs that Murray brought to the Library can be accessed online along with thousands of images, manuscripts, and other items related to the experience of African Americans. There is no more fitting tribute to Murray-and to W. E. B. Du Bois and Thomas Calloway, and to all who contributed to the American Negro Exhibit-than that their work should be remembered, honored, and celebrated.
JAMES H. BILLINGTON
Librarian of Congress
INTRODUCTION
PNGON DECEMBER 28, 1899, W. E. B. Du Bois began work on a display for the Exposition des Nègres d’Amérique-the Exhibit of American Negroes-at the Paris Exposition. As a rising star in the new field of sociology. Du Bois focused on a set of charts, maps, and graphs recording the growth of population, economic power, and literacy among African Americans in Georgia. But he also included photographs of what he called typical Negro faces,
homes, businesses, churches, and communities that defied the image of blacks as impoverished, lazy, and ignorant-stereotypes held by many white Americans. Above all, the photographs Du Bois chose exemplified dignity, accomplishment, and progress. He presented his compelling vision of people of color at a grand and sweeping world’s fair that attracted more than 50 million visitors from its opening day on April 14, 1900, to its close some six months later in November.
France had held international expositions since 1855, but the 1900 Paris Exposition was the most ambitious. It heralded the arrival of a new century, as it also celebrated the nineteenth century’s belief in progress, scientific accomplishments, and commercial and economic success. Country after country lined up to showcase its cultural and industrial achievements on some three hundred fifty acres bordered by Parisian landmarks: the Champs-Elysées, Hôtel des Invalides, Champ de Mars, and the Trocadéro. On the magnificent Rue des Nations along the River Seine, the United States pavilion sat between those of Turkey and Austria-a last-minute concession by the French to move the Americans into the first rank of nations. The United States erected separate pavilions for displays of agriculture, forestry, printing, and publishing, as well as one featuring the products of the McCormick Harvester Company and another, the manufacture of American bicycles.
2. Monumental Portal, entrance to Paris Exposition, 1900.
These attractions competed with a host of technological and architectural wonders: a state-of-the-art moving sidewalk, the world’s largest telescope