Letter from Frederick Douglass to Anne Tyson Kirk
Description
Handwritten letter from Frederick Douglass to Anne Tyson Kirk in which he expresses his belief that a proposed published biography on astronomer and fellow Maryland native Benjamin Banneker (1731-1806), based on the writings of Kirk's mother Martha Ellicott Tyson (1795-1873), "will find a ready sale both in the North and in the South among colored and among white readers." Douglass also mentions in this letter that "there has been an attempt lately to make him [Banneker] son of a white woman by black father and thus to credit the white race with whatever ability he possessed." Douglass then confesses that his interest in Banneker would be "measurably diminished if this should turn out to be true."
Creator
Date
1879-03-29