The content on this page and its subpages were edited for accuracy by Special Collections Associate Diane Dias De Fazio.
The creative work was completed by Emma Arrighi ('25), as part of the final requirements for the HIST 4091-51 independent senior thesis in book history, 2024.
"Paul Laurence Dunbar," 1906, Collection of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., via Britannica Online, "Paul Laurence Dunbar."
After viewing the Introduction and Layout sections, you might be wondering more about the man who wrote Candle-Lightin' Time. Pictured here is Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906), the author of the book. He was born in Dayton, here in Ohio, to parents who were formerly enslaved (Braxton 2007, 206). He was educated at Dayton's Central High School, where he was the only Black student (Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d.). His work as a writer reflects both the influences of his family and of his education. Some of his poems that were written in African American vernacular, like most of the poems in Candle-Lightin' Time, were inspired by the African American spirituals his mother sang him, while his more "traditional" poems written in white standard English were inspired by the English poets he learned to love in school, like John Keats (Braxton 2007, 206-210). Though he unfortunately died of tuberculosis at only 33, during his lifetime he published twelve books of poetry and eight novels and collections of short stories (Braxton 2007, 210).
In addition to Dunbar, the title page of Candle-Lightin' Time credits the Hampton Institute Camera Club for taking the photos that illustrate the book. The Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute was (and still is!) an Historically Black College or University, or HBCU (Pierce 2020). It was founded by General Samuel Armstrong in 1868 with the intention to give newly freed African Americans a skills-based education (Virginia Museum of History and Culture, n.d.).
Members of the Hampton Camera Club having tea, c. 1900, Collection of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, via Jane Pierce, "Solving the Mysteries of the Hampton Album," Museum of Modern Art, September 10, 2019.
The Camera Club was a faculty-run photography club at the University (Oswald 2006, 223). As one can see from the photograph, many of the club's members and faculty were white. When they took the photographs for Candle-Lightin' Time, their leading member was a white professor named Leigh Richmond Miner (Oswald 2006, 223). He took some of the photographs for the book, and the Club as a whole had some editorial control over which poems appeared in the book based on which poem and photo combinations were most complementary (Oswald 2006, 223). Historians like Ray Julius Sapirstein have speculated that the Club was chosen to photograph the book because founding members of both Hampton and the Camera Club were relations of the Dodd family, whose publishing house Dodd, Mead & Co. published Candle-Lightin' Time (Sapirstein 2005, 140-141).
Introduction to Candle-Lightin' Time
Candle-Lightin' Time is a book of poems written by the African American writer Paul Laurence Dunbar in 1901. There are a number of features that make this book distinctive: the vernacular style of its poems, the Art Nouveau publisher's binding designed by Margaret Armstrong, the half-tone photographs illustrating the book, and more. JCU preserves Candle-Lightin' Time in Special Collections because it can be incredibly useful to researchers and because its condition makes the book too fragile for circulation with the rest of the library's books.
The cover and spine of Candle-Lightin' Time. Dunbar, Paul Laurence. Candle-Lightin' Time. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1901. PS 1556 .C2 1901.
The book, seen above, can be used by researchers across multiple fields of study, whether that be American Literature, African American History, or Decorative Arts. While all of the books at Grasselli are valuable to students for research, books in Special Collections hold particular value, whether that be for distinctive design features worthy of exhibiting, the ways the age of the books and the materials used to construct them illuminate a historical time period, or for the prominence of the book's former owner (JCU's War Path and Bivouac was gifted to former US president Benjamin Harrison).
Examining features of Candle-Lightin' Time, like its creative contributors, binding, design, and condition contextualizes the book in the broader timeline of book history and serves as an excellent introduction to the study of rare books. With examples, pictures, and definitions, this guide should help any newcomer to special collections understand the unique features of rare books!
The book contains nine of Dunbar's poems, mostly centered on the everyday lives of rural African Americans. Each of the poems has its own title page, featuring a border illustration of Margaret Armstrong's surrounding an image relevant to the poem.
