Some of W. E. B. Du Bois’s earliest published writings were a series newspaper articles written while he was still a teenager in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. However, tracking down exactly how many, and which articles they are, is a surprisingly complicated task. I’ve found at least seven different lists and compilations of articles, all of which differ with each other, as well as a twisting thread of scholarship and controversy surrounding the Du Bois bibliography. I’ve done my best to track down these articles, assessed what I believe to be a complete list, and transcribed some of the articles that were previously inaccessible to the broader public.
The New York Globe
The New York Globe was founded in 1881 by T. Thomas Fortune (see “T. Thomas Fortune (1856-1928)” BlackPast (2007)) David Levering Lewis says that Du Bois had been distributing the Globe for “more than a year before his first piece appeared in April 1883” (Lewis, W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race 1868–1919, 38). Du Bois also briefly mentions this in his Autobiography (95). The Globe was re-named The Freeman in 1884 and later still the New York Age, but Du Bois’s contributions were to the first two iterations of the paper.
Lewis describes young Willie’s contributions to the New York Globe as “remarkably revealing” as they “catch for us the embryonic distinct voice of the future prophet of African-American advancement and protest” (Lewis, 38–39). “Willie’s newspaper dispatches introduce us to a larger, livelier African-American community, with himself in the midst of its joyous church services, sewing circle, Sons of Freedom, and hay riding picnics to Lake Buell” (Lewis, 40)
Paul Partington describes these writings this way:
“His letters were usually only a paragraph long and they dealt primarily with the social life of Negroes in Great Barrington and the surrounding communities. Nearly all of his reports contained news of the activities of the local African Methodist Episcopal church. Some of the letters show evidence of the beginning of the development of DuBois’ political views, most notably his belief that Negro voters in some elections held the “balance of power.”
Paul G. Partington, “The Contributions of W. E. B. Du Bois to the New York ‘Globe,’ and the New York ‘Freeman,’ 1883-1885,” Negro History Bulletin 33.2 (1970): 47–48.) (on JStor)
Herbert Aptheker:
“Du Bois’ first published writings appeared in the New York Globe commencing in the issue dated April 14, 1883, when he was fifteen years old. The Globe, an Afro-American weekly newspaper, was edited by Timothy Thomas Fortune (1856 1927), beginning in 1882: its name was changed in 1884 to The Freeman and later still to the New York Age under which title (with slight variations) it continued to the present era as a highly influential periodical. From the 1880’s to the end of the 19th century, T. Thomas Fortune was a leading radical force in Afro-American history; later, however, he permitted himself to become an element in the Tuskegee machine and thereafter lost his influence. Du Bois always recalled with deep appreciation the opportunity that Fortune gave him in the capacity of Great Barrington, Massachusetts correspondent”
Herbert Aptheker, Annotated Bibliography of the Published Writings of W. E. B. Du Bois, 1.
The Springfield Republican
Did Du Bois contribute for the Springfield Republican and if so, how many articles did he write? This question has been the subject of surprisingly different answers from various scholars.
First, Du Bois describes writing for the Springfield Republican in his Autobiography:
“Of the other town folk outside my schoolmates, I remember especially Johnny Morgan. He was a small man, I think of Welsh descent, and ran a bookstore in the front part of the little shop where the village post office occupied the rear. I went to the post office daily, not because I was expecting mail or often got any, but because of the intriguing exhibition of periodicals and books in Johnny Morgan’s store. He became interested in me and very sympathetic. He did not repel me by asking too many questions or trying to find out my plans and ideas. But he made little suggestions and did not object to my looking at the illustrations in Puck and Judge. I looked them over each week” (87)
“The first glimpse in the outer and wider world was through Johnny Morgan’s store. There I remember very early seeing pictures of U. S. Grant and Tweed, who was beginning his extraordinary career in New York; and later of Hayes and the smooth and rather cruel face of Tilden. Johnny Morgan made other suggestions to me. He arranged while I was in high school that I become the local Great Barrington correspondent of the Springfield Republican which was the most influential and widely circulated paper in western Massachusetts. I sent it from time to time some items of interest, but not many, as I was soon graduated from high school” (88).
