Research Catalog

Title

John Edward Bruce papers, 1872-1927.

Author

Bruce, John Edward, 1856-1924.

Supplementary Content

Finding aid

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Crummell, Alexander, 1819-1898.
• Bruce, John Edward, 1856-1924.
• Cromwell, John Wesley, 1846-1927.
• Greener, Richard Theodore, 1844-1922.
• Fortune, Timothy Thomas, 1856-1928.
• Schomburg, Arthur Alfonso, 1874-1938.

Description

• 3 lin. ft.
• 4 microfilm reels.

Summary

Papers include letters written to Bruce from black politicians, journalists, intellectuals, and activists including John Wesley Cromwell, Alexander Crummell, Richard T. Greener, T. Thomas Fortune, and Arthur A. Schomburg, as well as manuscript and printed copies of Bruce's articles, editorials, short stories, poems, addresses, and other writings concerning national and local politics, race relations, historical black figures, Haiti, Prince Hall Masons, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Universal Negro Improvement Association, among other topics.

Subjects

• Ku Klux Klan (1915- )
• African Americans > History
• Negro Historical Research Society
• United States > Politics and government
• United States > History > 1865-1921
• Poems
• African American freemasons
• Universal Negro Improvement Association
• African American journalists
• United States > History > 19th century
• Race relations > United States
• African American authors
• African American historians
• Haiti
• African Americans > Societies, etc

Genre/Form

Poems.

Access (note)

• Researchers are restricted to microfilm copy.

Additional Formats (note)

• Collection available on microfilm.

Biography (note)

• Journalist, historian.
• Bruce secured his first job with a newspaper, "The New York Times" in 1874, as a general helper in the Washington correspondents's office. That same year he became a correspondent for African-American newspapers, writing for more than twenty American newspapers as well as black publications in England, Jamaica, the West Indies, and in West and South African over the years. His articles also appeared in such white newspapers as the "Boston Transcript," the "Washington Evening Star," "The New York Times," the "St. Louis Globe-Democrat," and the "Buffalo Express."
• Bruce founded the "Argus," a weekly newspaper in Washington, D.C. in 1879, and the "Sunday Item" in 1880. In 1882 he was editor of the Norfolk, VA, "Republican", and in 1884 he was assistant editor and business manager of the "Commonwealth" of Baltimore, MD. and founded the "Washington Grit" in Washington, D.C. His famous column "Bruce Grit" appeared in 1884 in the Cleveland "Gazette" and the "New York Age." And, from 1896 to 1901, Bruce was associate editor of "Howard's American Magazine."
• In addition to his journalistic endeavors, Bruce also published two books, "Short Biographical Sketches of Eminent Negro Men and Women in Europe and the United States" (1910) and "The Awakening of Hezekiah Jones" (1916), and many pamphlets. He worked with T. Thomas Fortune in the Afro-American League and the Afro-American Council in the 1890's. And, with Arthur A. Schomburg and others he organized the Negro Society for Historical Research in 1911, for the promotion and preservation of black history.

Processing Action (note)

• Surveyed
• Cataloging updated

Call Number

Sc Micro R-905

OCLC

NYPW89-A47

Author

Bruce, John Edward, 1856-1924.

Title

John Edward Bruce papers, 1872-1927.

Access

Researchers are restricted to microfilm copy.

Additional Formats

Collection available on microfilm. New York Public Library; call number Sc Micro R-905.

Biography

Journalist, historian. Born into slavery, Bruce was a militant writer for the black press on political, economic and social issues, black history and personalities, and counted among his friends and associates many of the prominent black educators, intellectuals, writers and activitists of the time.

Bruce secured his first job with a newspaper, "The New York Times" in 1874, as a general helper in the Washington correspondents's office. That same year he became a correspondent for African-American newspapers, writing for more than twenty American newspapers as well as black publications in England, Jamaica, the West Indies, and in West and South African over the years. His articles also appeared in such white newspapers as the "Boston Transcript," the "Washington Evening Star," "The New York Times," the "St. Louis Globe-Democrat," and the "Buffalo Express."

Bruce founded the "Argus," a weekly newspaper in Washington, D.C. in 1879, and the "Sunday Item" in 1880. In 1882 he was editor of the Norfolk, VA, "Republican", and in 1884 he was assistant editor and business manager of the "Commonwealth" of Baltimore, MD. and founded the "Washington Grit" in Washington, D.C. His famous column "Bruce Grit" appeared in 1884 in the Cleveland "Gazette" and the "New York Age." And, from 1896 to 1901, Bruce was associate editor of "Howard's American Magazine."

In addition to his journalistic endeavors, Bruce also published two books, "Short Biographical Sketches of Eminent Negro Men and Women in Europe and the United States" (1910) and "The Awakening of Hezekiah Jones" (1916), and many pamphlets. He worked with T. Thomas Fortune in the Afro-American League and the Afro-American Council in the 1890's. And, with Arthur A. Schomburg and others he organized the Negro Society for Historical Research in 1911, for the promotion and preservation of black history.

Finding Aids

Historical Records Survey. Calendar of Manuscripts in the Schomburg Collection. Part II. New York, WPA, 1942.

Connect to:

Finding aid

Added Author

Crummell, Alexander, 1819-1898.

Bruce, John Edward, 1856-1924.

Cromwell, John Wesley, 1846-1927.

Greener, Richard Theodore, 1844-1922.

Fortune, Timothy Thomas, 1856-1928.

Schomburg, Arthur Alfonso, 1874-1938.

Research Call Number

Sc Micro R-905