Mar 28, 2019 - Sale 2503

Sale 2503 - Lot 278

Price Realized: $ 1,125
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 500 - $ 750
(HISTORY.) Patterson, A.E. The Possibilities of the American Negro, with Illustrations and Biographies. 52 portrait illustrations. [4], 286, [5] pages. 8vo, needs binding; minor toning and minimal wear to contents. Cairo, IL: Cairo Standard Publishing, 1903
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Additional Details

An interesting and virtually unknown compendium of biography and history by a young Illinois newspaper publisher and attorney named Adam Edward Patterson (1876-1949). The author's introduction explains that "I have purposely omitted making mention of the familiar characters of our race . . . and given their place in this volume to new faces not less worthy of emulation." Historical essays are interspersed with portraits and short biographies of people like Miss Verda McClure, a piano and violin teacher in Carbondale, IL; and A.A. Martin, Jr., a recently married young business owner in Montana. The author Patterson later went on to serve as the first African-American Judge Advocate in the American military, and was active in Chicago politics after the war. Not in Work, Blockson, or Afro-Americana. 4 copies in OCLC, and none known at auction.