Details

Subject(s)

• African Americans—History—20th century [Browse]
• African American families—History—20th century [Browse]
• African Americans—Social conditions—History—20th century [Browse]
• African Americans—Social life and customs—20th century [Browse]
• African American women—History—20th century [Browse]
• African Americans—History—Pictorial works [Browse]
• African Americans in art—20th century [Browse]
• Postcards—United States—History—20th century [Browse]

Series

• Atlantic migrations and the African diaspora [More in this series]
• Atlantic migrations and the african diaspora

Summary note

"The turn of the twentieth century was an extraordinarily difficult period for African Americans, a time of unchecked lynchings, mob attacks, and rampant Jim Crow segregation. During these bleak years, Emma Crawford, a young African American woman living in Pennsylvania, corresponded by postcard with friends and family members and collected the cards she received from all over the country. Her album-spanning from 1906 to 1910 and analyzed in Emma's Postcard Album-becomes an entry point into a deeply textured understanding of the nuances and complexities of African American lives and the survival strategies that enabled people "to make a way from no way." As snippets of lived experience, eye-catching visual images, and reflections of historical moments, the cards in the collection become sources for understanding not only African American life, but also broader American history and culture. In Emma's Postcard Album, Faith Mitchell innovatively places the contents of this postcard collection into specific historic and biographical contexts and provides a new interpretation of postcards as life writings, a much-neglected aspect of scholarship. Through these techniques, a riveting world we know far too little about is revealed, and we gain new insights into the perspectives and experience of African Americans-in their own words. Capping off these contributions, the text is a visual feast, illustrated with arresting images from the Golden Age of postcards as well as newspaper clippings and other archival material"-- Provided by publisher.

Bibliographic references

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

• Introduction: Emma Crawford's postcard collection
• Chapter one: What stories can postcards tell?
• Chapter two: The status of the Negro in this country
• Chapter three: Fighting for their daily bread
• Chapter five: On the road with the minstrel show
• Chapter six: Struggling and striving
• Epilogue
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Bibliography Index.

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ISBN

• 9781496843159 (hardcover)
• 1496843150 (hardcover)

LCCN

2022024351

OCLC

1333086067

Statement on language in description

Princeton University Library aims to describe library materials in a manner that is respectful to the individuals and communities who create, use, and are represented in the collections we manage. Read more...