Category: Authorship

Categories
1920s African American Education Short Story

A Girl’s Will

A Girl’s Will

By Ella T. Madden
Annotations by Catherine Bowlin/JB
Illustration from the second edition of The Brownies' Book. Two girls walking near the water. The caption reads, "Helen and I Were Walking Along the Water's Edge."
Original illustration by Hilda Wilkinson from The Brownies’ Book p.55.

ALONG the edge of a southern forest, flows a stream called the Isle of Hope River. Void of the rush and hurry of youth, slowly, silently it flows, with an air of quiet serenity and infinite calm; along the edge of the wood, past the villages of Isle of Hope and Thunderbolt, it flows, until it is lost in the waters of the Atlantic, eighteen miles away.

In one of the weatherbeaten fisherman’s huts, which nestle under the branches of the great, gnarled, twisted, live oaks which grow along the river’s bank, lived Helen La Rose. As the keynote of the stream’s personality was repose, the most striking thing about Helen’s character was its deep unrest and consuming ambition, coupled with a high-minded, lofty idea of the infinite power of the human will.

It was the week of our graduation from Beach Institute. Helen and I were walking along the water’s edge, discussing our future with all the enthusiasm of sixteen. I could talk of nothing but the wonderful career I expected to have in college the next year, for my parents were “well-to-do,” and I was the only child. Suddenly, in the midst of gay chatter, I stopped and looked at Helen.

“Oh, I’m so sorry you can’t go, too, Helen; what fun we would have together,” I burst out sorrowfully, for pretty, ambitious, Helen La Rose was very poor. Her father had all he could do to support his wife and seven children. Helen had paid her tuition at Beach by helping Mrs. Randolph before and after school and on Saturdays.

“But I am going to college,” said Helen, in her quiet voice. “I am going to college and I am going to become the greatest teacher that ever was, if I live long enough. Booker T. Washington worked his way through Hampton and Robert Dent is working his way and so did Mr. Ross. He told me so himself.”

“Yes, but they were all boys,” I said with emphasis. 

“And I’m a girl,” replied Helen, “and as smart as any boy. Dad said so. Besides,” and her eyes grew large and deep and her voice tense, “I can do anything I want to, if I want to hard enough.”

The next week was commencement. Helen was “val,” and looked sweet and girlish in her cotton voile dress, fashioned by her own little brown, work-roughened fingers. For her eager face, lit up by the great eyes and a happy,––though rather tremulous––smile, did not require a fine toilette to make it attractive.

The weeks passed and I did not see Helen again until the middle of July. We were sitting in my room and I had been showing some dresses I had bought.

“I am going to begin making my things next week,” said Helen, happily. “Daddy has let me keep all the money I have earned this summer and I have put it all in the savings bank. Just think, I have been working only nine weeks and I’ve saved forty dollars. I’ll make forty more between now and October and that will be enough for railroad fare and my first quarter’s tuition. Mrs. Randolph is going to give me a letter of recommendation to a friend of hers in Chicago and I know I’ll get work. Oh, I am so happy! And everybody is so good to me!” Helen danced around the room, hugging herself for every joy.

Early in August, Mrs. La Rose contracted malaria and died after a short illness. Mr. La Rose was heartbroken. There were six small children, ranging in age from three and a half to thirteen years. Quietly, unobtrusively, Helen took her mother’s place in the household. She did not allow even her father to realize what the sacrifice of her plans meant to her. She cooked and scrubbed and washed and ironed and cared for her swiftly aging father and little brothers and sisters with loving devotion. The little house was spick and span, the children happy and contented; and Mr. La Rose, grown suddenly old, became as calm and placid as the river that flowed past his door.

Isle of Hope, Near Savannah, Ga. Historic Postcard Collection, courtesy of the Georgia Archives.

Four years passed and I received the degree of A. B. and soon after was appointed teacher of English in the high school. I lost no time in looking up my old school chum and telling her of my good fortune. She met me with a glad cry of welcome and rejoiced in her old, frank, exuberant way over my success. But after the first few moments of greeting, I could not help noticing the change in her appearance. 

