The Digital Colored American Magazine
From 1900 to 1909, during a period of intensifying racial violence and Black disfranchisement in the United States, the Colored American Magazine served a vital role in promoting the development of African American literature, protesting injustice, and contesting dominant representations of African American culture and history. Especially in its early years, the periodical—whose contributors included Pauline Hopkins, W. E. B. Du Bois, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Albreta Moore Smith, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, T. Thomas Fortune, J. Alexandre Skeete, William Stanley Braithwaite, Angelina Grimké, and Booker T. Washington—was committed to the development of Black literary culture through the publication of poetry, fiction, and book reviews. The Colored American also countered negative stereotypes through a rich body of Black portraiture as well as race biographies, news about successful middle-class African Americans, and accounts of overlooked episodes in Black history. Significantly, the magazine also foregrounded Black women’s issues in its early years. The advertising pages at the front and back of each issue furthered, in their own way, this project of reflecting and constructing an aspirational Black middle-class identity. The magazine crucially paved the way for more well-known magazines like the NAACP’s Crisis (founded 1910) and Ebony (founded 1945).
The Digital Colored American Magazine makes freely available full-color reproductions of unbound or bound but unstripped issues of this important periodical, with scholarly commentary on selected issues. For more information about the aims of this project, see our About page.
Except for the December 1900, January 1907, and June 1907 issues, all issues of the Colored American digitized for this project belong to the James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection in the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library and were photographed by the Beinecke’s digital imaging studio.
RECENT UPDATES
New issues! Non-searchable pdfs of May-June 1903, July 1903, and August 1903 issues are available. These issues contain installments of Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins’s serial novel, Of One Blood.
The June 1900 issue is now searchable, with linked table of contents
New issues! Non-searchable pdfs of January 1907 and June 1907 issues available, courtesy Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library at Emory University
New issue! Fully searchable digital edition of December 1900 issue, courtesy Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Biographical sketch of Colored American Magazine contributor Maitland Leroy Osborne by Hanna Wallinger, University of Salzburg
Commentary on July 1902 issue by by JoAnn Pavletich, University of Houston-Downtown
Commentary on August 1900 issue by Hanna Wallinger, University of Salzburg
Commentary on November 1901 issue by Lucy Caplan, Yale University
A new page listing related digital resources, including Alisha Knight’s new digital project mapping locations of agents of the Colored Co-operative Publishing Company
A newly searchable version of the January-February 1902 double-issue; this notable issue of the magazine includes a biography of Harriet Tubman written by Pauline Hopkins, the penultimate installment of Hopkins’s serial novel Hagar’s Daughter, and photographs of the magazine’s home office in Boston
Commentary on June 1900 issue by Alisha Knight, Washington College
Commentary on August 1901 issue by John Cullen Gruesser, Kean University
Commentary on March 1903 issue by Eurie Dahn, The College of Saint Rose
Commentary on October 1900 issue by Brian Sweeney, The College of Saint Rose
PROJECT DIRECTORS
Eurie Dahn, Professor of English, The College of Saint Rose
Brian Sweeney, Professor of English, The College of Saint Rose
The directors gratefully acknowledge the support of the office of the Dean of Arts and Humanities at The College of Saint Rose. In addition, work on this project was supported by fellowships from the Center for Citizenship, Race, and Ethnicity Studies at The College of Saint Rose.
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