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If I Survive: Frederick Douglass and Family in the Walter O. Evans Collection
Previously unseen speeches, letters, autobiographies, and photographs of Frederick Douglass and his sons, Lewis Henry, Frederick Jr. and Charles Remond Douglass, from the Walter O. Evans collection
While the many public lives of Frederick Douglass - as the representative 'fugitive slave', autobiographer, orator, abolitionist, reformer, philosopher and statesman - are lionised worldwide, If I Survive sheds light on the private life of Douglass the family man. For the first time, this book provides readers with a collective biography mapping the activism, authorship and artistry of Douglass and his sons, Lewis Henry, Frederick Jr. and Charles Remond Douglass. In one volume, the history of the Douglass family appears alongside full colour facsimile reproductions of their over 80 previously unpublished speeches, letters, autobiographies and photographs held in the Walter O. Evans Collection. All of life can be found within these pages: romance, hope, despair, love, life, death, war, protest, politics, art, and friendship. Working together and against a changing backdrop of US slavery, Civil War and Reconstruction, the Douglass family fought for a new 'dawn of freedom'.
Marking the 200th anniversary of Frederick Douglass' birth, this first collective history and comprehensive collection of the Douglass family writings and portraits sheds new light not only on Douglass as a freedom-fighter and family man but on the lives and works of Lewis Henry, Frederick Jr., and Charles Remond. As civil rights protesters, essayists, autobiographers, and orators in their own right, they each played a vital role in the 'struggles for the cause of liberty' of their father. As published here, each of their original writings and portraits is accompanied by an explanatory essay and in-depth scholarly annotatations as well as a detailed bibliography.
Recognising that the Frederick Douglass that is needed in a twenty-first century Black Lives Matter era is no infallible icon but a mortal individual, If I Survive situates the lives and works of Douglass and his family within the social, political, historical and cultural contexts in which they lived and worked. Each unafraid to die for the cause, they dedicated their lives to the emancipation of the slave and to social justice by every means necessary.
The Foreword is written by Robert S. Levine and the Afterword is authored by Kim F. Hall.
While the many public lives of Frederick Douglass - as the representative 'fugitive slave', autobiographer, orator, abolitionist, reformer, philosopher and statesman - are lionised worldwide, If I Survive sheds light on the private life of Douglass the family man. For the first time, this book provides readers with a collective biography mapping the activism, authorship and artistry of Douglass and his sons, Lewis Henry, Frederick Jr. and Charles Remond Douglass. In one volume, the history of the Douglass family appears alongside full colour facsimile reproductions of their over 80 previously unpublished speeches, letters, autobiographies and photographs held in the Walter O. Evans Collection. All of life can be found within these pages: romance, hope, despair, love, life, death, war, protest, politics, art, and friendship. Working together and against a changing backdrop of US slavery, Civil War and Reconstruction, the Douglass family fought for a new 'dawn of freedom'.
Marking the 200th anniversary of Frederick Douglass' birth, this first collective history and comprehensive collection of the Douglass family writings and portraits sheds new light not only on Douglass as a freedom-fighter and family man but on the lives and works of Lewis Henry, Frederick Jr., and Charles Remond. As civil rights protesters, essayists, autobiographers, and orators in their own right, they each played a vital role in the 'struggles for the cause of liberty' of their father. As published here, each of their original writings and portraits is accompanied by an explanatory essay and in-depth scholarly annotatations as well as a detailed bibliography.
Recognising that the Frederick Douglass that is needed in a twenty-first century Black Lives Matter era is no infallible icon but a mortal individual, If I Survive situates the lives and works of Douglass and his family within the social, political, historical and cultural contexts in which they lived and worked. Each unafraid to die for the cause, they dedicated their lives to the emancipation of the slave and to social justice by every means necessary.
The Foreword is written by Robert S. Levine and the Afterword is authored by Kim F. Hall.
