An exceptionally rare and desirable item. When we think of influential black men of the 19th century, the names of Frederick Douglass, John Jasper, and others come fairly quickly to mind. When we think of influential black females of the same era, there really is a single name as readily recognized, that would be the "Colored" evangelist, Amanda Smith [1837-1915].
Smith was one of thirteen siblings born in slavery to her parents, Samuel Berry and Mariam Matthews. Her father led the entire family to freedom when she was an adolescent. Her early life was filled with grief. After being liberated from enslavement , she married, but her husband was killed in the Civil War. She also lost a second husband and four of her five children to varieties of infant mortality. This was all before the age of 32.
She found her recourse in Jesus, who she found most powerfully at the altars of Methodist Holiness camp-meetings. And in her grief, she sensed a call to preach. Female preachers, i.e. Phoebe Palmer and others, were rare but not unknown in the movement. But Amanda was a true pioneer.
After the Civil War, she opened the Amanda Smith Orphanage and Industrial Home for Abandoned and Destitute Colored Children outside Chicago to help care for the many homeless freedchildren.
The present is a very finely preserved copy of her memoir. It has been inscribed apparently to a supporter of the orphanage and includes a fine broadsheet hymn by Smith distributed for the support of the Orphanage. We do not trace the hymn in any state elsewhere. Perhaps a sole survivor.
Neither on the market or in the auction history do we trace a signed example of this desirable work.
Smith, Amanda. An Autobiography. The Story of the Lords Dealing with Mrs. Amanda Smith the Colored Evangelist. Containing an Account of Her Life Work of Faith, and Her Travels in America, England, Ireland, Scotland, India and Africa, as an Independent Missionary. With and Introduction by Bishop Thoburn, of India. Chicago. Meyer & Brother, Publishers. 1893. 506pp.
A very good copy, bound in cloth. Solid with light tenderness at the ffep. Textually bright and clean.