Her figure had grown thin and old-maidish; and the brown cheeks had lost their soft roundness. The eyes, that had held such a marvelous vision of achievement and such undaunted hope in the future, were as deep and dark as ever; but in their depth brooded a wistfulness and a poignant unrest that made me catch my breath, for there came to me a vague realization of the story those eyes told. Bitter must have been the battles waged between ambition and duty. Not a hint of this, however, was in her demeanor. There was not a trace of self-pity or jealousy in her manner as we talked of the past and the present and drew bright pictures of the future.

Then Mary, Helen’s eighteen-year-old sister, finished high school. Mary was not studious and had no desire to go to college.

“Now,” I said to myself, “Mary will take charge of the house and the younger children and Helen can have her chance. It is no more than right.” But I reckoned without my host. Six months after Mary’s graduation, she was engaged to be married.

The years flew by, swift as a bird on the wing, and Helen’s young charges grew to young manhood and womanhood. Mr. La Rose was dead. The baby was in his senior year at Howard University. Tom was in the mail service and Rose was the happy mistress of her own home. Helen, at thirty-five, was free to live her own life. I went to see her one bright sunny morning in June and found her sitting under her favorite oak tree, her hands lying idly in her lap, her eyes looking off across the water. She greeted me with a happy smile and a humorous glance of her fine eyes.

“Elise, do you remember our old saying, ‘You can do anything you want to, if you want to hard enough?’ I am going to college in the autumn!”

Madden, Ella T. “A Girl’s Will.” The Brownies’ Book 1, no. 2 (February 1920): 54-56.
Contexts

This story demonstrates the need for intersectional environmentalism. The connection between Helen (a poor Black woman) and the natural world should not be overlooked if teaching this story. Helen’s attachment to nature suggests that nothing should exclude people of color from traditional (white) natural spaces. People of color may also find solace in nature despite things out of their control. This story encourages young Black readers to persevere through the things they cannot control (home environment, class, race, gender, ability, etc.) and to seek comfort in nature.

Racial uplift is the ideology that educated Black people are responsible for the welfare of most or all other Black people. This ideology describes a prominent response of Black middle-class leaders, spokespersons, and activists to the crisis marked by the assault on African Americans’ civil and political rights primarily in the U. S. South from roughly the 1880s to 1914.

Resources for Further Study
  • As mentioned in the first paragraph, the Isle of Hope was originally established as a retreat in the 19th century for the elite of Savannah, Georgia. A small African American settlement in the historic district began after the Civil War when formerly enslaved people from Wormsloe Plantation settled there.
  • The first official school for African American children, The Beach Institute (mentioned in the story’s third paragraph), was founded in 1867 when Alfred Ely Beach donated $13,000 to The Freedmen’s Bureau.
  • Education is central to this story, as evidenced by the mention of Booker T. Washington, who founded and was the first president of Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (which later became Tuskegee University), and the choice of Howard University, one of the U.S. network of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).
  • W. E. B. Du Bois, the editor of The Brownies’ Book, and Booker T. Washington, while they shared a vision for ending racial prejudice, disagreed on how to proceed in the wake of slavery. Their differing views included how technology could be incorporated.

Categories
1880s Column Education Essay Native American

Our Young Folks

Our Young Folks

By The Indian
Annotations by jessica cory
The header of The Indian newspaper. Volume 1 in the left hand corner, number 7 in the right hand corner. Hagersville, Ontario and Wednesday, April 14, 1886 in the middle.
Header for the issue of the The Indian containing the new column, “Our Young Folks.”

Under this head we propose to establish a new feature in our journal. The bulk of the matter hitherto appearing in the The Indian has been to mature and older heads. This, our new departure [sic] is calculated to be especially for the Indian children, but answers and questions will receive all due attention, no matter from what source they come. We propose publishing continuously an interesting story suitable for juvinile [sic] readers, also a series of questions of a general character: Historical, Geographical, Mathematical, etc, and also conundrums, graded to suit our young readers and to come within their scope of knowledge. The answers to these questions will be published in each following issue with the names of those who answer correctly. We shall be glad to have questions sent to us by those who have any which they may deem worthy of publication. Our object in this is to create a spirit or desire for knowledge among the young of our people to whom The Indian comes. As soon as we can arrive at an opinion as to the capacity of our readers to grapple with the problems of a varied character, we shall offer prizes and awards to successful candidates. This feature will be added to this department from time to time. We commence this issue with the following:—

                1) Find the cost of a 160-acre farm at $11.25 an acre.

