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Release date: March 5, 2004 Emory Acquires the Library of Carter G. Woodson, the "Father of Negro History"
Woodson's library has been in storage in the headquarters of the association for many years, and has been inaccessible to researchers. Under terms of a collaborative arrangement, Emory will preserve and catalog the collection and will publish a printed catalog. In addition to providing full bibliographical citation to each item, the printed catalog will note inscriptions to and marginal comments by Woodson, and it will indicate the presence of bookplates, dust jackets and other distinctive features. Woodson (1875-1950) earned his Ph.D. in history from Harvard University in 1912. He founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History and in 1916 established the Journal of Negro History, for many years the premier scholarly journal focused on African American history and culture. The association was the first created to foster the scholarship and teaching of African American history among teachers of all grades as well as scholars. In 1921 he founded Associated Publishers, which during his lifetime became the most important black-owned publishing house in the United States. In 1926 he organized the first Negro History Week, now celebrated each February as Black History Month, to foster the study of African American history. "Collaborating with Emory University to preserve and catalog the Carter G. Woodson Library has furthered the association's mission of preserving, protecting and disseminating information and artifacts about Africana life and history," says Gloria Harper Dickinson, 2001-03 national president of the Association for the Study for African American Life and History. "ASALH enthusiastically marks this 21st-century milestone because it ensures that this 20th-century visionary's life and work will be preserved in perpetuity." The collection includes many rare and important books, pamphlets and periodicals, according to Emory's curator of African American collections Randall Burkett. Among the earliest books in the collection is a beautiful leather-bound copy of "A Short History of Barbados, From its First Discovery and Settlement, to…1767" (1768). Within the collection of books there are many important inscriptions to Woodson, including one from the great book collector Arthur A. Schomburg, who on July 4, 1919, inscribed a rare edition of Phillis Wheatley's "Poems and Letters"--the first collected edition of her work, and limited to only 400 copies. Schomburg's inscription in Spanish quotes a line from the Cuban slave poet Plácido, executed in 1844 for his presumed participation in a slave revolt. Perhaps the most apt inscription, according to Burkett, is from the famous musician W. C. Handy, who signed his book, "Unsung Americans Sung" (1944), "To the Father of Negro History Week, From the Father of Blues." "This acquisition is so important because very few libraries of African American intellectuals have been preserved, and Carter Woodson was truly one of the leading intellectuals of the 20th century," says Burkett. "You can see from his personal library that he was not reading only African American authors. There are anti- slavery tracts, but also pre-Civil War pro-slavery tracts. What you see is the extraordinary breadth of his own knowledge and how that informed his understanding of African Americans' place in American history and culture." The collection arrived in more than 65 boxes containing books, pamphlets, periodicals and print ephemera. The library will be available for research use in the next 24 months. An exhibition of items in the collection is scheduled to open at Emory in October 2006. ### For further details on African American Collections at Emory University, contact Randall K. Burkett, curator of African American collections, Woodruff Library, Emory University. NOTE : An illustration of Carter G. Woodson's "The Negro in Our History" is available by request. Note to accompany the illustration: Carter G. Woodson regularly used African American artists to create dust jackets and to illustrate books published by Associated Publishers. This beautiful dust jacket for Woodson's extensive survey of African American history is by the noted artist James Lesesne Wells. |
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copyright 2001
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