Jennie Carter: A Black Journalist of the Early West
Edited by Eric Gardner
University Press of Mississippi, 2007
ISBN-10: 1934110108
ISBN-13: 978-1934110102

In June 1867, Philip Bell's San Francisco Elevator—one of the nation's premier Black weekly newspapers during Reconstruction—began publishing articles by a Black Californian calling herself "Ann J. Trask" and later "Semper Fidelis." Her real name was Jennie Carter (1830-1881), and the Elevator would print her essays, columns, and poems for the next seven years.

Her work considers California and national politics, race and racism, women's rights and suffrage, temperance, morality, education, and a host of other issues, all from the point of view of an unabashedly strong African American woman. As a rare, recovered voice from the early Black West, Carter's work not only speaks volumes about Black presences in unexpected places but also provides a powerful counterpoint to figures ranging from Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Frederick Douglass, and William Still to Fanny Fern, Mark Twain, and Lydia Maria Child.

Recovering Carter's work from obscurity, sharing biographical information on Carter, and placing her columns and her life in rich historical and literary context, this volume represents one of the most exciting bodies of extant work by an African American journalist before the twentieth century.

For more information, visit the University Press of Mississippi website or the book's Amazon page.

Interviews with Gardner on Jennie Carter and nineteenth-century African American literature can be found at newbooksinhistory.com and the Saginaw News.

A sample column by Jennie Carter from the 25 December 1868 San Francisco Elevator

Mud Hill, Dec. 12, 1868.    Mr. Editor.—“Six feet two inches”; so said Mr. Trask to an inquiry in regard to his height. I told him I thought he was mistaken; he said not, for he was measured, and had his measurement recorded at Harper’s Ferry in the summer of ’51, as he was returning from Sulphur Springs, Va., where he had been for several weeks with the other members of Frank Johnson’s band. Judge his indignation when he arrived at Harper’s Ferry; he was asked who he belonged to, if he had any scars upon him, and then measured, and told he would have to stay over night as no colored person could travel after 4 o’clock P.M. He stood up, and in his wrath I guess he was six feet three inches, he pronounced curses on that State. They then threatened him with the lash, and he told them to proceed, that the first one who laid hands on him should die. And their courage was no greater then than years after, when John Brown, with a handful of men frightened the whole State, for they told Mr. Trask, they knew he was a free nigger, he was so independent; and they have long ere this suffered all the curses Mr. Trask pronounced upon them, and I do not believe even the record of Mr. Trask’s height could be found there now, and probably the man who wrote it down has forgotten the fact, but not forgotten is the indignity Mr. Trask suffered. Born free, living in Philadelphia, associating with men and women, respected as a gentleman, the insult will never be forgotten. And when anyone asks him his height he will say six feet two inches, and think of that occurance. Semper Fidelis

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