Marrow of Tradition / Edition 1

by Charles Chesnutt

Overview

One of the most significant novels in American literature, The Marrow of Tradition is based on the Wilmington, North Carolina, Massacre of 1898. Called a "race riot" by the inflammatory Southern press and engineered by white Democrats who had seen their political slip into the hands of Republicans, many of whom were black, it was in fact a coup that restored power to the Democrats by subverting the principles of free democratic election. Some of Charles Chestnutt's relatives lived through the violence, and their accounts inspired this powerful and passionate novel.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	2900312194061
Publication date:	03/27/2002
Pages:	480
Product dimensions:	5.53(w) x 8.19(h) x 0.72(d)

About the Author

Charles W. Chesnutt (1858-1932), an American writer, was considered the first African-American novelist. Noted for his subtle treatment of racial themes, he was awarded the Spingarn Gold Medal in 1928 for his pioneering work as a literary artist in depicting black Americans. Chesnutt is best known for The Conjure Woman (1898), a collection of dialect stories about slave life.

Table of Contents

About the Series
About This Volume
Illustrations

PART ONE

The Marrow of Tradition: The Complete Text
Introduction: Cultural and Historical Background
Chronology of Chesnutts Life and Times
A Note on the Text
The Marrow of Tradition [1901 Houghton Mifflin edition]


PART TWO
The Marrow of Tradition: Cultural Contexts

1. Caste, Race and Gender After Reconstruction
Philip Bruce, from The Platinum Negro as a Freeman
Tom Watson, from The Negro Question in the South
William Dean Howells, from An Imperative Duty
Booker T. Washington, Atlanta Exposition Speech from Up from Slavery
Charles W. Chesnutt, from The Future American
W.E.B. DuBois, from The Conservation of Race
Theodore Roosevelt, from Birth Reform, from the Positive, not the Negative Side
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, from Women and Economics
Fannie Barrier Williams, from The Intellectual Progress of the Colored Woman
Roscoe Conklin Bruce, from Service by the Educated Negro

2. Law and Lawlessness
Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution
George Washington Cable, from The Freedmans Case in Equity
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896): excerpts from brief by Albion Tourgee, majority opinion by Justice Henry Billings Brown, and the dissenting opinion by Justice John Marshall Harlan
Suffrage and Eligibility to Office, Article VI, amendment to the North Carolina State Constitution
Ida B. Wells, from Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All its Phases
Lynched Negro and Wife First Mutilated, Vicksburg (Mississippi) Evening Post February 8, 1904
Victims Family Begs to See Negro Burned, Atlanta Constitution October 2, 1905
Belleville is Complacent Over Horrible Lynching,: New York Herald June 9, 1903
Jane Addams, from Respect for Law, Independent
Ray Stannard Baker, from A Race Riot and After, Following the Color Line
George H. White, from a speech before the United States House of Representatives, February 23, 1900

3. The Wilmington Riot
Alexander Manly, editorial printed in Literary Digest, 1898
Rebecca Latimer Fulton, speech reported in The Wilmington Star
From the White Mans Declaration of Independence (or, Wilmington Declaration of Independence), from Appletons Cyclopaedia
Anonymous letter to William McKinley, 13 November 1898
Charles Chesnutt, from letter to Walter Hines Page, 1898
Jane Cronly, An Account of the Race Riot in Wilmington, N.C.

4. Segregation as Culture: Etiquette, Spectacle, and Fiction
Wilmington Messenger article, rpt in Raleigh New and Observer, 8 September 1899
Photograph of Old Plantation Midway booth at the 1896 Cotton States Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia
From The Cotton States and International Exposition program
Tom Fletcher, from 100 Years of the Negro in Show Business
Old and New Negro photographs juxtaposed, from Frances Benjamin Johnstons The Hampton album.
Charles Chesnutt, Literary Memoranda
Charles Chesnutt, Po Sandy
Thomas Dixon, from The Leopards Spots
Williams Dean Howells, from A Psychological Counter-Current in Recent Fiction North American Review

Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

Based upon the Wilmington, NC, race riot of 1898 and written in 1901, this historical novel makes a plea for racial justice. A group of powerful white men continue to run the fictional town of Wellington and their households as though the Civil War had never occurred. Complicating matters even further, Olivia Carteret, wife of the white newspaper editor, discovers she and Janet Miller, wife of the town's black doctor, have the same father. As the town's residents battle their way through the social and racial issues resulting from the war, Olivia and Janet work their way through racial, social, and family issues. Michael Collins provides an excellent reading with his well-paced and expressive delivery combined with a wide range of male and female voices and accents. Professionally produced, this classic tale is recommended for all public, academic, and school libraries. Laurie Selwyn, Law Lib., Grayson Cty., Sherman, TX Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

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