An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition of an essay is vague, overlapping with those of an article and a short story. Almost all modern essays are written in prose, but works in verse have been dubbed essays (e.g. Alexander Pope's ''An Essay on Criticism'' and ''An Essay on Man''). While brevity usually defines an essay, voluminous works like John Locke's ''An Essay Concerning Human Understanding'' and Thomas Malthus's ''An Essay on the Principle of Population'' are counterexamples.

In some countries (e.g., in the United States), essays have become major part of formal education. Secondary students are taught structured essay formats to improve their writing skills, and admission essays are often used by universities in selecting applicants and, in the humanities and social sciences, as a way of assessing the performance of students during final exams. The concept of an "essay" has been extended to other mediums beyond writing. A film essay is a movie that often incorporates documentary film making styles and which focuses more on the evolution of a theme or an idea. A photographic essay is an attempt to cover a topic with a linked series of photographs; it may or may not have an accompanying text or captions.

Definitions

An essay has been defined in a variety of ways. One definition is a "prose composition with a focused subject of discussion" or a "long, systematic discourse".

It is difficult to define the genre into which essays fall. Aldous Huxley, a leading essayist, gives guidance on the subject. He notes that "[l]ike the novel, the essay is a literary device for saying almost everything about almost anything, usually on a certain topic. By tradition, almost by definition, the essay is a short piece, and it is therefore impossible to give all things full play within the limits of a single essay". He points out that "a collection of essays can cover almost as much ground, and cover it almost as thoroughly, as can a long novel"--he gives Montaigne's Third Book as an example. Huxley argues on several occasions that "essays belong to a literary species whose extreme variability can be studied most effectively within a three-poled frame of reference".

Huxley's three poles are:

Personal and the autobiographical essays: these use "fragments of reflective autobiography" to "look at the world through the keyhole of anecdote and description".

Objective and factual: in these essays, the authors "do not speak directly of themselves, but turn their attention outward to some literary or scientific or political theme".

Abstract-universal: these essays "make the best ... of all the three worlds in which it is possible for the essay to exist". This type is also known as Giraffe Style Writing.

The word ''essay'' derives from the French infinitive ''essayer'', "to try" or "to attempt". In English ''essay'' first meant "a trial" or "an attempt", and this is still an alternative meaning. The Frenchman Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) was the first author to describe his work as essays; he used the term to characterize these as "attempts" to put his thoughts into writing, and his essays grew out of his commonplacing. Inspired in particular by the works of Plutarch, a translation of whose ''Oeuvres Morales'' (''Moral works'') into French had just been published by Jacques Amyot, Montaigne began to compose his essays in 1572; the first edition, entitled ''Essais'', was published in two volumes in 1580. For the rest of his life he continued revising previously published essays and composing new ones. Francis Bacon's essays, published in book form in 1597, 1612, and 1625, were the first works in English that described themselves as ''essays''. Ben Jonson first used the word ''essayist'' in English in 1609, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

History

Europe

English essayists included Robert Burton (1577–1640) and Sir Thomas Browne (1605–1682). In Italy, Baldassare Castiglione wrote about courtly manners in his essay ''Il libro del cortegiano''. In the 17th century, the Jesuit Baltasar Gracián wrote about the theme of wisdom. During the Age of Enlightenment, essays were a favored tool of polemicists who aimed at convincing readers of their position; they also featured heavily in the rise of periodical literature, as seen in the works of Joseph Addison, Richard Steele and Samuel Johnson. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Edmund Burke and Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote essays for the general public. The early 19th century in particular saw a proliferation of great essayists in English – William Hazlitt, Charles Lamb, Leigh Hunt and Thomas de Quincey all penned numerous essays on diverse subjects. In the 20th century, a number of essayists tried to explain the new movements in art and culture by using essays (e.g., T.S. Eliot). Whereas some essayists used essays for strident political themes, Robert Louis Stevenson and Willa Cather wrote lighter essays. Virginia Woolf, Edmund Wilson, and Charles du Bos wrote literary criticism essays.

