Introduction 

Much of the conversation around The Complete Fortune Teller and Dream Book has centered on the question of who wrote it. While the question of authorship is valid the question of readership, or who read it, might be a more intriguing one. As scholar Eric Gardner writes “the work raises fascinating issues concerning the role of African Americans in the antebellum literary marketplace.”¹ Equally as important is the role of producers in this literary marketplace is the consumer.

Literacy rates for Whites and Blacks 

According to the Massachusetts census of 1850, just 26 years after the publication of the  Dream Book, 220,781 out of 985,450 (22.4%) White Americans counted in the census attended school. This starkly compared to the 1,439 out of 9,064 (15.9%) of African Americans who attended organized and formal school. These numbers illustrate  the great disparity in formal education in Antebellum America. 27,539 out of 985,450 (2.8%) White Americans were considered illiterate, while 806 out of 9,064 (8.9%) African Americans were considered illiterate.² These rates suggest a problem of illiteracy for African Americans, given the disparity in formal education in addition to the lack of funding for  suggesting that white  Americans had more access to all forms of published written works, in any genre.³ Although  these flat rates of literacy do not reflect the actual trends and tendencies of literacy during this era, they do illuminate the fact that White Americans, overwhelmingly had more access to literacy than enslaved and free African Americans. 

Because in Antebellum America there were fewer opportunities for African Americans to receive a formal education, many had to turn to alternative, informal educational spaces, such as churches and private tutors. Religious figures, like Richard Allenn, founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (which Russel is said to have been a part of), championed education as the vital foundation for the liberty and independence of African Americans. He started a Sabbath School where  children and adults could learn to read and write through Bible instruction. In this way, literacy was taught as more than the simple ability to read and write, but as an effort to “participate in all cultural institutions.”⁴ Likewise, all over the United States, including the South, organizations such as the American Missionary Association, opened Sabbath and night schools in order to instruct African Americans on literacy and mathematics, as well as religion and morality.⁵

African American Literary Practices (Literary Societies) 

Nineteenth-century African Americans, on the other hand, often developed other literary practices that were more accommodating to those who were unable to read. Like their White upper-class counterparts, orality and recitation were  a large portion of these extra-literary practices, but typically this occurred on a more public scale  in literary societies and educational spaces, rather than the centralized home. Despite the teachings of certain individual African American writers, like Frederick Douglass, African American literacy did not “valorize the power of formal or individualized literacy over communal knowledge.”⁷ The size and visibility of literary societies varied from officially recognized and organized societies to informal reunions in the home of some unnamed person. Many literary societies allowed membership that did not necessarily rely on any member’s actual ability to read or write; but instead cultivated an environment where African Americans could practice literacy communally and orally. Participation in literary societies did not require monetary access to books and literature because many shared access to libraries that were funded through membership.⁸ The missions of many literary societies were to foster intellectualism, empower African Americans, and prove  that African Americans were capable of learning and independence. Some were organized with the specific goal of abolitionism, others with the organization and education of African American women, and others still with more social, though not less inherently political or intellectual, purposes.⁹

Conclusion 

While  there is still so much we do not know, both about Russel and the literacy of early African Americans, we do know that this community of people existed, and further that they had their own literacy practices, and made an impact on the literary world. Understanding the possible readership of Early African American literature could shine a light on the ways that the literary world has changed over time and hopefully bring attention to the various groups of people that have been a huge part of the literary world without any official recognition. And though it is difficult to ascertain the veracity of  Chloe Russel’s identity and authorship, we do know that the text was published and therefore read by someone. Determining who those ‘someones’ were or could have been could help solve at least part of the mystery around who the text would  have impacted. As Russel wrote, “I have been induced to...furnish them with necessary directions, how by signs, tokens, moles, dreams &c. They may themselves determine the most remarkable events that should attend them through life.”¹⁰ 

Endnotes