In 2005, Dr. Eric Gardner of Saginaw Valley State University published an article in The New England Quarterly entitled “The Complete Fortune Teller and Dream Book: An Antebellum Text “By Chloe Russel, a Woman of Colour.”’ Inside, he details not only the multiple editions of Rusell’s text, but also offers commentary on the validity of her autobiography as a means to analyze the controversy of her authorship. 

Gardner claims that, while much of Russell’s autobiography seems plausible, factual mistakes are made. Among elements that are fitting, Gardner analyzes that Russell’s reference to “the Fuller nation” could be linked to the Fulani people of West Africa and that “the fear of whites being monsters … echoes many early texts, including Olaudah Equiano’s” (Gardner 263). On the other hand, he maintains that it is nonsensical for Russell’s birthplace to be “three hundred miles south west” of Sierra Leone and that the “Tygers” she references are “a figment of Euro-American images of Africa” (Gardner 264). He also contends that the George Russels differed from Chloe Russell’s depiction and that none had died in the 1750s. He finds it particularly far-fetched that Russell did not attract more notice as a “free black woman in Virginia who spent thousands of dollars to liberate other slaves” (Gardner 263-4). These questionable details caused people to speculate that “‘Chloe Russel’ was invented by a publisher hoping to capitalize on the stereotype of the African American fortune-teller” (Gardner 264). However, Gardner concludes that Russell was most likely a real author due to evidence from census records and Boston directories; “eleven of the thirteen Boston directories from 1821 through 1833 list a Chloe Russell … living on Belknap Street, at the heart of Boston’s lively black community” (Gardner 264-5).

Compared to 19th century perspectives, rather than entirely dismissing black works and trying to hide affiliations with black authors, Gardner and the general public recognize Russell’s work, but still take the time to be quite critical of it. Although Russell is no longer being disregarded, her authoritative authenticity and entire personal identity is questioned, revealing how authorship is still considerably harder for black authors than white ones. Thus, although present-day society holds less racial prejudice than that of the 19th century, there is still significant potential for improvement.

While certainly part of vastly different cultural and racial atmospheres, women in the Netherlands and in Australia, in particular, experienced different forms of social oppression motivated by gender. Even with the restrictions associated with being a woman in the early 20th century, we can see certain privileges from being a part of white society that Chloe Russell most likely would not have had access to, two examples being the authorities in Australia allowing women to break the law and the Netherlands' attitude towards the acceptance of independent female entrepreneurship. 

Chireau, Yvonne Patricia, and Boston Athenaeum. “Chloe Russell, The Compleat Fortuneteller.” Black Magic: Religion and the African American Conjuring Tradition, University of California Press, 2006. 

De Blécourt, Willem, and Cornelie Usborne. “Women's Medicine, Women's Culture: Abortion and Fortune-Telling in Early Twentieth-Century Germany and The Netherlands.” Medical History, vol. 43, no. 3, 1999, pp. 376–392., doi:10.1017/S0025727300065418.

Gardner, Eric. “‘The Complete Fortune Teller and Dream Book’: An Antebellum Text ‘By Chloe Russel, a Woman of Colour.’” The New England Quarterly, vol. 78, no. 2, 2005, pp. 259–288. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/30045526. Accessed 9 Dec. 2020.

“Old Aunt Dinah's Policy Dream Book.” Omeka RSS, ds-exhibits.swarthmore.edu/con-am/items/show/51.

Piper, Alana. “Women's Work: The Professionalisation and Policing of Fortune-Telling in Australia.” Labour History, no. 108, 2015, pp. 37–52. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.5263/labourhistory.108.0037. Accessed 17 Dec. 2020.

The Library Company of Philadelphia, 2007, pp. 21–22, The Annual Report of the Library Company of Philadelphia for the Year 2007.