                2) A fence is 38 rods long. How many feet long is it?

                3) How many cords of wood in a pile 32 feet long, 12 feet wide, 14 feet wide?

Pictured is a yellowed newspaper clipping with the page's text included on it.
The original column in The Indian from April 14, 1886. Original is held by The Newberry Library in Chicago, Illinois.
“Our young folks.” The Indian, April 14, 1886, 82. https://webvoyage.carli.illinois.edu/nby/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=local&v1=1&BBRecID=494884.

Contexts

The Indian was published by The Indian Publishing Company from December 30, 1885 until December 29, 1886. According to the American Indian Newspapers database, “The Indian: A paper devoted to the aborigines of North America and especially to the Indians of Canada was established by Peter Edmund Jones – or Kahkewaquonaby – a Mississauga Ojibwa chief. The first newspaper to be published by an Indigenous Canadian, The Indian was circulated across Ontario’s Indian Reserves and intended to inform the First Nations people about Canadian legislation.” Not many Indigenous newspapers at the time contained features specifically for children, and it’s notable that features, such as this one, would contain environmental themes like cords of wood or farming, as these topics would’ve been familiar to readers, including youth.

Though no way way to know for certain, the column’s title, “Our Young Folks,” may have been inspired from the popular U.S. children’s periodical Our Young Folks: an Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls that circulated in the 1860s and ’70s.

Resources for Further Study

Categories
1910s Native American Short Story

How Morning Star Lost Her Fish

How Morning Star Lost Her Fish

By Mabel Powers/Yeh Sen Noh Wehs[1]
Annotations by Jessica Cory
A Native American woman stands in traditional dress with braids in front of her body. Below her are little people who are shirtless and appear to also be Native.
Original image for “How Morning Star Lost Her Fish” included in the 1917 edition of Stories the Iroquois Tell Their Children, page 199.

Once the Little People, the Indian fairies, ran with the Red Children through the woods, and played with them beside the streams. Now they are not often seen, for the white man drove them out of the woods with the Indians, and away from the waters, with his big steam noises.

But before steamboats and great mills were on the streams, the Little People were there. They were often seen paddling their tiny canoes, or sliding down the great rocks on the banks. They loved to slide down a bank where one rock jutted out, for then they had a big bounce. They also liked to sport and jump with the fish.

There was a young Indian girl whose name was Morning Star. She was called Morning Star because her face was so bright, and she was always up early in the morning.

Morning Star lived with her father in a comfortable wigwam by a river. Every day she would get up with the sun, and run down to the river where the great rocks were, to catch fish for breakfast.

Morning Star caught her fish in a basket. At night, she would go and fasten her basket between the rocks, in a narrow place of the stream. Then, when the fish swam through in the night, they would get caught in it, and Morning Star would find plenty of fish waiting for her. In the morning, she would take the basket of fish back to the wigwam, and soon the smell of fish frying on hot coals would come from the lodge.

Never since Morning Star began to fish with her basket, had Chief Little Wolf, her father, had to wait for his fish breakfast before starting on the chase. But one morning, neither Chief Little Wolf nor Morning Star breakfasted on fish. This is how it happened.

On this morning, the Indian girl was up as usual with the sun. She ran down the river just as the Great Spirit lifted the sun’s smiling face. Morning Star had such a light heart that she was glad just to be alive, and she sang a song of praise as she ran. All true Indians at sunrise lift their arms and faces to the sun, and thank the Great Spirit that he has smiled upon them again.

Happy and fleet as a deer, Morning Star ran on until she came to the great rocks. There she saw a whole tribe of tiny little folk gathered about her basket. Some of them were perched on the sides of the basket, laughing and singing. Others were lifting the fish from it and throwing them into the stream. Still others were opening and closing the splints of the basket for the fish to slip through.

Morning Star knew that these tiny folk were the Jo gah oh. She knew also that these Little People were friends of the fish. They know every twist of a fish net and every turn of a hook. Often they have been known to set fish free, and to guide them into deep, quiet places, far away from the men who fish.