Japan

As with the novel, essays existed in Japan several centuries before they developed in Europe, with a genre of essays known as ''zuihitsu'' – loosely connected essays and fragmented ideas – having existed since almost the beginnings of Japanese literature. Many of the most noted early works of Japanese literature are in this genre. Notable examples include ''The Pillow Book'' (c. 1000) by court lady Sei Shōnagon, and ''Tsurezuregusa'' (1330) by Japanese Buddhist monk Yoshida Kenkō being particularly renowned. Kenkō described his short writings similarly to Montaigne, referring to them as "nonsensical thoughts" written in "idle hours". Another noteworthy difference from Europe is that women have traditionally written in Japan, though the more formal, Chinese-influenced writings of male writers were more prized at the time.

As an educational tool

In countries like the United States, essays have become a major part of a formal education. Secondary students in these countries are taught structured essay formats to improve their writing skills, and essays are often used by universities in these countries in selecting applicants (''see'' admissions essay). In both secondary and tertiary education, essays are used to judge the mastery and comprehension of material. Students are asked to explain, comment on, or assess a topic of study in the form of an essay. During some courses, university students will often be required to complete one or more essays that are prepared over several weeks or months. In addition, in fields such as the humanities and social sciences, mid-term and end of term examinations often require students to write a short essay in two or three hours.

In these countries, so-called academic essays, which may also be called "papers", are usually more formal than literary ones. They may still allow the presentation of the writer's own views, but this is done in a logical and factual manner, with the use of the first person often discouraged. Longer academic essays (often with a word limit of between 2,000 and 5,000 words) are often more discursive. They sometimes begin with a short summary analysis of what has previously been written on a topic, which is often called a literature review.

Longer essays may also contain an introductory page in which words and phrases from the title are tightly defined. Most academic institutions will require that all substantial facts, quotations, and other porting material used in an essay be referenced in a bibliography or works cited page at the end of the text. This scholarly convention allows others (whether teachers or fellow scholars) to understand the basis of the facts and quotations used to support the essay's argument, and thereby help to evaluate to what extent the argument is supported by evidence, and to evaluate the quality of that evidence. The academic essay tests the student's ability to present their thoughts in an organized way and is designed to test their intellectual capabilities.

One essay guide of a US university makes the distinction between research papers and discussion papers. The guide states that a "research paper is intended to uncover a wide variety of sources on a given topic". As such, research papers "tend to be longer and more inclusive in their scope and with the amount of information they deal with." While discussion papers "also include research, ...they tend to be shorter and more selective in their approach...and more analytical and critical". Whereas a research paper would typically quote "a wide variety of sources", a discussion paper aims to integrate the material in a broader fashion.

One of the challenges facing US universities is that in some cases, students may submit essays which have been purchased from an essay mill (or "paper mill") as their own work. An "essay mill" is a ghostwriting service that sells pre-written essays to university and college students. Since plagiarism is a form of academic dishonesty or academic fraud, universities and colleges may investigate papers suspected to be from an essay mill by using Internet plagiarism detection software, which compares essays against a database of known mill essays and by orally testing students on the contents of their papers.

Forms and styles

This section describes the different forms and styles of essay writing. These forms and styles are used by a range of authors, including university students and professional essayists.

Cause and effect

The defining features of a "cause and effect" essay are causal chains, careful language, and chronological or emphatic order. A writer using this rhetorical method must consider the subject, determine the purpose, consider the audience, think critically about different causes or consequences, consider a thesis statement, arrange the parts, consider the language, and decide on a conclusion.

Classification and division

Classification is the categorization of objects into a larger whole while division is the breaking of a larger whole into smaller parts.

