Men Building Seattle. This is The Seattle Republican, New Year 1911: Vol XVII, No. 31 (December 30, 1910)
Seattle: Horace Roscoe Cayton (1859-1940), 1910. numerous photos of successful white men and a couplke of scenic views,, 64 p. plus a total of (4) unnumbered pages of advertisemants at beginning and end. Printed on coated paper. Softcover in original stapled wrapper. 31 cm. Covers somewhat soiled and worn. Tear around lower staple. "Men Building Seattle". "New Year 1911 issue." printed on front cover. This weekly newspaper, Seattle's first successful Africa-American newspaper, was published from 1894 to 1913. Horace Cayton Sr.,1859-1940, the publisher, was the son of slave and a plantation owner's daughter. According to Wikipedia, the paper attempted to be a voice for the Black community and create harmony through open discussion of sensitive race issues, even though that didn't sit well with the white population at the time. In contrast, this thickish magazine-like issue probablt kooked nothing like the regular issues of this newspaper. Instead it is an uncritical celebration of numerous white leaders of Seattle with little if any mention of African Americans or other minorities. The issue did attact about 7 1/2 pages of advertsing from what seem to have been large white businesses. Page 6 of the text seems to make clear that the leading men of Seattle mentioned in this issue had to pay for their inclusion. Unsaid it the likelihood that those paying for inclusion had a large say in the text. Cayton probably publiushed this issue hoping to make some money on it and avoiding inclusion of aqny text which might offend those paying for inclusion. Navigating white racism cannot hve been easy for Cayton but this issue still seems odd. A brief section titled "Photographing Indians for Posterity" seems to have been taken from The Literary Digest" and is about Edward S. Curtis, a Seattle resident at that time and said in the article to be in a cabin on the shores of Puget Sound working on the sixth, seventh and eighth volumes of his monumental work. Item #95739
Price: $400.00