Morning Star called to the Little People and begged them not to let all the fish go. Then she began to climb down the rocks, as fast as she could. The little Chief called up to her, “Fish, like Indian girls, like to be alive.”

Then he told the Little People to keep on setting the fish free. When Morning Star reached her basket, a few fish were still in it. She put out her hand to take them from the Little People,—and not a fish, nor a Jo gah oh was to be seen. The Little People had darted into the rocks, for they go through anything, and the fish had slipped through the tiny spaces between the splints of the basket.

Morning Star heard the laughter of the Little People echo deep within the rocks, for they like to play pranks with the earth children. And far down the stream, she saw the fish leap with joy at being still alive. She took up her empty basket and went back to the wigwam.

That morning for breakfast, Morning Star baked corn cakes on the hot coals. As she ate the hot cakes, she thought they tasted almost as good as fish.

Ever after, when Morning Star saw a fish leap from the stream, she remembered what the Jo gah oh had said: “Fish, like Indian girls, like to be alive.”

Powers, Mabel. “How Morning Star Lost Her Fish” in Stories the Iroquois tell their children, 196-200. New York: American Book Company, 1917.

[1] Mabel Powers was a white settler who was made an honorary or adopted member of the Snipe Clan of the Seneca Indians, part of the Iroquois (now most commonly called Haudenosaunee) Confederacy. She was given the name Yeh Sen Noh Wehs following her adoption.

Contexts

The stories in this collection were told to Powers by members of several tribes that are part of the Haudenosaunee and unlike other anthropologists and ethnographers of her time, she listed all tribal members who contributed stories and included the signatures of all six tribal chiefs, essentially authenticating and endorsing this collection of stories. While its generally advisable to avoid “as told to” or “as told by” narratives in Native American Studies, largely because the audience is unaware of the editing process, I chose to include this work because it does appear to have the endorsement of the tribal nations involved.

Acknowledgements of contributors to Powers’ collection, page 8.
This document lists all 6 chiefs and their signatures.
List of signatures of the chiefs of the 6 tribes that are part of the Haudenosaunee (also called Iroquois) Confederacy, pages 9-10.
Resources for Further Study
Pedagogy

It is important to note that anthropological or ethnographic work does have a contentious history in regard to Native peoples, as it is an extension of colonization and frequently results in the exploitation of Indigenous populations.

Categories
1910s Birds Column Creation stories Myth Native American

Tradition of the Crows

Tradition of the Crows

By Louis George (Klamath)[1,2]
Annotations by Jessica Cory
The bird seated on a branch, facing right in profile.
“The Crackle, or Crow-Blackbird” by Ernest Thompson Seton, 1893. The drawing is held in the Cooper Hewitt gallery at the Smithsonian Design Museum.

The crows were once beautiful birds, loved and admired by all the fowls of the air.

The crows at that time dressed in the most gorgeous colors, and their heads were decorated with red feathers that glistened like fire when the sun reflected upon it. The crows had many servants, who attended upon them. The woodpecker was the head servant, and his helpers were the sapsuckers, yellow hammers, and the linnets. They faithfully performed their duty of combing the beautiful heads of the crows, and would now and then pluck a feather from the crow’s head and stick it in their own, at the same time making the excuse that they were pulling at a snarled feather, or picking nits from his head.

So one day the crows got very angry at losing their beautiful feathers from their heads and when the servants heard of this they immediately formed a plot against the crows.

So one morning, as the servants were attending upon the crows, they overpowered them and plucked all of their red feathers from their heads and rolled them in a heap of charcoal, thus coloring them black to this very day. Any one can see for himself, the crows are not on friendly terms with their former servants, for they still possess the red heads that the crows once had. [3] 






George, Louis. “Tradition of the crows.” The Red Man, 2 no. 10 (June 1910): 42.














[1] In the original document (and on additional Carlisle School paperwork), Louis’ name is spelled “Lewis.” However, on the school application, apparently filled out by this mother, Jennie Martin, it is spelled “Louis.” Following what was likely his mother’s chosen name, I’ve used “Louis” here.










[2] Louis George is noted by the Carlisle Indian Industrial School as belonging to the Klamath Nation. Today, the Klamath Tribes encompass the Klamath, Modoc, and Yahooskin peoples. Their ancestral territory is in modern-day southwest Oregon and northern California. 