Compare and contrast

Compare and contrast essays are characterized by a basis for comparison, points of comparison, and analogies. It is grouped by object (chunking) or by point (sequential). Comparison highlights the similarities between two or more similar objects while contrasting highlights the differences between two or more objects. When writing a compare/contrast essay, writers need to determine their purpose, consider their audience, consider the basis and points of comparison, consider their thesis statement, arrange and develop the comparison, and reach a conclusion. Compare and contrast is arranged emphatically.

Descriptive

Descriptive writing is characterized by sensory details, which appeal to the physical senses, and details that appeal to a reader’s emotional, physical, or intellectual sensibilities. Determining the purpose, considering the audience, creating a dominant impression, using descriptive language, and organizing the description are the rhetorical choices to be considered when using a description. A description is usually arranged spatially but can also be chronological or emphatic. The focus of a description is the scene. Description uses tools such as denotative language, connotative language, figurative language, metaphor, and simile to arrive at a dominant impression. One university essay guide states that "descriptive writing says what happened or what another author has discussed; it provides an account of the topic".

Dialectic

In the dialectic form of essay, which is commonly used in Philosophy, the writer makes a thesis and argument, then objects to their own argument (with a counterargument), but then counters the counterargument with a final and novel argument. This form benefits from being more open-minded while countering a possible flaw that some may present.

Exemplification

An exemplification essay is characterized by a generalization and relevant, representative, and believable examples including anecdotes. Writers need to consider their subject, determine their purpose, consider their audience, decide on specific examples, and arrange all the parts together when writing an exemplification essay.

History (thesis)

A history essay, sometimes referred to as a thesis essay, will describe an argument or claim about one or more historical events and will support that claim with evidence, arguments and references. The text makes it clear to the reader why the argument or claim is as such.

Narrative

A narrative uses tools such as flashbacks, flash-forwards, and transitions that often build to a climax. The focus of a narrative is the plot. When creating a narrative, authors must determine their purpose, consider their audience, establish their point of view, use dialogue, and organize the narrative. A narrative is usually arranged chronologically.

Critical

A critical essay is an argumentative piece of writing, aimed at presenting objective analysis of the subject matter, narrowed down to a single topic. The main idea of all the criticism is to provide an opinion either of positive or negative implication. As such, critical essay requires research and analysis, strong internal logic and sharp structure. Each argument should be supported with sufficient evidence, relevant to the point.

Other logical structures

The logical progression and organizational structure of an essay can take many forms. Understanding how the movement of thought is managed through an essay has a profound impact on its overall cogency and ability to impress. A number of alternative logical structures for essays have been visualized as diagrams, making them easy to implement or adapt in the construction of an argument.

Magazine or newspaper

Essays often appear in magazines, especially magazines with an intellectual bent, such as ''The Atlantic'' and ''Harpers''. Magazine and newspaper essays use many of the essay types described in the section on forms and styles (e.g., descriptive essays, narrative essays, etc.). Some newspapers also print essays in the op-ed section.

Employment

Employment essays detailing experience in a certain occupational field are required when applying for some jobs, especially government jobs in the United States. Essays known as Knowledge Skills and Executive Core Qualifications are required when applying to certain US federal government positions.

A KSA, or Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities, is a series of narrative statements that are required when applying to Federal government job openings in the United States. KSAs are used along with resumes to determine who the best applicants are when several candidates qualify for a job. The knowledge, skills and abilities necessary for the successful performance of a position are contained on each job vacancy announcement. KSAs are brief and focused essays about one's career and educational background that presumably qualify one to perform the duties of the position being applied for.

An Executive Core Qualification, or ECQ, is a narrative statement that is required when applying to Senior Executive Service positions within the US Federal government. Like the KSAs, ECQs are used along with resumes to determine who the best applicants are when several candidates qualify for a job. The Office of Personnel Management has established five executive core qualifications that all applicants seeking to enter the Senior Executive Service must demonstrate.

Non-literary types

Visual Arts

In the visual arts, an essay is a preliminary drawing or sketch upon which a final painting or sculpture is based, made as a test of the work's composition (this meaning of the term, like several of those following, comes from the word ''essay'''s meaning of "attempt" or "trial").

