Hall's Moral and Mental Capsule For The Economic And Domestic Life Of The Negro, As A Solution Of The Race Problem.
Dallas, Texas: Rev. R.S. Jenkins, [1905]. 8½” x 6”. Illustrated brown cloth. Pp. [double-sided frontis], [6, title and table of contents], x, 238. Good: first leaf supplied in facsimile; boards with moderate wear and heavy soiling; leaves lightly toned, several with small tears; front pastedown with two different names in pencil; rear endpapers with owner name in pencil numerous times; a couple of leaves with dogears; a couple of minor stains and penciled notes in text.
This is a copiously illustrated work of uplift and poetry sprinkled with several dozen images of Black Texas leaders, all compiled and written by a woman, Josie B. Hall. The book has a brief biography of Hall which stated that she was born in 1869, in Waxahachie, Texas, and that her uncle and grandfather were the first African American landowners in that town. She was orphaned at the age of 11 and started teaching Sunday School when she was 12 years old, and later taught in various places in Mississippi and Texas through 1904. She married Professor J.P. Hall in 1888. At the time of publication, J.P. was the principal of Mexia Colored High School and there's an image of him in the book as well.
According to Black Texas Women: 150 Years of Trial and Triumph (University of Texas Press, 1995) (BTW), this was the first book published by a Black woman in Texas. BTW also gave a good summation of this book's importance:
“In [Hall's] essays and poems, she enjoined the members of her race to be above criticism and echoed many of the philosophical underpinnings of the black women's club movement. In her poem 'The Pinnacle of Fame' she urges girls to 'try to be good, / By raising the standard of womanhood.' While Mrs. Hall was very critical of her own people, she also published a speech by Mrs. C. Minnie Allen of Fort Worth, which condemned the prevalent, and eminently unfair, double standard in the stereotyping of blacks by whites. Hall's and Allen's writings demonstrate the pivotal role many educated African-American women played in addressing matters of ethics with blacks and whites alike. Their prophetic interpretations developed within a broader tradition of black women moving between the intimate sphere of white and black communities, noticing and naming the contradictions they encountered within and between them.”
Hall devoted a few pages to why she wrote the book:
“I saw that the race had been trampled, stigmatized, oppressed and discouraged so much, until it had but a very little ambition left to go forward and upward. Then, after looking into the matter deeper I discerned that effeteness had begotten poverty, poverty immorality, immorality vice, vice crime, and crime illness. On discovering the illness of the race, I at once fixed upon a resolution . . . and I leave to your better judgment as to what will be said, and as to the fate of this medicine that I have prepared to put the race in a healthful development, and make it happy ,prosperous and progressive.”
The book is broken up into 63 chapters and includes 37 original poems by Hall. Hall continued her medicine theme in her first essay:
“I see that the race is ill, hence I have dissected the carcass of its nature, and made a profound diagnosis of its constitution and disease . . . thus with all my imperfections and with all of my fears, I have taken upon me the responsibility of administering medicine to the needs of my people . . . I have mixed and rolled a series of valuable ingredients together, the object of which is to make a better people and solve the Negro problem.”
Topics of other essays and poems include mob violence and lynching, education as a solution to the race problem, politics, womanhood and much more. A sample from “The Political Relation of the Negro”:
“the amendment that granted suffrage to the Negro has a mournful sound to me; that is when I look at the covered and uncovered snares in the political pathway, and when I think of the many things that have caused the Nation's heart to quiver and bleed. Now, after carefully scrutinizing the political position of this misguided, bow-legged Nation at the polls, in office and at its home, I wonder how it has existed. But as I look up I see that the Angel of Mercy has poised over it with outspread wings, averting the disaster as it threatens to crush it. May that angel continue to pose in the same position, and may this Nation produce a few more competent, honest, straight-legged men who will be a credit and an honor to Negro suffrage, for the time is not far distant when other Nations shall expect it to come out in an honorable way and take its place.”
One of the poems was entitled “Woman's Rights” and the following may have been written differently after 1920:
“She can cast a vote every day/By living in the right,/By doing her duty at home,/By helping others sight . . . And to instill in them duty/And the right principle./Tell her husband how to vote,/Or the man she wants elected,/And tell her boys whose names to leave/And the ones she wants rejected./Then she helps elect and support/One for the government/Though she did not go to the polls;/You see her vote was sent.”
A sample from, “Are We Loyal to the Stars and Stripes?”:
“Negroes were introduced/Into America in 1619/And the shackles of bondage were not loosed/ until 1865; hence freedom was like a dream . . . The United States has a government/By which its citizens should abide./However, all who are sent/To the Legislature should decide//To make laws to help the Negroes/Take their places as citizens;/Then they will be willing to bestow/Their lives for Americans . . . To-day he's deprived of his rights/In some States/But is he not loyal to the stars and stripes/Regardless of his fate?”
From “Negro Enterprises”:
“We have quite a number running enterprises,/But very few Negroes patronizes/Them as they should./But do you not think that we would/Be stronger as a race./If we would encourage an enterprise/And each other patronize?/This feature others would detect/And look upon us with more respect.”
There are also several brief biographies of Black Texas leaders and a song with lyrics and music. Another significant highlight of the book is its 104 illustrations, 79 of which are photographic. 88 of the images show African American leaders from Texas, with 18 of them being women. Most of the portraits of leaders also have some narrative biographical information.
Also of note is the book's evidence of use by a young African American woman, Mary Sewell from Temple, Texas who was born around 1896.
A stupendous work of poetry and uplift, considered the first book published in Texas by an African American woman. OCLC locates ten copies. Good. Item #8786
Price: $9,500.00