[3] While it is likely that the Klamath have traditional stories involving crows or ravens, as many tribes do, I was unable to find this particular story replicated elsewhere.


















Contexts





The Carlisle School, located in Pennsylvania, was the most well-known of the residential schools for Native Americans in the US, which existed from 1860 until the late 20th century.  It was founded by Henry Pratt, infamous for his views on the necessity of Native American cultural destruction. Native children were forced to attend the school, where they were given new names, forbidden to speak their languages, and frequently abused and even killed. Because the Carlisle School published this Native student’s story, we should recognize how power and censorship shape such texts.










Resources for Further Study





  • Becky Little explains a bit of the history behind the residential school system in the U.S., and looks specifically at the Carlisle School in particular.
  • Mary Annette Pember (Red Cliff Band of Wisconsin Ojibwe) writes of her mother’s experience as a student at Saint Mary’s Catholic Indian Boarding School, exploring the intergenerational trauma, disconnection, and other long-lasting impacts that such schools caused.





Pedagogy





When teaching about the history of Native American boarding schools, it’s important to couch these forced “educations” within the larger context of attempted genocide and settler colonialism, as well as to explore the often traumatic outcomes for Native Americans for which these institutions are responsible.









Contemporary Connections





While Canada has formerly apologized to its Indigenous citizens for the impact that the residential schools had on the affected populations (though Indigenous Canadian peoples still face systemic and individual discrimination and many scholars, such as Dian Million and Audra Simpson, have explained the complexities of reconcilliation), the United States has refused to offer any sort of apology or reconciliation to its Native peoples.  
















		


	


	

		
	


	






	



	


		
			

				
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					1910s Autobiography Book chapter Native American				

			


			
At Home with Nature

	





	


		


			
		


	


	
	


		


			





At Home with Nature









By Charles A. Eastman/Ohiyesa (Santee Dakota)[1]





Annotations by Jessica Cory












Image of book cover with the words Indian Scout Talks and Eastman near the top. The image is of a shirtless Native American man using a bow drill with wisps of smoke emanating from it. A person in a suit and hat with their back to the reader looks on. In the back are teepees.





Portrait of the author, a Native American man wearing a war bonnet. The image is in black and white.


Left: Original cover of Eastman’s Indian Scout Talks: A Guide for Boy Scouts and Camp Fire Girls. 
Right: Portrait of the author included in the original 1914 publication. Photographer unknown.










To be in harmony with nature, one must be true in thought, free in action, and clean in body, mind, and spirit. This is the solid granite foundation of character.





Have you ever wondered why most great men were born in humble homes and passed their early youth in the open country? There a boy is accustomed to see the sun rise and set every day; there rocks and trees are personal friends, and his geography is born with him, for he carries a map of the region in his head. In civilization there are many deaf ears and blind eyes. Because the average boy in the town has been deprived of close contact and intimacy with nature, what he has learned from books he soon forgets, or is unable to apply. All learning is a dead language to him who gets it at second hand.





It is necessary that you should live with nature, my boy friend, if only that you may verify to your own satisfaction your schoolroom lessons. Further than this, you may be able to correct some error, or even to learn something that will be a real contribution to the sum of human knowledge. That is by no means impossible to a sincere observer. In the great laboratory of nature there are endless secrets yet to be discovered.





We will follow the Indian method, for the American Indian is the only man I know who accepts natural things as lessons in themselves, direct from the Great Giver of life.





Yet there exists in us, as in you, a dread of strange things and strange places; light and darkness, storm and calm, affect our minds as they do yours, until we have learned to familiarize ourselves with earth and sky in their harsher aspects. Suppose that you are absolutely alone in the great woods at night! The Indian boy is taught from babyhood not to fear such a situation, for the laws of the wilderness must necessarily be right and just, and man is almost universally respected by the animals, unless he himself is the aggressor. This is the normal attitude of trust in our surroundings, both animate and inanimate; and if our own attitude is normal, the environment at once becomes so. It is true that an innate sense of precaution makes us fear what is strange; it is equally true that simplicity and faith in the natural wins in the end.