Music

In the realm of music, composer Samuel Barber wrote a set of "Essays for Orchestra," relying on the form and content of the music to guide the listener's ear, rather than any extra-musical plot or story.

Film

Film essays (or "cinematic essays") consist of the evolution of a theme or an idea rather than a plot per se; or the film literally being a cinematic accompaniment to a narrator reading an essay. From another perspective, an essay film could be defined as a documentary film visual basis combined with a form of commentary that contains elements of self-portrait (rather than autobiography), where the signature (rather than the life-story) of the filmmaker is apparent. The cinematic essay often blends documentary, fiction, and experimental film making using a tones and editing styles.

The genre is not well-defined but might include works of early Soviet parliamentarians like Dziga Vertov, present-day filmmakers like Chris Marker, Agnes Varda, Michael Moore (''Roger and Me'', ''Bowling for Columbine'' and ''Fahrenheit 9/11''), Errol Morris (''The Thin Blue Line''), or Morgan Spurlock (''Supersize Me: A Film of Epic Proportions''). Jean-Luc Godard describes his recent work as "film-essays". Two filmmakers whose work was the antecedent to the cinematic essay include George Melies and Bertolt Brecht. Georges Melies did a film about the coronation of Edward VII in 1902 which mixes actual footage with shots of a recreation of the event. Bertolt Brecht was a playwright who experimented with film and incorporated film projections into some of his plays.

David Winks Gray's article "The essay film in action" states that the "essay film became an identifiable form of film making in the 1950s and ’60s". He states that since that time, essay films have tended to be "on the margins" of the film making world. Essay films have a "peculiar searching, questioning tone" which is "between documentary and fiction" but without "fitting comfortably" into either genre. Gray notes that just like written essays, essay films "tend to marry the personal voice of a guiding narrator (often the director) with a wide swath of other voices". The University of Wisconsin Cinematheque website echoes some of Gray's comments; it calls film essays an "intimate and allusive" genre that "catches filmmakers in a pensive mood, ruminating on the margins between fiction and documentary" in a manner that is "refreshingly inventive, playful, and idiosyncratic".

Photography

A photographic essay is an attempt to cover a topic with a linked series of photographs. Photo essays range from purely photographic works to photographs with captions or small notes to full text essays with a few or many accompanying photographs. Photo essays can be sequential in nature, intended to be viewed in a particular order, or they may consist of non-ordered photographs which may be viewed all at once or in an order chosen by the viewer. All photo essays are collections of photographs, but not all collections of photographs are photo essays. Photo essays often address a certain issue or attempt to capture the character of places and events.

See also

Abstract (summary)

Admissions essay

Body (writing)

Book report

Dissertation

Dream Deferred Essay Contest

Essay thesis

Five paragraph essay

History Essay Format & Thesis Statement

Introduction

List of essayists

Plagiarism

SAT Essay

Schaffer paragraph

Treatise

Writing

References

Further reading

Theodor W. Adorno, "The Essay as Form" in: Theodor W. Adorno, ''The Adorno Reader'', Blackwell Publishers 2000.

Beaujour, Michel. ''Miroirs d'encre: Rhétorique de l'autoportrait'. Paris: Seuil, 1980. [Poetics of the Literary Self-Portrait. Trans. Yara Milos. New York: NYU Press, 1991].

Bensmaïa, Reda. ''The Barthes Effect: The Essay as Reflective Text''. Trans. Pat Fedkiew. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1987.

D'Agata, John (Editor), ''The Lost Origins of the Essay''. St Paul: Graywolf Press, 2009.

Giamatti, Louis. “The Cinematic Essay”, in ''Godard and the Others: Essays in Cinematic Form''. London, Tantivy Press, 1975.

Lopate, Phillip. “In Search of the Centaur: The Essay-Film”, in ''Beyond Document: Essays on Nonfiction Film''. Edited by Charles Warren, Wesleyan University Press, 1998. pp. 243–270.

