Phillis Wheatley, enslaved as a child, became the first published African-American woman

historyThe Public Domain Reviewc. 1753–1784 · Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Phillis Wheatley, enslaved as a child, became the first published African-American woman

the gist

Phillis Wheatley was born around 1753 in West Africa and was brought to Boston as a child, where she was enslaved by the Wheatley family. Encouraged by her owners, she became literate and began publishing poems in local newspapers. In 1773 her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was published in London after a trip that gained her international attention. She returned to Boston as a free woman and later wrote poems supporting the revolutionary cause, including one addressed to General Washington. Her work also engaged with slavery and freedom in pointed ways. She died in 1784, aged around thirty-one, and her poems were not republished in America until 1786. Her poetry remains a landmark in African-American literature.

so what

Wheatley's achievements challenged assumptions about race, intellect and authorship in eighteenth-century America. Her work remains central to discussions about slavery, literature and the early American republic.

fun fact

Wheatley's 1773 book was among the first works published by an African-born person in the English-speaking world.

more on this

background

Phillis Wheatley Peters, also spelled Phyllis and Wheatly (c. 1753 – December 5, 1784), was an American writer who is considered the first African-American author of a published book of poetry. Born in West Africa, she was sold into slavery at the age of seven or eight and transported to North America, where she was bought by the Wheatley family of Boston. After she learned to read and write, they encouraged her poetry when they saw her talent.

On a 1773 trip to London with the Wheatleys' son, seeking publication of her work, Wheatley met prominent people who became her patrons. The publication in London of her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral on September 1, 1773, brought her fame both in England and the American colonies. Prominent figures, such as George Washington, praised her work. A few years later, African-American poet Jupiter Hammon praised her work in a poem of his own.

From Wikipedia: Phillis Wheatley (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗

see

After Scipio Moorhead, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Scipio Moorhead, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Phillis Wheatley, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

key facts

Born: 1753
Died: 5 December 1784
Known as: poet, writer

Facts: Wikidata (CC0)

Image: The Public Domain Review

source: The Public Domain Review ↗

historyThe Public Domain Review1909 · United States

D. W. Griffith’s A Corner in Wheat (1909)

the gist

In 1909 D. W. Griffith made a 14-minute film about a speculator who corners the wheat market and doubles the price of bread. A farmer sows his field while a 'Wheat King' gambles in the Chicago wheat pit; bakers raise the loaf from five cents to ten and the poor line up for bread. Griffith cut back and forth between the farm, the feast and the breadline, a technique called parallel editing, so audiences saw both ends of the economy at once. The film drew on Frank Norris's stories and on a real scheme: months earlier Chicago financier James Patten had cornered wheat, sent bread prices up and made about $5 million, roughly $185 million today.

how it works

To corner a market, a trader buys up most of the available supply and the futures contracts that promise more. Anyone who has to deliver the commodity must then buy from the cornerer at whatever price is demanded. The trader profits until the stock is released or the scheme collapses.

so what

A century on, it still shows how markets can be rigged by someone who controls supply, and how the people at either end, farmers and eaters, pay for it. It also helped establish editing as a way to argue a point, not just tell a story.

the bigger pattern

Corners have recurred whenever supply could be locked up, from the Hunt brothers' attempt on silver in 1979 to 1980 to the 'Black Friday' gold panic of 1869. Many such schemes end by collapsing, and the response is often new rules on speculation.

fun fact

In the film the Wheat King dies by falling into a grain elevator and being buried in the wheat he hoarded, an ending borrowed from Norris's novel The Octopus.

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