I will tell you how I was trained, as a boy, to overcome the terror of darkness and loneliness. My uncle, who was my first teacher, was accustomed to send me out from our night camp in search of water. As we lived a roving life in pursuit of game, my errand led me often into pathless and unfamiliar woods. While yet very young, all the manhood and self-reliance in me was called forth by this test.













You can imagine how I felt as I pushed forward alone into the blackness, conscious of real danger from possible wild beasts and lurking foes. How thrilling, how tantalizing the cry of the screech-owl! Even the rustling of a leaf or the snapping of a dry twig under foot sent a chill through my body. Novice that I was, I did not at once realize that it is as easy as swimming; all I needed was confidence in myself and in the elements.









Ralph Albert Blakelock. Moonlight, Indian Encampment. Oil on canvas, 1889, Smithsonian American Art Museum and its Renwick Gallery, Washington, D.C.









As I hurried through the forest in the direction my uncle had indicated, there seemed gradually to develop sufficient light for me to distinguish the trees along my way. The return trip was easier. When, as often happened, he sent me for a second pailful, no protest or appeal escaped my lips, thanks to my previous training in silent obedience. Instinct helped me, as he had foreseen, to follow the trail I had made, and the trees were already old acquaintances. I could hear my own breathing in the silence; my footfall and heart-beat sounded as though they were those of another person coming behind me, and while this disturbed me at first, I quickly became accustomed to it. Very soon I learned to distinguish different kinds of trees by the rustling of their leaves in the breeze which is caused by the stir of man or animal.





If you can accustom yourself to travel at night, how much more you will be able to see and appreciate in the daytime! You will become more sensible of the unseen presences all about you and understand better the communications of the wild creatures. Once you have thrown off the handicap of physical fear, there will develop a feeling of sympathetic warmth, unknown before.





In the event of sudden danger, I was taught to remain perfectly motionless—a dead pause for the body, while the mind acts quickly yet steadily, planning a means of escape. If I discover the enemy first, I may be passed undiscovered. This rule is followed by the animals as well. You will find it strictly observed by the young ones who are hidden by their mother before they are able to run with her; and they are made to close their eyes also. The shining pupil of the eye is a great give-away.





It is wonderful how quickly and easily one can adjust himself to his surroundings in wild life. How gentle is the wild man when at peace! How quick and masterful in action! Like him, we must keep nature’s laws, develop a sound, wholesome body, and maintain an alert and critical mind. Upon this basis, let us follow the trail of the Indian in his search for an earthly paradise! 





George Catlin. Sioux Village, Lake Calhoun, near Fort Snelling. Oil on canvas, 1836, Smithsonian American Art Museum and its Renwick Gallery, Washington, D.C. 





Eastman, Charles A. “At Home with Nature,” in Indian Scout Talks: A Guide for boy scouts and camp fire girls, 1-6. LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY, 1914.



















[1] The Santee Dakota are also sometimes known as the Santee Sioux.


















Contexts





The Boy Scouts, as an organization, have a lengthy history of exploiting and appropriating Native American cultures and traditions, as Vincent Schilling (Akwesasne Mohawk) explains in Indian Country Today. In becoming an icon for the Boy Scouts, Eastman received criticism of European assimilation. However, many of his supporters, such as Penelope Myrtle Kelsey (Seneca), argue that his association with the Boy Scouts was an act of resistance against the “vanishing Indian” narrative.[2] For additional information on the “vanishing Indian” narrative, please see The Pluralism Project.





Resources for Further Study





When teaching works by Native American writers, particularly older works such as those by Charles Eastman, it is critical to emphasize that Native peoples are still here. To foster this viewpoint, it can be helpful to teach contemporary Native American writers in addition to older foundational texts.





Sharing how other institutions work to counter the “vanishing Indian” trope may also provide insightful ideas. 





  • The Plains Art Museum, for example, is hosting an exhibition entitled The Vanishing Perspective to rebut this harmful narrative that was born of Manifest Destiny.
  • This activity template is based upon a text not written by a Native person but focusing on one, which may be problematic in and of itself. Still, instructors could easily tailor the learning opportunities to discuss the “vanishing Indian” trope in other works. The template is geared for 6th-8th grade learners. 