Warburton, Nigel. ''The basics of essay writing''. Routledge, 2006. ISBN 041524000X, ISBN 9780415240000

External links

Essay eTexts at Project Gutenberg

The Dialectical Essay: A detailed writing guide — Sewanee University

In Praise of the Undergraduate Essay by Dan Edelstein, Stanford University

The Age of the Essay — Criticism of the modern essay, by Paul Graham

Category:School terminology Category:Writing

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Coordinates	°′″N°′″N
Name	Frederick Douglass
Birth date	February 1818
Birth place	Talbot County, Maryland, United States
Death date	February 20, 1895 (aged about 77)
Death place	Washington, D.C., United States
Occupation	Abolitionist, author, editor, diplomat
Spouse	Anna Murray-Douglass (1838–1882)Helen Pitts (1884 to his death)
Parents	Harriet Bailey and perhaps Aaron Anthony
Political party	Republican
Children	Charles Remond DouglassRosetta DouglassLewis Henry DouglassFrederick Douglass Jr.Annie Douglass (died at 10)
Signature	Douglass Signature.svg }}

Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, February 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining note for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing. He stood as a living counter-example to slaveholders' arguments that slaves did not have the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens. Many Northerners also found it hard to believe that such a great orator had been a slave.

Douglass wrote several autobiographies, eloquently describing his life as a slave, and his struggles to be free. His first autobiography, ''Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave'', was published in 1845 and was his best-known work, influential in gaining support for abolition. He wrote two more autobiographies, with his last, ''Life and Times of Frederick Douglass'', published in 1881 and covering events through and after the Civil War. After the Civil War, Douglass remained active in the United States' struggle to reach its potential as a "land of the free". Douglass actively supported women's suffrage. Following the war, he worked on behalf of equal rights for freedmen, and held multiple public offices.

Douglass was a firm believer in the equality of all people, whether black, female, Native American, or recent immigrant. He was fond of saying, "I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong."

Life as a slave

Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, who later became known as Frederick Douglass, was born a slave in Talbot County, Maryland, between Hillsboro and Cordova, probably in his grandmother's shack east of Tappers Corner () and west of Tuckahoe Creek. The exact date of Douglass' birth is unknown. He chose to celebrate it on Feb. 14. The exact year is also unknown (on the first page of ''Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave'', he stated: "I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it.")

After this separation, he lived with his maternal grandmother, Betty Bailey. His mother died when Douglass was about seven. At age seven, Douglass was separated from his grandmother and moved to the Wye House plantation, where Aaron Anthony worked as overseer. When Anthony died, Douglass was given to Lucretia Auld, wife of Thomas Auld. She sent Douglass to serve Thomas' brother Hugh Auld in Baltimore.

When Douglass was about twelve years old, Hugh Auld's wife Sophia started teaching him the alphabet despite the fact that it was against the law to teach slaves to read. Douglass described her as a kind and tender-hearted woman, who treated Douglass like one human being ought to treat another. When Hugh Auld discovered her activity, he strongly disapproved, saying that if a slave learned to read, he would become dissatisfied with his condition and desire freedom. Douglass later referred to this statement as the "first decidedly antislavery lecture" he had ever heard. As told in his autobiography, Douglass succeeded in learning to read from white children in the neighborhood and by observing the writings of men with whom he worked. Mrs. Auld one day saw Douglass reading a newspaper; she ran over to him and snatched it from him, with a face that said education and slavery were incompatible with each other.

He continued, secretly, to teach himself how to read and write. Douglass is noted as saying that "knowledge is the pathway from slavery to freedom." As Douglass began to read newspapers, political materials, and books of every description, he was exposed to a new realm of thought that led him to question and condemn the institution of slavery. In later years, Douglass credited ''The Columbian Orator'', which he discovered at about age twelve, with clarifying and defining his views on freedom and human rights.