880 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 2018
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45 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 19, 2020
I've been working through this book for months because it is huge. In fact, it is so big, I struggle to see why someone would add it to their personal library. I study slavery in history but I'm not sure a book this large really needs to be in my private library versus a public one where many people could us it. The size is also a bit of a challenge when using it because unless you break the spine (do not do that) it will not lay flat.
There are several things I love about this. First, the introductions give it context as a collection but also as documentation of a period in American history, a period which still fuels much of our culture and economics today. Second, the inclusion of scans of the letters, notes, envelops, and photos are important because that is the historical data not the translations and notations of them. Third, those typed out translations are also important because most of us would struggle with handwriting and some of us might struggle with the meaning of words or their context from over a century ago.
However, I do wish that the translations were laid alongside the scans of the original documents so that we can compare them. Comparison can help improve one's ability to read historical texts but also it would flow more smoothly for the layperson I think to see them side by side when they will be tempted to merely skip over to the printed text.
Ultimately a book like this is an investment that you return to over and over. I think the best place for that is either a public library or a organization's library if it can be found with a hard cover to protect it better.
There are several things I love about this. First, the introductions give it context as a collection but also as documentation of a period in American history, a period which still fuels much of our culture and economics today. Second, the inclusion of scans of the letters, notes, envelops, and photos are important because that is the historical data not the translations and notations of them. Third, those typed out translations are also important because most of us would struggle with handwriting and some of us might struggle with the meaning of words or their context from over a century ago.
However, I do wish that the translations were laid alongside the scans of the original documents so that we can compare them. Comparison can help improve one's ability to read historical texts but also it would flow more smoothly for the layperson I think to see them side by side when they will be tempted to merely skip over to the printed text.
Ultimately a book like this is an investment that you return to over and over. I think the best place for that is either a public library or a organization's library if it can be found with a hard cover to protect it better.
September 15, 2020
I found this book deeply frustrating to read. In the midst of this staggering collection of manuscripts included in facsimile as well as transcribed from Frederick Douglass and his family there is a truly great work of documentary history that is covered with a large degree of padding from the editors who seem to want to make their own reputation and demonstrate their own mastery of contemporary trends of leftist historiography and whiny political activism that hang over this great work like parasitic creeping vines drying to draw clout from it. This would still be a very large work if it had the facsimile papers and transcriptions, which are what anyone wants or needs to get out of this work, but it would at least be a work that would be an undoubted masterpiece rather than a deeply flawed one. This is the sort of book that is required reading for anyone who wants to write and research Frederick Douglass' family life, as it contains a lot of essential materials to knowing Douglass as a family man, but lamentably the editors know this as well and so they seize upon their documentary history work as a way of promoting their own political and historical agendas. If this is inevitable, it is also lamentable.
This book, including its hefty introduction, comes in at between 850 and 900 pages of 8 1/2" x 11" paper, making this the sort of book that could be potentially fatal if it fell on someone. Even so, despite its massive weight, its contents are rather straightforward. The book contains a substantial introductory section that includes a list of illustrations, a foreword, a preface about the Walter O. Evans collection of black history, the family tree of Frederick Douglass to the third generation, acknowledgements, a note on texts and editorial practice, and an introduction that looks at the told story of Frederick Douglass and the untold story of his family that this book, obviously, seeks to tell. After that comes ten parts of various sizes, including the family chronologies of Frederick Douglass and his three sons, Lewis Henry, Frederick Jr., and Charles Remond (I), the love story between Lewis and Helen Amelia Loguen (II), the war letters of Lewis and Charles (III), including still more letters between Lewis and his beloved, various historical manuscripts of Frederick Douglass of considerable historic value (IV), family letters encouraging pluck and other virtues in the postwar family, also of considerable interest (V), some fragmentary works from Frederick Douglass Jr. and Virginia Douglass (VI), a narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass from his son Charles (VII), photographs and prints of Douglass and his family, some of which contain unknown presumable relatives (VIII), family resources for the Douglass family (IX), and the Helen Amelia Loguen correspondence (X), after which the book ends with an afterword and an index.