In March 1961, Paul Partington wrote Du Bois and followed up on a line in Dusk of Dawn describing the same thing”
“Could you tell me when exactly you contributed to the Springfield Republican and whether it was the Springfield daily or weekly Republican. I have been unable to locate any reference to these articles in any of the bibliography of your work done by other scholars.”
“Letter from Paul Partington to W. E. B. Du Bois, March 6, 1961” (W. E. B. Du Bois Papers)
Du Bois wrote back to Partington and said this:
“With regard to the Springfield Daily Republican I doubt if I wrote more than two or three reports of news from Great Barrington, and those were very short. As I have already said, I remember one telegram concerning a fire on Leavitt’s farm . There was very little else of importance.”
Paul Partington, W.E.B. Du Bois: a Bibliography of His Published Writings, 1979
Aptheker, in his Annotated Bibliography, says this:
“In Dusk of Dawn Du Bois recalled that he had been the Great Barrington correspondent for the Daily Republican of Springfield. Massachusetts. A study of the files of that paper for the years front 1883 through 1885 (he arrived at Fisk University as a student on September 5, 1885) reveals no contribution signed by him: there are two pieces, however, that were probably from his pen. One entitled “The Housatonic Festival”, appears in that paper’s issue dated September 26. 1884; the other reports “The Famous $100,000 Leavitt Barn Burned” in Great Barrington and was printed in the issue dated July 8. 1885. Since it is not possible to be certain of Du Bois’ authorship in these cases, they are not listed by number in this work” (4–5).
I’m not sure what specific evidence there is that even hints that Du Bois wrote the report on the “Housatonic Festival” but I have transcribed it along with the account of the Leavitt Barn.
Paul Partington
Paul Partington worked for years on a bibliography of Du Bois, and eventually became embroiled in a legal battle with Herbert Aptheker and the Kraus-Thomson publishing company. In the midst of that controversy, Partington created a document entitled “The Mistakes of Herbert Aptheker as Contained in the Book, Annotated Bibliography of the Published Writings of W. E. B. Du Bois.” Partington describes the document here:
“In September, 1963, I loaned to Dr. Herbert Aptheker an extensive bibliography in manuscript of the published writings of W. E. B. Du Bois. This manuscript is now in Mr. James Weldon Johnson Collection, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University. Because material of mine without my permission [sic], I filed suit in United States Federal District Court against Dr. Herbert Aptheker. I won an out-of-court settlement in this case. In preparation for a possible trial, I made an extensive critique of Dr. Aptheker’s Annotated Bibliography of the Published Writings of W. E. B. Du Bois.”
The “extensive critique” is really a typed out reference list of notes, with almost no commentary. However, when I compare lists of these early newspaper articles, Partington’s “Mistakes” itself contains several mistakes. Partington claims that “Aptheker omits November 22, 1884” but when one turns to page 4 of Aptheker, November 22, 1884 is right there on page 4, entry 19.
Partington claims that Aptheker’s “Entry 25 is secondary and not part of Du Bois’ published writings.” The article referenced is an unsigned “Great Barrington Notes” from March 14, 1885, yet Partington includes other unsigned “Great Barrington Notes” articles in his own bibliography, and would later include this same March 14 article in Paul G. Partington, “The Contributions of W. E. B. Du Bois to the New York ‘Globe,’ and the New York ‘Freeman,’ 1883-1885,”
Finally, Partington claims that Aptheker “omits by name two items by Du Bois in the Springfield Daily Republican.” It is technically true that Aptheker did not include these two articles in his numbered list of official entries; yet, Aptheker does name both articles and their dates, along with an explanation for their “omission” between entries 26 and 27.
Unfortunately, this claim by Partington (“Aptheker … omits two articles”) led to some confusion on the part of Daniel Levering Lewis when he wrote his Pulitzer Prize winning biography of Du Bois (Biography of a Race):
“Paul Partington’s Springfield Republican researches have led him to believe that there were probably four (rather than the two listed by Aptheker), in Partington, (The Mistakes of Herbert Aptheker as Contained in the Book, Annotated Bibliography of the Published Writings of W. E. B. Du Bois” [typescript courtesy of Paul Partington]”
Lewis, Biography of a Race, 593.
