Playing with Race in the Early Republic: Mr. Potter, the Ventriloquist

2016 ◽  
Vol 89 (2) ◽  
pp. 257-285
Author(s):  
Paul E. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Atlantic World ◽  
Early Republic ◽  
Show Business ◽  
Entertainment Culture

The first American-born stage magician and ventriloquist was an African American named Richard Potter. Potter's stage career (1811–1835) coincided with the transition from an entertainment culture grounded in a metropolitan Atlantic world to an American show business that was nationalist and racist. This essay traces Potter's strategies and experiences within that transformation.

scholarly journals Framing Black Communist Labour Union Activism in the Atlantic World: James W. Ford and the Establishment of the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers, 1928–1931

2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holger Weiss
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
International Trade ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Early Phase ◽  
Atlantic World ◽  
Black Atlantic ◽  
Black Workers ◽  
Labour Unions ◽  
Union Committee ◽  
Union Activism

AbstractThe International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers (ITUCNW) was a radical trans-Atlantic network for the propagation of black proletarian internationalism, established by the Red International of Labour Unions in 1928. Its key mastermind was James W. Ford, an African American communist labour union activist who was in charge of the organization and its operations until the autumn of 1931. This article critically highlights Ford's ambitions as well as the early phase of the organization. Both in terms of its agenda and objective as well as in its outreach among black workers in the Black Atlantic, the ITUCNW and its main propagators stressed the “class-before-race” argument of the Comintern rather than the pan-Africanist “race-before-class” approach. This is not surprising as the ITUCNW was one of the organizations that had been established when the Comintern and the RILU had started to apply the “class-against-class” doctrine, which left no room for cooperation between communists and radical pan-Africanists.

A Man of Feeling, A Man of Colour: James Forten and the Rise of African American Deliberative Rhetoric

2007 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 297-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glen McClish
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
African American ◽  
Early Republic ◽  
Rhetorical Practice ◽  
Political Traditions ◽  
American Blacks ◽  
Deliberative Rhetoric

This study examines the rhetorical practice of James Forten, an African American activist of the early republic. Focusing on four texts written between 1800 and 1832 for white audiences and considering Forten's efforts to align white readers with the plight of both free and enslaved American blacks, I explore pathos (particularly as conceived by eighteenth-century Scottish rhetoricians), the suppliant ethos, appeals based on Pennsylvania and U.S. legal and political traditions, and arguments addressing the practical concerns of the audience. Through such analysis, I demonstrate Forten's pioneering role in the development of African American deliberative rhetoric.

Passing as a Pastor: Clerical Imposture in the Colonial Atlantic World

2004 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Kidd
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
North America ◽  
Atlantic World ◽  
Early Republic ◽  
Religious Authority ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Early American Republic ◽  
Early American ◽  
True Value ◽  
Cultural Power

AbstractMany impostors in the eighteenth century tried to pass as pastors in North America's churches. This phenomenon showed how increasing engagement with the broader Atlantic world could carry ominous implications for colonial religious leaders, implications that would become manifest in the itinerancy of the evangelical revivals and, in the early republic, finally crush any hopes of centered American religious authority. Eighteenth-century episodes of clerical imposture help illuminate the increasing loss of cultural mastery faced by religious elites as a result of Atlantic anonymities, itinerant ministries, and democratic sensibilities. This article considers why so many in the eighteenth century attempted to pass as pastors, from British wanderers like the supposed brick-maker Samuel May to notorious criminals like Tom Bell or Stephen Burroughs. Understanding the conditions that led to these cases of clerical imposture leads to greater understanding of the nature of religious and cultural power in colonial North America and in the early American republic. The eighteenth century brought a crisis to America concerning the implications of cultural and demographic fluidity as elites worried more and more about assigning true value and uncovering conspiracy in a world newly dependent on appearances to establish authority. The increasing cosmopolitanism, immigration, and commerce helped make the colonial elites more wealthy and powerful, but they also now had to scramble to resist the potential for deception and imposture that the new engagements created. Such conditions made new room for con men, many of whom posed as pastors to access the power of religious authorities.

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