Even as a reader who is not prone to think very highly of the ideas of the author, the works included here are compelling. The documents included here are impressive and deserve to be well-read. There is the epic love story between Lewis Douglass and the woman who became his wife, Helen Amelia Loguen, their romance interrupted by war and their ability to have children sabotaged by his serious war injuries. There are letters from Douglass to friends and family, including some touching comments to his grandson regarding a thank-you note about a flute. If it is lamentable that we get so much stroking of the ego of the Walter O. Evans collection and the people responsible for its contents, these documents show a successful black family engaged in public work, interesting private lives, and thoughtful evaluations on political and social matters, including the beginnings of the Great Migration, in which Douglass is an understandably sympathetic observer of the desire of blacks from the deep South to better themselves by moving elsewhere in search of jobs and lands free from the burdens of sharecropping.
This book, including its hefty introduction, comes in at between 850 and 900 pages of 8 1/2" x 11" paper, making this the sort of book that could be potentially fatal if it fell on someone. Even so, despite its massive weight, its contents are rather straightforward. The book contains a substantial introductory section that includes a list of illustrations, a foreword, a preface about the Walter O. Evans collection of black history, the family tree of Frederick Douglass to the third generation, acknowledgements, a note on texts and editorial practice, and an introduction that looks at the told story of Frederick Douglass and the untold story of his family that this book, obviously, seeks to tell. After that comes ten parts of various sizes, including the family chronologies of Frederick Douglass and his three sons, Lewis Henry, Frederick Jr., and Charles Remond (I), the love story between Lewis and Helen Amelia Loguen (II), the war letters of Lewis and Charles (III), including still more letters between Lewis and his beloved, various historical manuscripts of Frederick Douglass of considerable historic value (IV), family letters encouraging pluck and other virtues in the postwar family, also of considerable interest (V), some fragmentary works from Frederick Douglass Jr. and Virginia Douglass (VI), a narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass from his son Charles (VII), photographs and prints of Douglass and his family, some of which contain unknown presumable relatives (VIII), family resources for the Douglass family (IX), and the Helen Amelia Loguen correspondence (X), after which the book ends with an afterword and an index.
Even as a reader who is not prone to think very highly of the ideas of the author, the works included here are compelling. The documents included here are impressive and deserve to be well-read. There is the epic love story between Lewis Douglass and the woman who became his wife, Helen Amelia Loguen, their romance interrupted by war and their ability to have children sabotaged by his serious war injuries. There are letters from Douglass to friends and family, including some touching comments to his grandson regarding a thank-you note about a flute. If it is lamentable that we get so much stroking of the ego of the Walter O. Evans collection and the people responsible for its contents, these documents show a successful black family engaged in public work, interesting private lives, and thoughtful evaluations on political and social matters, including the beginnings of the Great Migration, in which Douglass is an understandably sympathetic observer of the desire of blacks from the deep South to better themselves by moving elsewhere in search of jobs and lands free from the burdens of sharecropping.
January 30, 2019
This is a big and beautiful book about the life of Frederick Douglass and his family. The research done on him is extensive, but of course while he was a slave, no documentation survives.
Details of his story are told through letters to and from Mr. Douglass. The actual pictures are shown along with a printed copy of the text. The steps that he had to take just to live his life are detailed here. It's very interesting to see how his children carried on his work of equality especially in education - a struggle throughout his life.
This book is captivating and this is the month when there are many opportunities to study African American history!
Details of his story are told through letters to and from Mr. Douglass. The actual pictures are shown along with a printed copy of the text. The steps that he had to take just to live his life are detailed here. It's very interesting to see how his children carried on his work of equality especially in education - a struggle throughout his life.
This book is captivating and this is the month when there are many opportunities to study African American history!
September 25, 2018
All of life can be found within these pages: romance, hope, despair, love, life, death, war, protest, politics, art, and friendship.
September 25, 2018
All of life can be found within these pages: romance, hope, despair, love, life, death, war, protest, politics, art, and friendship.
February 16, 2019
An absolutely magnificent book although I wish there had been more mention of the Douglass women.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews