The Racism of 19th-Century Advertisements

Illustrated advertising cards invoked ethnic stereotypes, using black women as foils in order to appeal to white consumers.

Image: A trade card for Dilworth’s Coffee, Philadelphia via Flickr

(JSTOR Daily) After decades of presenting the archetypal American consumer as white and female, advertisers are slowly broadening their imagery to include more diversity. But, as the scholar Marilyn Maness Mehaffy writes, the history of race in American advertisements isn’t just about the absence of non-white buyers. She argues that the creation of the ideal white, female consumer in the expanding consumer economy of the late nineteenth century depended on the inclusion of women of other races, particularly African-Americans, as a foil.

Mehaffy focuses on illustrated advertising cards. In the late nineteenth century, consumer brands printed the colorful cards to spread awareness of their products. Both children and adults saved the cards, leading to a collector’s craze.

Some cards simply depicted animals, flowers, or landscapes. But one archivist found up to forty percent of the cards in a typical museum collection invoked ethnic stereotypes. In particular, Mehaffy writes, a striking number of illustrated cards depicted a pair of women: one white and one black. (more)


African-American Children’s Literature:

“Going Down Home with Daddy”

by Kelly Starling Lyons, illustrated by Daniel Minter

Going Down Home with Daddy

“On reunion morning, we rise before the sun. Daddy hums as he packs our car with suitcases and a cooler full of snacks. He says there’s nothing like going down home.”

Down home is Granny’s house. Down home is where Lil’ Alan and his parents and sister will join great-grandparents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Down home is where Lil’ Alan will hear stories of the ancestors and visit the land that has meant so much to all of them. And down home is where all of the children will find their special way to pay tribute to family history. All the kids have to decide on what tribute to share, but what will Lil’ Alan do?

In this rich and moving celebration of history, culture, and ritual, Kelly Starling Lyon’s eloquent text explores the power of family traditions. Stunning illustrations by Coretta Scott King Honor-winner Daniel Minter reveal the motion and connections in a large, multi-generational family. (more)


Austin: Hamilton House in Symphony Square tells story of former slave turned legislator

Hamilton house

(The Daily Texan) On a bustling Saturday night, an unusual triangular house goes overlooked by concert-goers dressed to the nines as they hasten through Symphony Square.

Built by a former slave in 1871, the Hamilton House is a curious, two-story, stone-wedge structure. The builder, Jeremiah Hamilton, arrived from Tennessee in 1847 and became a member of the Texas Legislature, undeterred by his enslaved past.

Despite this achievement, history professor Sean Williams said, Hamilton is regularly mixed up with another African-American man of the same name. In some cases, his photograph is even mistakenly used.

“Two Jeremiah Hamiltons exist,” Williams said. “One, a New York Wall Street millionaire, and the other a former slave turned Texas legislator. The second, the less sensational one, is sometimes forgotten or often confused with the other.” (more)


New TIPHC exhibit

“The History of Texas Black Legislators and Voting Rights” opens Feb. 13

Legislators exhibit posterWith 86th Texas legislative session underway in Austin, the TIPHC will debut a new exhibit focusing on the history of black legislators in Texas, dating back to Reconstruction, and the voting rights that helped them and their successors gain office, but also the denial of voting rights and voter suppression that continues today, including Waller County.

The exhibit, free and open to the public, will be on display from Feb. 13 to Mar. 15 at the TIPHC gallery adjacent to the Nathelyne Archie Kennedy Building (School of Architecture).

In 1860, on the eve of the Civil War, blacks made up 30 percent of the state’s population. Most were slaves, and even the few who were free could not vote. Emancipation was announced in Texas on June 19, 1865, but the newly formed government withheld black political rights. An all-white constitutional convention in 1866 refused to grant suffrage even to literate blacks. The all-white legislature then refused to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment forbidding states from depriving citizens of equal protection of the laws. The legislature also prohibited blacks from voting, holding office, jury service, and racial intermarriage. However, “Congressional Reconstruction” statutes applicable to former states of the Confederacy gave black men the vote.

Our exhibit begins with that era and the first black legislators, including Matthew Gaines, who pushed through legislation that would result in the founding of PVAMU and on to Houston’s Barbara Jordan, the first black state senator in the US since 1883, and other prominent African Americans and their service in the state’s legislature.

Though blacks where granted the right to vote, that did not stop various factions, such as the Ku Klux Klan, from discouraging black voters from exercising that right and all-white legislatures and political parties from excluding black members and passing laws, such as the poll tax, to further frustrate blacks from gaining entry to the voting process.

The exhibit promises to be both enlightening and entertaining with its displays and videos.


TIPHC Bookshelf

Black Texas Women: 150 Years of Trial and TriumphPublished scholarship on black history in Texas is growing and we’d like to share with you some suggested readings, both current and past, from some of the preeminent history scholars in Texas and beyond. We invite you to take a look at our bookshelf page – including a featured selection – and check back as the list grows. A different selection will be featured each week. We welcome suggestions and reviews. This week, we offer, “Black Texas Women: 150 Years of Trial and Triumph,” by Ruthe Weingarten, Janet G. Humphrey & Frieda Werden, consulting editors.

Women of all colors have shaped families, communities, institutions, and societies throughout history, but only in recent decades have their contributions been widely recognized, described, and celebrated. This book presents the first comprehensive history of black Texas women, a previously neglected group whose 150 years of continued struggle and some successes against the oppression of racism and sexism deserve to be better known and understood.