Contemporary Connections





  • Cecily Hilleary explores the connection between the Boy Scouts’ appropriation of Native cultures and other popular forms of appropriation, such as sports teams’ names and logos.
  • Ben Railton’s July 2020 article in the Saturday Evening Post provides a thorough overview of the “vanishing Indian” myth and its horrific effects, particularly in Oklahoma, including increased COVID-19 cases.










[2] Kelsey, Penelope Myrtle. “A ‘Real Indian’ to the Boy Scouts: Charles Eastman as a Resistance Writer.” Western American Literature, 38: no. 1 (2013): 30-48.











		


	


	

		
	


	






	



	


		
			

				
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					1920s African American Fairies Fairy Tale Short Story				

			


			
Gyp: A Fairy Story

	





	


		


			





Gyp: A Fairy Story









By A. T. Kilpatrick





Annotations by Catherine Bowlin





Cover of the first volume of The Brownies' Book. Photograph of a little African American girl in white costume, crown, and ballet shoes. 
Battey. Untitled Cover of The Brownies’ Book. 1920. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/22001351/>.





ONCE there was a little fairy named Gyp. The king of fairies gave all of the little fairies work to do. And Gyp’s work for that day was to paint apples. 





Early that morning Gyp went to the forest to work. He carried all his paints, but more of red and brown because he had a lot of apples to paint red and also the leaves to tint brown.





He soon came to the trees, and leaving the other paints on the ground, he carried the red up to paint apples.





The little children who lived in the forest thought it about time to find ripe apples, and some of them went out that same morning to get some. 





After roaming a bit they came to the tree where Gyp was painting and found all his paints on the ground. 





They began to amuse themselves by playing with the paints, until the wind blew some apples down.





But they soon tired and fell asleep. Gyp had noticed them meddling with his paints and saw that they liked red and brown best.





When he came down and found all asleep, he wondered what joke to play on them that would be pleasing. So after deciding on many things and changing, he determined to paint their faces, knowing they would be delighted.





So he painted their faces,––some red like the apples, and the others brown like the leaves. When they woke and looked at each other, they were startled and amazed. They went home never knowing why their faces changed colors.





Now their descendants still live. Those children who were at home remained white, but the little red children still love to roam about in the forest and on the plains.





The little brown children can be found most everywhere, carrying happiness and sunshine to all they see.





So when you read of the work of the little brownies, don’t forget the good fairy Gyp.





Brunner, Arnold William. Forest. 1891, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, CC0. https://www.si.edu/unit/cooper-hewitt.





Kilpatrick, A. T. “Gyp: A Fairy Story.” The Brownies’ Book, ed. W. E. B. Du Bois, vol. 1, no. 1. (1920): 31. www.loc.gov/item/22001351/.





Resources for Further Study





  • In the introduction to the 2019 volume of The Lion and The Unicorn, a contemporary journal that studies children’s literature, Katharine Capshaw and Michelle Martin draw parallels between The Brownies’ Book and the Black Lives Matter movement. Full citation for this source: Capshaw, Katharine, and Michelle H. Martin. “Introduction: From The Brownies’ Book to Black Lives Matter: One Hundred Years of African American Children’s Literature.” The Lion and the Unicorn, vol. 43, no. 2. (2019): v-vii. ProQuest, https://login.libproxy.uncg.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/2330797298?accountid=14604, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/uni.2019.0015.
  • For an analysis of fairies in The Brownies’ Book, see Fern Kory’s article, “Once Upon a Time in Aframerica: The ‘Peculiar’ Significance of Fairies in the Brownies’ Book” in the 2001 volume of Children’s Literature. Full citation for this source: Kory, Fern. “Once upon a Time in Aframerica: The “Peculiar” Significance of Fairies in the Brownies’ Book.” Children’s Literature, vol. 29. (2001): 91-112. ProQuest, https://login.libproxy.uncg.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/195575070?accountid=14604.





Pedagogy





Possible discussion questions:





  • How does the positive diction in this story foreshadow its purpose? 
  • Can this text be considered an origin story? Why or why not? 
  • What does this story suggest about racial difference? 









 











		


	


	

		
	


	



	
	


		

		
	
	


	




	


		


			
			
				

			
		


	


	
			

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