American Historical Ephemera & Photography, including African Americana

A group of 4 scarce works associated with African American authors and history, comprising:

LAINE, Henry Allen (c 1870-1955). Foot Prints. Richmond, Kentucky: Cut Rate Printing Co., [1914]. 8vo, 54pp, 2 illustrations. First Edition. Brown paper wraps, string-bound. Wear to cover especially along bottom edge line, scattered spotting, light creasing. A scarce title. OCLC locates only 6 editions, and none are found at auction.

Henry A. Laine was born in Madison County, KY, to parents who had formerly been enslaved. A graduate of Berea College, he became an educator, agriculturalist, poet, and author. Laine's accomplishments are extensive. He was one of three poets invited to appear before the 1923 Kentucky Negro Educational Association (KNEA), and was an educator who taught school for 25 years. Laine founded the Madison Colored Teachers Institute serving as chair of the organization for 20 years, and organized the first Negro Farmers Conference in Madison County. Laine also helped to organize the Madison County Colored Chautauqua, bringing nationally known speakers such as W.E.B. DuBois and George Washington Carver to Madison County. His legacy is most closely associated, however, with his poetry and writings which often utilized "Negro dialect." Foot Prints went through four printings, 1914, 1924, 1947, and 1988.

JOHNSON, William Decker (1860-?). Biographical Sketches of Prominent Negro Men and Women of Kentucky. With Introductory memoir of the Author, and prefatory Remarks Showing the Difference Between American and British Slave Holders; Also Opinions of Leading Thinkers. Lexington, KY: The Standard Print,1897. "Illustrated with Fifty Portraits." 130pp. Boards completely detached from heavily worn spine, frontispiece loose, scattered spotting.

Johnson's biography from Notable Kentucky African Americans Database states: "Born in England to an English father and a mother from Bengal, India, W. D. Johnson considered himself a Negro. He was the first African American to earn a diploma from the Phonographic Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio. Johnson was editor of The Lexington Standard, an African American newspaper in Lexington, KY. His bold editorials advocated civil rights for African Americans. W. D. Johnson left Kentucky when he was granted a job with the General Land Office in Washington, D.C. The job was a token of appreciation for Johnson's loyalty to the Republican Party during William H. Taft's 1908 campaign for President of the United States.... W. D. Johnson is listed in the census as a black male in 1900 and as a white male in 1910." 

WHITMAN, Albery A. (1851-1901). Twasinta's Seminoles; Or, Rape of Florida, and Other Poems. St. Louis: Nixon-Jones Printing Co., 1890. 96pp, approx. 10 1/2 x 7 1/4 in. Third Edition. Red cloth boards. Frontispiece portrait. With ownership stamp of Edward E. Cooper (1859-1908): "The Freeman, The Only Illustrated Colored Newspaper Published, Edward E. Cooper, Prop. Indianapolis, Indiana."

Albery Allson Whitman was an African American poet, AME minister, and orator who was born into slavery in Kentucky. He was heavily inspired by the "Romantic" poets, and was recognized for giving voice to the formerly enslaved. During his lifetime he became the most popular African American poet of the Reconstruction era, and was acclaimed as the "Poet Laureate of the Negro Race."

The Freeman was a weekly Black newspaper founded in 1888 in Indianapolis by Edward E. Cooper, who had been born into slavery in Duval County, Florida. Cooper's family had moved to Indianapolis after becoming freedmen, and there Cooper graduated as valedictorian of his high school, the only Black student in a class of 65. After working as an employer of the U.S. Railway Mail Service, Cooper began his career as a publisher and journalist. In July 1888, he first published the Indianapolis Freeman, then sold it in 1892. Cooper then launched The Colored American in Washington, D.C., starting in 1893. Cooper allied the newspaper with Booker T. Washington, Mary Church Terrell, and generally with the Republican Party. The newspaper fell into debt and shut down in 1904. Edward Cooper died at the age of 49 in 1908.  

[With:] HENDERSON, Elliott B. (1877-1944). Darkey Ditties. Columbus, Ohio: 1915. 8vo, 54pp. Textured cloth boards with gilt title. Inscribed to "...S.W. Moore / one of Nature's Gentlemen" on front-end paper by author "Elliott B. Henderson / Jul 2nd 1916."

A little-known African American poet of the Dunbar era, Henderson was born in Ohio, where he lived throughout his life, his grandfather having come north from Virginia prior to the Civil War. He published eight other volumes of poems between 1904 and 1915, and several in later life, most of these being in Black dialect.