Heading: (African American, 1913-1928)
Author: DuBois, W.E.B., et al.
Title: Two issues of The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science" focused on African Americans"
Place Published: Philadelphia
Publisher:American Academy of Political and Social Science
Date Published: 1913 and 1928
Description: 2 issues. Comprising:
The Negro's Progress in Fifty Years. Sept. 1913. 266 pp. 6½x9½", original printed wrappers.
The American Negro. 1928. 359 pp. Illustrated with frontispiece woodcut by J. L. Wells. 359 pp. Illustrated with frontispiece woodcut by J.L. Wells. Original cloth binding, gilt-lettered spine. (Owner's ink inscription on flyleaf of Dr, Ruth Roettinger, South Carolina Political Scientist, with her blue pencil notations and underlining throughout the text).
Founded in 1889 as the prestigious academic home of American social scientists, the American Academy showed an early interest in African Americans by inclusion in its 1898 Annals of W.E.B. DuBois' essay, "The Study of the Negro Problems". In 1901, Booker T. Washington presented at its annual meeting, the first focused on race relations. But it was not until 1913 and 1928 were entire issues of the Annals devoted to economic and social developments of Black people in America. DuBois contributed to both issues, with "The Negro in Literature and Art" and "Race Relations in the United States." The list of other Black authors reads like a "Who's Who" of classic African American scholarship, especially from historically Black colleges and universities: Kelly Miller, R.R. Wright, Jr., Booker T. Washington, Monroe Work, Horace Mann Bond, E. Franklin Frazier, James Weldon Johnson, Charles S. Johnson, Alain Locke, R.R. Moton, Walter White, and others.There are subtle changes in the two issues, the first harkening back to slavery and discussing unskilled labor, sharecroppers, "criminality", and illiteracy. The second also talks frankly about public health problems, criminals, paupers and the feeble-minded, but has more upbeat essays on mental ability and achievements in music, including jazz, and art and literature (by Harlem Renaissance "guru" Alain Locke) and even touches on the taboo subject of miscegenation, predicting that in the future, interracial marriage would be "widely practiced in the world." Another change is the inclusion of white authors. In 1913, there was only Progressive muckraker Ray Stannard Baker and sociologist Howard Odum, while the 1928 issue evidenced growing interest in Black social issues by both Black and white academics.

The 1913 issue with darkened wrappers and moderate wear and soiling; ownership marks and blue pencil notations of Dr. Ruth Roettinger, South Carolina Political Scientist, in the 1928 issues.