When Douglass was hired out to William Freeland, he taught other slaves on the plantation to read the New Testament at a weekly Sunday school. As word spread, the interest among slaves in learning to read was so great that in any week, more than 40 slaves would attend lessons. For about six months, their study went relatively unnoticed. While Freeland was complacent about their activities, other plantation owners became incensed that their slaves were being educated. One Sunday they burst in on the gathering, armed with clubs and stones, to disperse the congregation permanently.

In 1833, Thomas Auld took Douglass back from Hugh after a dispute ("[A]s a means of punishing Hugh," Douglass wrote). Dissatisfied with Douglass, Thomas Auld sent him to work for Edward Covey, a poor farmer who had a reputation as a "slave-breaker." He whipped Douglass regularly. The sixteen-year-old Douglass was nearly broken psychologically by his ordeal under Covey, but he finally rebelled against the beatings and fought back. After losing a physical confrontation with Douglass, Covey never tried to beat him again.

From slavery to freedom

Douglass first tried to escape from Freeland, who had hired him out from his owner Colonel Lloyd, but was unsuccessful. In 1836, he tried to escape from his new owner Covey, but failed again. In 1837, Douglass met and fell in love with Anna Murray, a free black in Baltimore about five years his senior. Her freedom strengthened his belief in the possibility of his own.

On September 3, 1838, Douglass successfully escaped by boarding a train to Havre de Grace, Maryland. He was dressed in a sailor's uniform, provided to him by Murray, who also gave him part of her savings to cover his travel costs, and carried identification papers which he had obtained from a free black seaman. He crossed the Susquehanna River by ferry at Havre de Grace, then continued by train to Wilmington, Delaware. From there he went by steamboat to "Quaker City" (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) and continued to the safe house of abolitionist David Ruggles in New York; the whole journey took less than 24 hours.

Frederick Douglass later wrote of his arrival in New York: }}

Once he had arrived, he sent for Murray to follow him to New York; she arrived with the necessary basics for them to set up home. They were married on 15 September 1838 by a black Presbyterian minister eleven days after his arrival in New York. At first, they adopted Johnson as their married name.

Abolitionist activities

The couple settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts. After meeting and staying with Nathan and Mary Johnson, they adopted Douglass as their married name. Douglass joined several organizations, including a black church, and regularly attended abolitionist meetings. He subscribed to William Lloyd Garrison's weekly journal ''The Liberator''. In 1841 he first heard Garrison speak at a meeting of the Bristol Anti-Slavery Society. At one of these meetings, Douglass was unexpectedly invited to speak.

After he told his story, he was encouraged to become an anti-slavery lecturer. Douglass was inspired by Garrison and later stated that "no face and form ever impressed me with such sentiments [of the hatred of slavery] as did those of William Lloyd Garrison." Garrison was likewise impressed with Douglass and wrote of him in ''The Liberator''. Several days later, Douglass delivered his first speech at the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society's annual convention in Nantucket. Then 23 years old, Douglass conquered his nervousness and gave an eloquent speech about his rough life as a slave.

In 1843, Douglass participated in the American Anti-Slavery Society's Hundred Conventions project, a six-month tour of meeting halls throughout the Eastern and Midwestern United States. During this tour, he was frequently accosted, and at a lecture in Pendleton, Indiana, was chased and beaten by an angry mob before being rescued by a local Quaker family, the Hardys. His hand was broken in the attack; it healed improperly and bothered him for the rest of his life. A stone marker in Falls Park in the Pendleton Historic District) commemorates this event.

Autobiography

Douglass' best-known work is his first autobiography ''Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave'', published in 1845. At the time, some skeptics questioned whether a black man could have produced such an eloquent piece of literature. The book received generally positive reviews and became an immediate bestseller. Within three years of its publication, it had been reprinted nine times with 11,000 copies circulating in the United States; it was also translated into French and Dutch and published in Europe.

