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Vol. 26:2 ISSN 0160-8460 June 1998
From Slave to Scholar: The Life of Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass, abolitionist, journalist, orator, and the most influential African American of the nineteenth century, was born into slavery on Maryland's eastern shore. He experienced the brutality and degradation of slavery; but, during an interlude as a house servant, he learned to read. When he was 21 years old, he escaped from Baltimore, where he was hiring himself out as a ship calker, and went north. He was working in Massachusetts as a common laborer when his speaking ability was discovered; and the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society engaged him to campaign against slavery. He traveled to Great Britain and Ireland, where he spoke widely against slavery. After returning to the United States, he established a newspaper for black people. During the Civil War, he helped recruit black troops for the Union army. His postwar career carried him from Recorder of Deeds in the District of Columbia to Consul General in Haiti. Until his death in 1895, he continued to travel and speak on such topics as abolitionism, race relations, politics, and woman suffrage.
Douglass' significance has long been recognized. His three autobiographical works went through 30 authorized editions and various unauthorized editions, and were translated into several foreign languages. Modern studies of slavery, Reconstruction, and black culture have made frequent references to Douglass; and he has been the subject of several recent biographies and a book of critical essays. Moreover, the past two decades have witnessed the publication of new editions of all of Douglass' autobiographical writings.
The Frederick Douglass Papers project grew from discussions between the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the Association for the Study of African-American Life and History (ASAALH) and John W. Blassingame, a history professor at Yale University. Sponsored by Yale University and the ASAALH, the project has received financial support from the NHPRC, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations. Blassingame, who had been an assistant editor with the Booker T. Washington Papers project, initiated work in 1973 on four separate series to be published by Yale University Press: Speeches, Interviews, and Debates; Autobiographical Writings; Correspondence; and Essays, Editorials, and Poems.
The first major problem Blassingame and his fellow editors faced was the absence of a relatively complete collection of Douglass' papers. Douglass himself was keenly aware of the value of his personal records, and had maintained a collection of his newspapers, correspondence, and other published and unpublished writings in his home in Rochester. All these valuable documents were lost when his home was destroyed by fire in 1872. Douglass especially regretted the loss of his newspapers. He believed that his most important speeches and writings dated from the years between 1848 and 1860; and, as he wrote many years later, "my paper was a chronicle of most of what I said during that time." Douglass' papers, which reflect his efforts to replace documents destroyed by the 1872 fire, eventually found their way into the Library of Congress. But these papers are incomplete. For example, the records they include of ante-bellum speeches are often imperfect transcriptions, frequently excerpted from other documents; and these transcriptions are sometimes misdated, often undated, and occasionally mislabelled.
The editors sought to supplement the Library of Congress collection through a systematic search for Douglass documents. From newspapers, public announcements, and correspondence, they created an itinerary of Douglass' speaking schedule; then, guided by this itinerary, they attempted to locate accounts of his speeches in local newspapers. Yale University assembled a large collection of antislavery newspapers. Project staff members compiled an index to this collection, which has been a valuable source of Douglass' speeches and biographical information about his associates. In accordance with Blassingame's plan, the project also gathered copies of various editions of Douglass' autobiographical writings, and surveyed major manuscript repositories about their holdings of relevant correspondence. Through this research, the project discovered texts for more than 2,500 of Douglass' speeches and gathered copies of approximately 6,000 letters to and from the famous abolitionist.
In 1993, budgetary constraints interrupted work on the Douglass Papers. But the editors renewed their efforts in the following year with a decentralized staff. Preparation of the Autobiographical Writings series and the Correspondence series was transferred to West Virginia University where it has been directed by John McKivigan. Peter Hinks undertakes necessary research at Yale; and Gerald Fulkerson, of the Communication Department at Freed-Hardeman University, is responsible for the textual apparatus in the autobiographical writings. McKivigan, Hinks, and Fulkerson were all associated with the project while it was at Yale. Blassingame, as the general editor, continues to advise on editorial matters and review manuscripts of new volumes of the Douglass Papers. In the coming months, the project plans to move to Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, where it will join two other editing projects, the Charles Peirce Edition and the Works of George Santayana. By allowing the project to work simultaneously on several different volumes, decentralization of the staff should expedite the completion of the Douglass Papers volumes.
Frederick Douglass, ca. 1844. Oil on canvas, attributed to Elisha Hammond. Photograph courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.
"I feel greatly embarrassed," Douglass had confessed in one of his first recorded speeches, "when I attempt to address an audience of white people. I am not used to speak to them, and it makes me tremble when I do so, because I have always looked up to them with fear." Yet, for more than five decades he spoke thousands of times, most often to white audiences; and his speeches represent an unparalleled embodiment of interracial dialogue during these years. James Gregory included a few of Douglass' speeches in his 1893 account, Frederick Douglass: The Orator; and half a century later Philip Foner published more of them in The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass. With the publication of volume 5 of the Douglass Papers, which completed Series One: Speeches, Debates, and Interviews, the editors have provided the most thorough compilation of the abolitionist's speeches. Volumes in this series include introductory notes, partial itineraries of Douglass' speaking schedules, headnotes describing the context in which each speech was delivered, and source notes that identify locations of published versions of the speeches.
During the mid-1850's, Douglass began presenting similar lectures on certain topics. Because these talks tended to incorporate many of the same facts and ideas, the editors considered it impractical to print all of them. To have done so would have doubled the length of this series. Instead, the editors grouped such speeches in "families." They printed a representative speech from each family, and included in the appendixes précis of alternate texts showing how important variant versions of such speeches differed from the representative speeches published in this edition.
Douglass' first autobiographical volume, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845), was an attempt to disprove critics who claimed that a man of his intelligence could never have been a slave. This volume eventually went through 21 authorized editions. The project's edition of the Narrative is currently in press, scheduled for publication later this year. In My Bondage and My Freedom (1855), Douglass provided more details regarding his experiences as a slave, and added information about his life as a free black. Consequently, this volume reflected Douglass' concern with civil rights as well as slavery. The first half of his third autobiographical work, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881), recapitulates the story told in Bondage and Freedom. But in the Life and Times Douglass also sought to define his role in history. In it he describes his Civil War activities, his relations with Lincoln, and his postwar career. The 1891 edition brought his life up through 1890, covering his work as Consul General in Haiti.
Each of the volumes in Series Two: Autobiographical Writings, will include a scholarly introduction, a verified reliable text, appropriate textual and historical annotation, and an appendix containing relevant historical and literary documents. In order to conform to the standards established by the Modern Language Association's Committee on Scholarly Editions, each volume will include a publication history, together with a textual apparatus identifying all variations in the texts of each edition of that volume and certifying Douglass' authorial intentions. When published, the autobiographical writings edited by the Douglass Papers will become the definitive versions of these volumes.
The five volumes in Series Three: Correspondence, although selective, will contain a substantial number of Douglass' incoming and outgoing letters reflecting his activities and interests. His correspondents included William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Gerrit Smith, Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford Hayes, Charles Sumner, John Bright, Henry Highland Garnet, Harriet Tubman, Blanche Bruce, George Washington Williams, and Booker T. Washington. Letters not printed in full will be cited in annotated lists at the back of each volume.
The two volumes of a contemplated Series Four: Essays, Editorials, and Poems will complete the edition.