My own conclusion is that there are likely only the two articles, not four, and that Lewis misunderstood Partington. I have included transcriptions of the two Springfield Republican articles below.
Bibliography(s)
Tracking down exactly which articles were written by Du Bois can be surprisingly tricky. I’ve found seven distinct lists by five bibliographers, none of which agree with each other, and some of which contain errors. Some of the articles are obvious, signed “W. E. Burghardt Du Bois,” or “DuBois,” but others are simply initialed “W. E. D.” The articles in the Freeman are unsigned, though since Du Bois was the Great Barrington correspondent it is assumed they were written by him. Here is a spreadsheet comparison of the various lists:
“Bibliography of Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois’ Contributions to the New York Globe and the New York Freeman” (ca. 1960)
The document is included in the W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (available online here), but is missing nine articles and erroneously lists the June 2, 1993 article as June 3.
Paul G. Partington, “The Contributions of W. E. B. Du Bois to the New York ‘Globe,’ and the New York ‘Freeman,’ 1883-1885,” Negro History Bulletin 33.2 (1970): 47–48. (available on JStor)
A list of articles with a brief introduction, omits 4 articles, and incorrectly lists September 8, 1883 article as September 4.
W. E. B. Du Bois, The Seventh Son: The Thought and Writings of W. E. B. Du Bois, ed. Julius Lester (Vintage Books, 1971) (available here)
Contains the full text of most the articles, omitting 4. I have done a fresh transcription of the articles not contained in this anthology and made it available below.
Herbert Aptheker, Annotated Bibliography of the Published Writings of W. E. B. Du Bois (Millwood, N.Y., Kraus-Thomson Organization, 1973) (available here)
This appears to be a complete list of every article, 27 in total (plus 2 from the Springfield Republican).
Tuli Kupferberg and Sulvia Topp, eds., First Glance: Childhood Creations of the Famous (Maplewood, N.J. : Hammond Inc., 1977) (available here)
A collection of childhood writings from dozens of prominent figures, from Jane Austen to the Beatles, Hitler to Queen Victoria. The section on Du Bois reprints the text from 13 of his early articles.
W. E. B. Du Bois, Newspaper Columns, Volume 1: 1883–1944, ed. Herbert Aptheker (White Plains, NY: Kraus-Thomson Organization, 1986) (“Table of Contents” available here)
This contains the text of 24 of the 27 articles listed in the Annotated Bibliography. The text of the 3 remaining articles can be found in The Seventh Son linked above. However, the text of June 2, 1883 article is incomplete, with an editorial note: “The concluding two or three lines are faded beyond recall.” This book is currently out of print and no used copies are currently available for purchase.
Paul G. Partington, W.E.B. Du Bois: A Bibliography of His Published Writings, Rev. ed. (Whittier, CA: Partington, 1979)
This list of articles includes 6 additional listings containing the date and a note “issue MISSING.” Whether or not there is a Du Bois article contained in these issues is unknown as they are indeed missing from every digital repository of the New York Globe and Freeman I have checked. In addition, the list omits three articles that are contained in the Aptheker Annotated Bibliography.
Daniel Kleven, “W. E. B. Du Bois: Selections from the New York Globe, and the Springfield Republican,1883–1885” (2023)
My transcriptions of currently unavailable articles:
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Tryce Prince for assistance tracking down Partington’s bibliography; also to the Harvard librarians who helped me find Partington’s “The Mistakes of Herbert Aptheker”—there is one copy available in the world, and they helped me access it. Thanks also to David Levering Lewis for corresponding with me. The work of bibliography can be painstaking and tedious, but is foundational to the scholarship of any subject. It has been both a privilege and a struggle to walk the trail blazed by Partington and Aptheker, and to add a few items of my own.
βιβλιοσκώληξ 
One thought on “Newspaper Columns by W. E. B. Du Bois, 1883–1885”