Douglass published three versions of his autobiography during his lifetime (and revised the third of these), each time expanding on the previous one. The 1845 ''Narrative'', which was his biggest seller, was followed by ''My Bondage and My Freedom'' in 1855. In 1881, after the Civil War, Douglass published ''Life and Times of Frederick Douglass'', which he revised in 1892.

Travels to Ireland and Britain

Douglass' friends and mentors feared that the publicity would draw the attention of his ex-owner, Hugh Auld, who might try to get his "property" back. They encouraged Douglass to tour Ireland, as many former slaves had done. Douglass set sail on the ''Cambria'' for Liverpool on August 16, 1845, and arrived in Ireland as the Irish Potato Famine was beginning.

"Eleven days and a half gone and I have crossed three thousand miles of the perilous deep. Instead of a democratic government, I am under a monarchical government. Instead of the bright, blue sky of America, I am covered with the soft, grey fog of the Emerald Isle [Ireland]. I breathe, and lo! the chattel [slave] becomes a man. I gaze around in vain for one who will question my equal humanity, claim me as his slave, or offer me an insult. I employ a cab - I am seated beside white people - I reach the hotel - I enter the same door - I am shown into the same parlour - I dine at the same table - and no one is offended... I find myself regarded and treated at every turn with the kindness and deference paid to white people. When I go to church, I am met by no upturned nose and scornful lip to tell me, 'We don't allow niggers in here!' " --from ''My Bondage and My Freedom''.

He also met and befriended the Irish nationalist Daniel O'Connell who was to prove to be a great inspiration.

Douglass spent two years in Ireland and Britain, where he gave many lectures in churches and chapels. His draw was such that some facilities were "crowded to suffocation"; an example was his hugely popular London Reception Speech, which Douglass delivered at Alexander Fletcher's Finsbury Chapel in May 1846. Douglass remarked that in England he was treated not "as a color, but as a man."

During this trip Douglass became legally free, as Irish and British supporters raised funds to purchase his freedom from his owner. British sympathizers led by Ellen Richardson of Newcastle upon Tyne collected the money needed. In 1846 Douglass met with Thomas Clarkson, one of the last living British abolitionists, who had persuaded Parliament to abolish slavery in Great Britain and its colonies.

Return to the United States

After returning to the US, Douglass produced some abolitionist newspapers: ''The North Star'', ''Frederick Douglass Weekly'', ''Frederick Douglass' Paper'', ''Douglass' Monthly'' and ''New National Era''. The motto of ''The North Star'' was "Right is of no Sex – Truth is of no Color – God is the Father of us all, and we are all brethren."

In September 1848, Douglass published a letter addressed to his former master, Thomas Auld, berating him for his conduct, and enquiring after members of his family still held by Auld. In a graphic passage, Douglass asked Auld how he would feel if Douglass had come to take away his daughter Amanda as a slave, treating her the way he and members of his family had been treated by Auld.

Women's rights

In 1848, Douglass was the only African American to attend the first women's rights convention, the Seneca Falls Convention. Elizabeth Cady Stanton asked the assembly to pass a resolution asking for women's suffrage. Many of those present opposed the idea, including influential Quakers James and Lucretia Mott. Douglass stood and spoke eloquently in favor; he said that he could not accept the right to vote as a black man if women could not also claim that right. He suggested that the world would be a better place if women were involved in the political sphere.

"In this denial of the right to participate in government, not merely the degradation of woman and the perpetuation of a great injustice happens, but the maiming and repudiation of one-half of the moral and intellectual power of the government of the world."

Douglass' powerful words rang true with enough attendees that the resolution passed.

Douglass refines his ideology

In 1851, Douglass merged the ''North Star'' with Gerrit Smith's ''Liberty Party Paper'' to form ''Frederick Douglass' Paper'', which was published until 1860. Douglass came to agree with Smith and Lysander Spooner that the United States Constitution was an anti-slavery document.

