This advertisement appeared in the November 1968 issue of School Library Journal; I’d wager that “forgot” is in shock quotes because they weren’t truly forgotten (Sojourner Truth, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, etc), but for the most part the books in this collection were somewhat obscure, given the subject matter and the educational system at the time. Negros were barely considered second-class citizens even in 1968 (just a couple years before I was born), so “forgot” can also apply to schools who neglected to include Negro history on their bookshelves among the Anglo-centric histories that are our libraries are still overly heavy with. This expansive collection would definitely prove to be an encompassing addition to a library, giving the probably Negro-lax knowledge of the librarians a break, removing their need to research and compile a list. Here it was, all lumped together, ready to be purchased as a $485 chunk. It’d probably look good on the budget request; to the probably overly-white adminstrative groups overseeing library acquisitions at the time, one $485 one-time purchase would look better than 45 individual purchases spread out over months as the books are discovered.
Here’s why Google Books, Project Gutenberg, Print-On-Demand, and other electronic publishing services are instrumental in modern education: The list of “forgotten” books are hardly forgotten today. Where, forty years ago, a library had to find nearly $500 — probably a months’ salary for one good librarian, or a half-dozen part-timer circulation desk workers — nearly all of the books are available online today, most free to anyone with an internet connection…which, incidentally, is free in most libraries today.
- American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses, by Theodore Weld (Google);
- My Bondage and My Freedom, Frederick Douglass (Google);
- The Underground Railroad, William Still (Arnold Bernhard Library);
- The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom, Wilbur Siebert (Google);
- John Brown and His Men, Richard Hinton (Google)
- Reminiscences of My Life in Camp, Susie King Taylor (Google)
- Behind the Scenes, Elizabeth Keckley (Google)
- The Freedmen’s Book, L Francis Child (Google)
- First Days Amongst the Contrabands, Elizabeth Hyde Botume (none at this time)
- The Facts of Reconstruction, John Roy Lynch (Google)
- Black and White: Land, Labor, and Politics in the South, Timothy Thomas Fortune (Google)
- The Life and Adventures of Nat Love Better Known as “Deadwood Dick” (UNC-Chapel Hill)
- Black Manhattan, James Weldon Johnson (Not Public Domain/in print)
- The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot, Illinois Chicago Commission on Race Relations (Google)
- Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey, Amy Jacques Garvey ed. (not public domain/in print)
- The New Negro, Alain LeRoy Locke (not public domain/in print)
- ‘New World A-Coming’, Roi Ottley (not public domain/in print)
- On the Eve of Conflict: Anglo-African Magazine (not available)
- The Suppressed Book about Slavery!, George W. Carleton ed. (not available)
- An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans, L. Maria Child (Google)
- Reminiscences of Levi Coffin (Google)
- Negro Population in the United States 1790-1915, John Cummings (not available)
- The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States, Marin Delany (Gutenberg)
- The Free Negro Family, E. Franklin Frazier (not public domain)
- Thoughts on African Colonization, William Lloyd Garrison (Google)
- Shadow and Light, M W Gibbs (Google)
- The Negro at Work in New York City, George Edmund Haynes (Gutenberg)
- Cheerful Yesterdays, Thomas Wentworth Higginson (Google)
- The Voice of the Negro 1919, Robert T, Kerlin (Google)
- Men of Mark, Wm J. Simmons (Google)
- A Key To Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe (Google)
- Some Recollections of our Anti-slavery Conflict, Samuel J. May (Google)
- Captain Canot, Or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver, Brantz Mayer ed. (Google)
- Race Adjustment: The Everlasting Stain, Kelly Miller (not public domain/in print)
- The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution, William C. Nell (Google)
- Recollections of Seventy Years, Daniel A Payne (UNC-Chapel Hill)
- Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of South Carolina (Google)
- Narrative of Sojourner Truth (University of Virginia)
- Autobiography of a Fugitive Negro, Samuel Ringgold Ward (UNC-Chapel Hill)
- History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880, George W Williams (Google)
- The Black Phalanx, Jos. T Wilson (Google)
- The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861, Carter G Woodson (Gutenberg)
Why did I mention Print-On-Demand? The 1968 editions advertised here from Arno Press, particularly the non-public-domain-editions, are still shown as available according to Amazon via Ayer Publishing with a 1-3 week wait. That sort of wait time, the type of business Ayer runs, and the existing 1968 publishing date means that this book, when ordered from Amazon, is printed in an instant on high-speed printers, bound and jacketed, and then shipped out in one constant motion. These modern technologies make available books that were once obscure and elusive. Once upon a time, you had to be a librarian with a big budget. Today, these books are available to anybody, in a comparative (or literal) instant, thanks to computers and publishing revolutions.
