The Family Goes Traveling, Plus Author’s Original Manuscript by Brown, Jeanette Perkins - 1936

Friendship Press, New York, 1936; First Edition; oblong 8vo, 30 pages; photo illustrated. Landmark 1936 black children’s storybook designed to provide positive self-imagery, centering upon a young boy and girl living in New York, the children of a black physician, who travel for the first time to Chicago and Atlanta to meet family members living there. An uncle in Chicago is a newspaper editor, another a draughtsman, an aunt and uncle in Atlanta are a Tuskegee University professor and hospital nurse respectively, and the grandparents in Atlanta are retired. Illustrated with photographs of black children and adults going about their daily lives at home, school, work, in the street, at church, and in the cotton field. Photographs in largest part by notable NY Examiner journalist Ralph Barnes, with additional contributions by Ewing Galloway, H. Armstrong Roberts, and Marjorie E.W. Smith. Very Good, in photo illustrated card wraps. The book’s spine has been reinforced with a narrow strip of japan paper, and there is a tiny chip at the upper right and lower right corners of the front wrap. Accompanied by a portion of the author’s original hand-typed manuscript, nine pages in length, bound with original brass brads and containing the author’s penciled corrections in the margins. Also included is the author’s Certificate of Literacy, required at the time of all New York State residents for voter eligibility. It is dated 9/9/1936 and signed by both Jeanette Perkins Brown and the examiner. The typed manuscript shows some external staining on the front leaf, which, however, does not penetrate to the interior. A unique collection in the area of children’s literature.