The Early Black Press in America, 1827 to 1860 / Edition 1

by Frankie Hutton

Overview

Denied its true place in history, the pre-Civil War black press was a forward looking, socially responsible press. Through her analysis of the content of black newspapers and magazines from the 1830s to the 1860s, Frankie Hutton not only presents a prism through which to view the social origins of black jourbanalism in America, but also examines how this little-known ethnic press interfaced with the whole of jourbanalism during the dark ages of the profession. This revisionist evaluation is intended for students, experts, and jourbanalists dealing with ethnic and American studies, especially those interested in African-American cultural history.

The black press gives trenchant witness to what middle-class free men and women of color thought and did in their own words. The columns of the newspapers and magazines revealed how middle-class blacks were engaged in significant community-building and humanitarian activities. The fledgling black newspapers and magazines, of which only seventeen are now extant for study, sought idealistically to uplift and vindicate blacks as well as to help them assimiliate into mainstream America. This study analyzes the problems, beliefs, and work of black editors and then discusses their idealistic messages relating to such issues as women, youth, style, social mobility, and morality. An appendix lists the newspapers and jourbanals under study, and the bibliography points to important primary and secondary source materials. This revisionist evaluation describes the problems, beliefs, and general outlook of leading middle-class blacks over more than three decades prior to the Civil War.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780313286964
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	12/10/1992
Series:	Contributions in Afro-American and African Studies: Contemporary Black Poets , #15
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

FRANKIE HUTTON is Assistant Professor of Jourbanalism and Communications and Adjunct Professor of History at Lehigh University, specializing in nineteenth-century African-American Studies. She has designed and taught courses in black history, jourbanalism, and feature writing and has served as a senior writer/editor for the Mitre Corporation and for a government service school for chaplains.

Table of Contents

Introduction
The Editors and Their Ideals
To Kill the Messengers' Spirit
In the Spirit of American Democracy
Toward Public Interest and Social Responsibility
Messages of the Black Press
Women
Soirees and Style
Social Morality
Youth: The Ultimate Outsiders
Coda
Appendix
Bibliography