5.0 out of 5 stars
Great biography with strong focus on Eastern Shore and Balto., June 9, 2010
This review is from: Young Frederick Douglass: The Maryland Years (Maryland Paperback Bookshelf) (Paperback)
A very fine biographical work, focusing on Frederick Douglass's childhood and young adulthood on Maryland's Eastern Shore and in the Fell's Point area of Baltimore. The author, a veteran Eastern Shore journalist, provides a well-written account of Mr. Douglass's birth, his upbringing in slaveholding antebellum Maryland, his successful escape north from Baltimore, and his triumphant post-Civil War return to Baltimore and to the Eastern Shore. Additionally, this book provides an incisive examination of the conservative and class-ridden qualities of Eastern Shore society, both in Mr. Douglass's time and now. In a fascinating afterword, Preston notes how, while Mr. Douglass is far and away the most famous person ever to come out of Talbot County, Maryland, Talbot County has been slow to embrace his legacy. Plans are now in place to put a memorial to Mr. Douglass in front of the Talbot County courthouse in Easton, Maryland, but in contrast to Baltimore (where the Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Park is a prominent feature of the Fell's Point waterfront), Talbot County has not yet done anything official to honor the county's most illustrious resident. It would be a fine postscript to Preston's excellent biography for Talbot County to do the right thing and officially honor Frederick Douglass.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Douglass - the full story, February 29, 2008
Frederick Douglass wrote three biographies, or rather, he wrote his biography three times in different periods of life, each time recounting the story of his youth and escape from slavery, and then bringing the account forward to the date of writing. They are
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass An American Slave (1845),
My Bondage and My Freedom(1855) and
Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881). Of the three 'Bondage and Freedom' is the most detailed and reliable account of his early slave years. 'Life and Times' smoothed out some passages. While 'Bondage and Freedom' is the most reliable of his accounts it remains the least read, the tendency is to read 'Narrative' first and then for those wanting more detail to skip to 'Life and Times'.
Douglass' 1845 'Narrative' was probably the single most influential American slave narrative ever written, it was widely read and well known in the decades leading up to the Civil War. However from its first publication many contested its veracity, in particular Douglass' former white owners on the Eastern Short of Maryland. For the most part historians have taken Douglass at his word, or excused certain things in light of the context that he was trying to raise sympathy for the cause of abolition. It was not until 1980 that historian Dickson Preston, who lived in Talbot County, Maryland, did a more scientific study of Douglass' early years in slavery, going back through the records and seeing what could be verified, what made sense. Because Dickson is not black he had trouble finding a publisher since it was thought at the time any new biography of Douglass should be written by a black scholar, but with the help of James A. Michener (who was also living in Talbot County at the time working on his book
Chesapeake) they found someone to publish this excellent objective historical investigation.
Dickson says in the Preface "this book began as an adventure in what might be called historical detective work. I had read his vividly written first autobiography.. and had been deeply moved by its stark recital of the grimmer side of Eastern Shore slavery. I had also read - and heard, for they are still spoken on the Eastern Shore - the denials, the insistence that Douglass was a charlatan who had made up most of his life story or had it written for him by his norther white benefactors. But what were the facts?" The book then is a re-telling of Douglass' narrative using supporting facts and logical conclusions to determine the accuracy and probable truths. Through this process we are afforded a much richer and deeper glimpse into Douglass' life.
The main thing Dickson discovers is that Douglass for the most part was telling the truth, but that he tended to overplay his trials and tribulations through the sin of omission - he tells the bad things but not the good. Of course this is understandable given the context of the books dual purpose as a weapon in the war against slavery. Far from being a deprived child Douglass was, at major transition points in his life, given opportunities of advancement by his white owners, he was clearly an exceptional child and not the typical downtrodden field-hand. This is not to say he was not a self-made man because he really was gifted, but others saw in him early on his great potential and he was given privileged and room to grow very few other slaves had. In the end we get a more balanced and full view of not only Douglass but the whites in his life and ultimately slave culture in Maryland as a whole, the good and the bad.
I found 'Young Frederick Douglass' to be essential to understanding who Douglass was and how he came to be. Douglass' narrative is gripping but leaves a lot of open questions - Dickson's research helps shed substantial light on what was happening behind the scenes, for anyone wishing to learn more about Douglass after reading 'Narrative' it would be hard to go wrong with 'Young Frederick Douglass'.
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