Beginning with slave and free women of color during the Texas colonial period and concluding with contemporary women who serve in the Texas legislature and the United States Congress, Ruthe Winegarten organizes her history both chronologically and topically. Her narrative sparkles with the life stories of individual women and their contributions to the workforce, education, religion, the club movement, community building, politics, civil rights, and culture. The product of extensive archival and oral research and illustrated with over 200 photographs, this groundbreaking work will be equally appealing to general readers and to scholars of women’s history, black history, American studies, and Texas history.


This Week in Texas Black History

Feb. 3

15th AmendmentOn this day in 1870 the 15th amendment was ratified ensuring the right to vote to all male citizens of the United States, regardless of color or previous condition of servitude. The 15th Amendment opened the door for the elections of African-Americans to the U.S. Congress and to Southern local and state offices. Republicans wanted the 15th Amendment passed to obtain the vote of the freed slaves. However, many women suffragists had worked alongside Black suffragists like Frederick Douglass to gain the right to vote for both groups. However, when the 15th Amendment passed, it angered many women suffragists and some of them spoke out against Black suffrage. Women would not gain the right to vote until 1920.

Feb. 3

Irma SephasOn this day in 1956, Irma Jean Sephas became first African American undergraduate student at North Texas State University. Sephas, 41, was from Fort Worth and majored in business with a music minor. She had previously attended Huston-Tillotson College in Austin.

Feb. 5

On this day in 1840, the Congress of the Republic of Texas passed the Law of February 5. Though there were relatively few free blacks in the republic, legislators concerned over the status of slavery attempted to restrict further the number of free blacks. The law declared that all free blacks who had entered Texas after the Texas Declaration of Independence must leave the republic within two years or be declared slaves for the rest of their lives. Those free blacks who were already in the republic before Texas independence would continue to have all the rights of their white neighbors. Provisions were made for free blacks who entered later to petition the Congress for exception.

Feb. 5

TSgt. Alfred Masters

Alfred Masters, the first African American sworn into the U. S. Marine Corps, was born on this day 1916 in Palestine, Texas. Masters was sworn into the marines June 1, 1942. After his swearing in, he trained at Montford Point, North Carolina where other African Americans were later trained (now known as the Montford Point Marines). Masters eventually rose to the rank of technical sergeant.

Feb. 6

Melvin Tolson

Melvin Tolson, writer, educator, and poet, was born on this day in 1898 in Moberly, Missouri. A graduate of Lincoln (Mo.) University, Tolson began teaching speech and English at Wiley College in 1924. His award-winning debate team, which in 1935 beat the reigning national champion from the University of Southern California, had a 10-year winning steak between 1929 and 1939. Tolson also mentored students such as James L. Farmer, Jr. and Heman Sweatt. In 2007, his story and his team were portrayed in the film, “The Great Debaters.”

Feb. 7

Woodson

On this date in 1926, historian Dr. Carter G. Woodson, the son of illiterate slaves, initiated the first National Negro Week. In 1972, it was renamed Black History Week and in 1976, it became Black History Month. Said Woodson: “Those who have no record of what their forebears have accomplished lose the inspiration which comes from the teaching of biography and history.”

Feb. 9

Juanita Craft

On this date in 1902, civil rights activist Juanita Craft was born in Round Rock. She worked as a maid in Dallas at the Adolphus Hotel from 1925-1934 before joining the Dallas branch of the NAACP in 1935 and beginning several decades of service. She helped organize 182 branches of the NAACP in Texas and in 1944 was the first black woman in Dallas County to vote. In 1946 she was the first black woman deputized in the state to collect the poll tax. Craft also served two terms on the Dallas City Council (1975-1979).

Feb. 9

Lawrence Nixon

Dr. Lawrence Nixon was born on this day in 1883 in Marshall. Nixon had a successful practice in El Paso where he was a charter member of the city’s branch of the NAACP. In 1923, Nixon challenged a state law that barred African Americans from participating in the Texas Democratic Party’s white’s only electoral primaries. Nixon won two U.S. Supreme Court rulings making the primaries unconstitutional. However, it would be another 20 years before the white primary would finally be abolished.

 


Blog: Ron Goodwin, Ph.D., author, PVAMU history professor

Ron Goodwin is an assistant professor of history at Prairie View A&M University. Even though he was a military “brat,” he still considers San Antonio home. Like his father and brother, Ron joined the U.S. Air Force and while enlisted received his undergraduate degree from Texas Lutheran University in Seguin, Texas. After his honorable discharge, he completed graduate degrees from Texas Southern University. Goodwin’s book, Blacks in Houston, is a pictorial history of Houston’s black community. His most recent book, Remembering the Days of Sorrow, examines the institution of slavery in Texas from the perspective of the New Deal’s Slave Narratives.

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Submissions wanted

Historians, scholars, students, lend us your…writings. Help us produce the most comprehensive documentation ever undertaken for the African American experience in Texas. We encourage you to contribute items about people, places, events, issues, politics/legislation, sports, entertainment, religion, etc., as general entries or essays. Our documentation is wide-ranging and diverse, and you may research and write about the subject of your interest or, to start, please consult our list of suggested biographical entries and see submission guidelines. However, all topics must be approved by TIPHC editors before beginning your research/writing.

We welcome your questions or comments. Please contact Michael Hurd, Director of TIPHC, at mdhurd@pvamu.edu.