IN FREEDOM'S BIRTHPLACE: A Study of the Boston Negroes

Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1914. Near fine.. First printing of this account of the history and lives of Black Bostonians, compiled over nine years by a social reformer. IN FREEDOM'S BIRTHPLACE is a valuable snapshot of Black life in Boston when the traumas of slavery and the Civil War were still in living memory. The first third of the book offers a history of Black people in America, with a particular focus on their roles in various American wars. From there, Daniels presents an overview of Boston's current Black community gleaned from nine years of study in and around the Robert Gould Shaw House, part of the South End House settlement project. The philosophy of the leaders of the South End House and its offshoots could most charitably be described as "assimilationist"; in his introduction to IN FREEDOM'S BIRTHPLACE, Robert A. Woods advocates for treating Black Americans as "immigrant nationalities" that must "adopt the method or rule himself out of the game" (x-xi). Despite his association with the project, though, Daniels largely resists prescriptivist inclinations in favor of describing the social lives, economics, religion, and politics of Black Bostonians.
Not in Blockson. A great copy. 7.75'' x 4.75''. Original navy cloth boards. xiv, 496 pages, including index. Ownership inscription and address of Brian Turley to front flyleaf. Binding with a bit of bumping to corners and spine ends. Firm and clean.