The fifteen full-page illustrations serve well to bring home much of the force of the arguments, even to a casual reader.
Phillips Barry, A.M., S.T.B.
Groton, Massachusetts.
The Negro Press in the United States. By Frederick G. Detweiler. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1922. Pp. 274.
Struck by the number and distribution of Negro magazines and newspapers, many investigators in the social sciences have recently directed their attention to the study of the Negro press. This increased interest resulted largely from the unusual impetus given the Negro press during the World War when it played the part of proclaiming the oppression of the Negroes to the nations pretending to be fighting for democracy when they were actually oppressing their brethren of color at home. And why should not the public be startled when the average Negro periodical, formerly eking out an existence, became extensively circulated almost suddenly and began to wield unusual influence in shaping the policy of an oppressed group ambitious to right its wrongs? These investigators, therefore, desire to know the influences at work in advancing the circulation of these periodicals, the cause of the change of the attitude of the Negroes toward their publications, their literary ability to appreciate them, the areas of their greatest circulation, and the attitude of the white people toward the opinion of this race.
While it is intended as a sort of scientific work treating this field more seriously than Professor Robert T. Kerlin's The Voice of the Negro, it leaves the impression that the ground has not been thoroughly covered. In the first place, the author does not show sufficient appreciation of the historic background of the Negro press prior to emancipation. He seems acquainted with such distinguished characters as Samuel Cornish, John B. Russwurm, and the like but inadequately treats or casually passes over the achievements of many others who attained considerable fame in the editorial world. In any work purporting to be a scientific treatment of the Negro press in the United States the field cannot be covered by a chapter of twenty pages as the author in question has undertaken to do. Furthermore, many of the underlying movements such as abolition, colonization, and temperance, which determined the rise and the fall of the Negro editor prior to the Civil War, are not sufficiently discussed and scientifically connected in this work. The book, then, so far as the period prior to the Civil War is concerned, is not a valuable contribution.
The author seemed to know more about the Negro press in freedom. Living nearer to these developments he was doubtless able to obtain many of these facts at first-hand and was able to present them more effectively. He well sets forth the favorite themes of the Negro press and the general make-up of the Negro paper, but does not sufficiently establish causes for this particular trend in this sort of journalism. Taking up the question of the demand for rights, the author explains very clearly what the Negro press has stood for. Then he seemingly goes astray in the discussion of the solution of the race problem, Negro life, Negro poetry, and Negro criticism, which do not peculiarly concern the Negro editor more than others in the various walks of life. Looking at the problem from the outside and through a glass darkly, as almost any white man who has spent little time among Negroes must do, the work is about as thorough as most of such investigators can make it and it should be read by all persons directing attention to the Negro problem.
The Disruption of Virginia. By James C. McGregor. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1922. Pp. 328, price $2.00.