A two-page spread in Candle Lightin' Time featuring a image on the verso and the text of the poem on the recto.
Most of the poems usually span several pages, so each stanza receives a two-page spread. The left-hand side of a leaf (in the example above, where the image appears) is called the "verso" in special collections terminology because it is the reverse side of the first page, when reading from right to left. The right-hand side of the leaf (with text, above) is known as the "recto." The images were taken by the Hampton Institute Camera Club, a group of photographers at the historically Black Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute. Both the poems and the images are bordered in varying stylized patterns of flowers and vines.
Candle-Lightin' Time was published in 1901, between two important periods in African American History: Reconstruction and the Harlem Renaissance. Historians generally consider Reconstruction to have lasted from 1863 to 1877 and the Harlem Renaissance to have been from 1918 to 1937. Reconstruction was the period when the United States attempted to integrate newly freed African Americans into political and economic life (Foner n.d.). It was during Reconstruction that many historically African American universities like the Hampton Institute were founded (Stefon n.d.). President Rutherford B. Hayes is credited with ending Reconstruction by historians because he agreed to remove federal enforcement troops from the Southern states in exchange for Southern Democrats' votes to certify his election to the presidency (Foner n.d.).
Historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. argues that after Reconstruction, the racist, Southern narrative about African Americans became more mainstream, which manifested itself in literature. One example of this is the character Uncle Remus, an elderly African American man who remains loyal to his former slave master, speaks in exaggerated African American vernacular, and rejects education (Gates 2019, 95-96). Though Dunbar's use of vernacular is not intended to deride the subjects of his poems, the literary context in which he wrote featured these offensive depictions of African Americans and their speech patterns. Dunbar, along with the other African American intellectuals Charles Chesnutt and Booker T. Washington, were actually considered by scholar W. E. B. Du Bois to be part of the "talented tenth" of African Americans that should serve as models for the rest of the community (Gates 2019, 199). Gates takes Du Bois' claim further to assert that Dunbar and these men were precursors to the Harlem Renaissance, the period in the 1920s and 30s when African American literature and culture flourished (Gates 2019, 220).
Bibliography
Braxton, Joanne M. "Dunbar the Originator." African American Review 41, no. 2 (2007): pp. 205-214.
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow. New York: Penguin Press, 2019.
“Hampton Institute and Booker T. Washington.” Virginia Museum of History and Culture. Accessed November 17 2024, https://virginiahistory.org /learn/civil-rights-movement-virginia/hampton-institute-and-booker-t-washington.
"Members of the Hampton Camera Club having tea." c. 1900. Collection of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. via Jane Pierce. "Solving the Mysteries of the Hampton Album." Museum of Modern Art. September 10, 2019.
Oswald, Emily. “Imagining Race: Illustrating the Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar.” Book History 9 (2006): pp. 213-233.
"Paul Laurence Dunbar." 1906. Collection of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. via "Paul Laurence Dunbar," Britannica Online.
Pierce, Jane. "A Cross-Collection Endeavor: Researching Photographs of Hampton Institute in Harvard's Social Museum Collection." Harvard Art Museums. July 15, 2020. Accessed November 17, 2024. https://harvardartmuseums.org/article/a-cross-collection-endeavor-researching-photographs-of-hampton-institute-in-harvard-s-social-museum-collection.
Sapirstein, Ray Julius. “Out from Behind the Mask; The Illustrated Poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar and Photography at Hampton Institute.” PhD diss. University of Texas at Austin, 2005.
Further Reading
Dodd, Edward H. The First Hundred Years: A History of the House of Dodd, Mead 1839-1939. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1939.
Dunbar, Paul Laurence. Selected Poems, edited by Herbert Woodward Martin. New York: Penguin Books, 2004.
Jarrett, Gene Andrew. Paul Laurence Dunbar: The Life and Times of a Caged Bird. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2022.