Frederick Douglass's Newspapers - Black Print and Organizing in the Long Nineteenth Century by Benjamin Fagan Hardcover

Book Synopsis

The first book to focus on the newspapers edited by Frederick Douglass and their impact on Black organizing

A robust body of work has established the importance of print in general, and newspapers in particular, to African American culture in the 1800s. Such work regularly acknowledges Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) as one of the most influential newspaper editors of the nineteenth century, a judgment that Douglass and many of his contemporaries shared. But while recent scholarship has continued to expand our understanding of Douglass's life and work, his newspapers remain largely understudied. Frederick Douglass's Newspapers is the first book that explores the full range of Douglass's periodicals.

Benjamin Fagan traces the making and impact of the four newspapers edited by Douglass: the North Star (1847-1851), Frederick Douglass' Paper (1851-1860), Douglass' Monthly (1858-1863), and the New National Era (1870-1874). Fagan highlights how Douglass and his co-workers--which included Martin R. Delany, James McCune Smith, William C. Neil, and Douglass's daughter Rosetta Douglass, among others--practiced versions of Black organizing as they made his newspapers. By teasing out the inner workings of Douglass's newspapers, Fagan explores the complex and often messy practices of Black organizing that made these publications possible.

In doing so, this book places Douglass's newspapers at the center of the story of Black organizing in the nineteenth century. Douglass's newspapers not only offered examples of how to organize for Black readers across the country, but he and his co-workers also participated in a variety of other kinds of Black organizations. Writers for Douglass's papers put such experiences into print, and stories and lessons of Black organizing filled the pages of Douglass's newspapers. They covered a variety of issues: abolitionism, school integration, politics both domestic and international, the Civil War, and the burgeoning Black labor movement, among others. Fagan's close examination of the making of Douglass's newspapers as well as what appeared in their pages chronicles how his publications were simultaneously examples and archives of Black organizing.

Review Quotes

"Frederick Douglass's newspaper career played an essential role in his rise and operations as one of the most influential and accomplished African American men in US history, so naturally any study of this career would be most welcome. In this deeply researched and illuminating work, though, Benjamin Fagan reaches further still. This is a rare book in that it considers Douglass not simply as one of the nineteenth century's great men but as a member of a vibrant Black community. In situating Douglass's papers 'within a constellation of Black organizations, ' Frederick Douglass's Newspapers offers important insights not only about Frederick Douglass, and not only about Douglass's newspapers, but also about how to study and understand nineteenth-century African American history and culture."-- "John Ernest, University of Delaware"

"Rich in archive and argument, Frederick Douglass's Newspapers is a must-read not only for students of Black print and Black activism but for anyone really interested in American cultural history."-- "Eric Gardner, author of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper's Civil War and Reconstruction"

About the Author

Benjamin Fagan is Associate Professor of English at Auburn University and author of The Black Newspaper and the Chosen Nation.