Description
The first edition of the Michigan Manual of Freedmen’s Progress, compiled by Francis H. Warren, Secretary of the Freedmen’s Progress Commission in 1915.
Octavo, 371pp. Blue cloth, title stamped in gilt on spine, heavily rubbed. Fraying at tips of spine. Title page reinforced at hinge, text block solid.
Includes hundreds of photographs and charts detailing the history of Black citizens of Michigan.
The Michigan Freedmen’s Progress Commission was created to “show the professional, political, religious and educational achievements of citizens of the state in whole or in part Negro descent.” It was an offshoot of a delegation of 57 citizens appointed by Gov. Woodbridge Ferris to attend the Lincoln Day Jubilee and “Half Century Anniversary of Negro Freedom” in Chicago in 1915. The book contains lists of notable landowners, their careers, and black volunteer soldiers of the Civil War. This work was reprinted in 1968 by John M. Green, with the revised title of Negroes in Michigan History.
