societal+context

In 1915 D. W. Griffith's //Birth of a Nation// was released. The film’s creator, Thomas Dixon Jr. had the following objective in mind when he created the film:

My object is to teach the North, the young North, what it has never known—the awful suffering of the white man during the dreadful Reconstruction period. I believe that Almighty God anointed the white men of the South by their suffering during that time. . . to demonstrate to the world that the white man must and shall be supreme. 6

According to the Jim Crow series of PBS’ website, //“[Birth of a Nation//] falsified the period of Reconstruction by presenting blacks as dominating Southern whites (almost all of whom are noble in the film) and sexually forcing themselves upon white women.” It also positioned the Klu Klux Klan as heroes, protecting the South from corrupt Northern and Black coercive forces. The President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson endorsed this film as an accurate assessment of historical events. Ironically a film, which was an impetus for many race riots, also served as an indirect catalyst for African American political movements of the time. According to the Wikipedia entry on the Harlem Renaissance,

“Despite the occurrence of racist mob violence even in the North, the relative political freedom there nonetheless allowed African-Americans to organize themselves politically and intellectually. In the first two decades of the twentieth century, during the so-called nadir of American race relations, the Northern black middle class began to set up and support a number of political movements”( [|__http://en. wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlem_ Renaissance__] ).

Included in these political movements were the National Urban League and the NAACP. Dr. Dubois a prominent sociologist, writer, historian, teacher, and activist of his time was a central figure in both organizations. Being the first African American to receive a PhD from Harvard, the Cultural Heritage Initiative for Community Outreach (CHICO) based at the University of Michigan School of Information explains “He believed in higher education and the cultivation of the “Talented Tenth” for leadership in the African-American community”. In the Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935, Henry Moorehouse is credited with originally defining this term. “As Moorehouse put it, “In all ages, the mighty impulses that have propelled a people onward in their professional careers have proceeded from a few gifted souls”. The “talented tenth” should be trained to In his sociological study of African Americans of his time, //The Souls of Black Folks (1903)//, DuBois observed the preeminent problem of the 20th century would be the color line. He was disheartened by the lack of representation of Black issues and voice in mainstream newspapers, as well as the largely negative representation of African Americans in popular literature and media. Dubois's writes in "Criteria of Negro Art" (1926) "all Art is propaganda and ever must be" which can be interpreted to understand how he viewed St. Nicholas children's magazines. The Crisis magazine and subsequent Brownies' Books are a response in keeping with Dubois's belief that the real problem is "propaganda ... confined to one side while the other is stripped and silent" (66). In 1910, he became the publishing editor of The Crisis magazine for the NAACP. This magazine was a platform for discussing issues pertaining to the riots and lynchings, but with the cultural infusion inspired by the Harlem Renaissance, the magazine also began featuring short stories and articles emerging by talent such as Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen and Claude McKay, as well as art work by Aaron Douglas, John Henry Adams and Laura Wheeler Waring. In another vein, this time period (the late 19th early 20th century) is also noted as The Golden Age of Children’s Literature. Educational reforms combined with reduced printing cost made books more accessible to young hands 7. It also increased the variety of books and publications available to people in general. The preeminent children’s magazine of the time was St. Nicholas Magazine. It was highly acclaimed during this time period because it was able to feature first printings of original illustrations and stories by notable artist. Contemporary artist such as Charles Dana Gibson, Arthur Rackham, Howard Pyle, Ellis Parker Butler, Norman Rockwell and Livingston Hopkins have credits in the magazine. According to the Encyclopedia Brittanica Online “the most famous and successful children's story by Frances Hodgson Burnett was Little Lord Fauntleroy, which was published in serial form in St. Nicholas magazine and then as a book in 1886”. Many other classics in children’s literature were first published in St. Nicholas magazine, such as Louisa May Alcott's Jo's Boys and Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book”. In St. Nicholas one could find, intelligently written fiction and nonfiction and intricate illustrations, and idyllic photographs of what childhood should be like. Conflated within these pictures and stories also contain negative…

attitudes toward nationalities and races as portrayed during its era. People of other countries are considered "queer" or "barbaric" if they do not choose to follow Western ways. Tribes of Aborigines are considered "savages," and of course 19th century accounts of Native Americans espouse similar opinions. Louisa May Alcott's "Onawandah" is one of the few noble Indians, because her hero chooses to give up his life for his white friends. Most Mexicans are generally portrayed as lazy, Italians as indolent music lovers, Asians as either quaintly industrious or untrustworthy and "inscrutable." 8

According to Jennifer Pricola, Author of the essay, Appropriating Change Through The Brownies' Book, the magazine //St. Nicholas//

…targeted a white, middle-class audience, portrayed black characters merely as "features of the settings in which white American children act": cooks, janitors, and the like (Kory 93, Sinnette 134). During the early 1920s, the same publication featured a poem titled "Ten Little Niggers": "Ten Little nigger boys went out to dine/ One choked his self and then/ there were nine.

Missing from this magazine, and publications of its time is a voice of inclusiveness for children who were not “average Americans”. This voice is what The Brownies’ attempted to provide to children under the sun.