ABSTRACT
Salenius looks at black girl figures in the 1920s children’s publication, The Brownies’ Book, interpreting them as inspiring examples used to counter persistent, demeaning stereotypes of African Americans. Addressed specifically to African American children, The Brownies’ Book magazine was a significant novelty, a revisionist publication on black intellectual history of the long nineteenth century. The stories that appeared in The Brownies’ Book contest the idea that normative middle-class experience was white and social ascent excluded the non-white; this children’s publication promoted social and political ideologies geared toward empowering African Americans. Among its contributors were Jessie Redmon Fauset as well as others, such as Nella Larsen and young Langston Hughes, who subsequently became known as prominent writers of the Harlem Renaissance. (keywords: African American children’s magazine, education, girls, gender, Harlem Renaissance, historical context, close reading, New York, 1920)