This reversed his earlier agreement with William Lloyd Garrison that it was pro-slavery. Garrison had publicly expressed his opinion by burning copies of the document. Further contributing to their growing separation, Garrison was worried that the ''North Star'' competed with his own ''National Anti-Slavery Standard'' and Marius Robinson's ''Anti-Slavery Bugle''. Douglass' change of position on the Constitution was one of the most notable incidents of the division in the abolitionist movement after the publication of Spooner's book ''The Unconstitutionality of Slavery'' in 1846. This shift in opinion, and other political differences, created a rift between Douglass and Garrison. Douglass further angered Garrison by saying that the Constitution could and should be used as an instrument in the fight against slavery.

On July 5, 1852, Douglass delivered an address to the Ladies of the Rochester Anti Slavery Sewing Society, which eventually became known as "What to the slave is the 4th of July?" It was a blistering attack on the hypocrisy of the United States in general and the Christian church in particular.

Douglass believed that education was key for African Americans to improve their lives. For this reason, he was an early advocate for desegregation of schools. In the 1850s, he was especially outspoken in New York. While the ratio of African American to white students there was 1 to 40, African Americans received education funding at a ratio of only 1 to 1,600. This meant that the facilities and instruction for African-American children were vastly inferior. Douglass criticized the situation and called for court action to open all schools to all children. He stated that inclusion within the educational system was a more pressing need for African Americans than political issues such as suffrage.

Douglass was acquainted with the radical abolitionist John Brown but disapproved of Brown's plan to start an armed slave rebellion in the South. Brown visited Douglass' home two months before he led the raid on the federal armory in Harpers Ferry. After the raid, Douglass fled for a time to Canada, fearing guilt by association and arrest as a co-conspirator. Douglass believed that the attack on federal property would enrage the American public. Douglass later shared a stage at a speaking engagement in Harpers Ferry with Andrew Hunter, the prosecutor who successfully convicted Brown.

In March 1860, Douglass' youngest daughter Annie died in Rochester, New York, while he was still in England. Douglass returned from England the following month. He took a route through Canada to avoid detection.

Civil War years

Before the Civil War

By the time of the Civil War, Douglass was one of the most famous black men in the country, known for his orations on the condition of the black race and on other issues such as women's rights. His eloquence gathered crowds at every location. His reception by leaders in England and Ireland added to his stature.

Fight for emancipation and suffrage

Douglass and the abolitionists argued that because the aim of the Civil War was to end slavery, African Americans should be allowed to engage in the fight for their freedom. Douglass publicized this view in his newspapers and several speeches. Douglass conferred with President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 on the treatment of black soldiers, and with President Andrew Johnson on the subject of black suffrage.

President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, which took effect on January 1, 1863, declared the freedom of all slaves in Confederate-held territory. (Slaves in Union-held areas and Northern states would become freed with the adoption of the 13th Amendment on December 6, 1865.) Douglass described the spirit of those awaiting the proclamation: "We were waiting and listening as for a bolt from the sky ... we were watching ... by the dim light of the stars for the dawn of a new day ... we were longing for the answer to the agonizing prayers of centuries."

During the U.S. Presidential Election of 1864, Douglass supported John C. Frémont. Douglass was disappointed that President Lincoln did not publicly endorse suffrage for black freedmen. Douglas believed that since African American men were fighting in the American Civil War, they deserved the right to vote.

With the North no longer obliged to return slaves to their owners in the South, Douglass fought for equality for his people. He made plans with Lincoln to move the liberated slaves out of the South. During the war, Douglass helped the Union by serving as a recruiter for the 54th Massachusetts Regiment. His son Frederick Douglass Jr. also served as a recruiter and his other son, Lewis Douglass, fought for the 54th Massachusetts Regiment at the Battle of Fort Wagner.

Slavery everywhere in the United States was outlawed by the post-war (1865) ratification of the 13th Amendment. The 14th Amendment provided for citizenship and equal protection under the law. The 15th Amendment protected all citizens from being discriminated against in voting because of race. Douglass' support for the 15th Amendment, which failed to give women the vote, led to a temporary estrangement between him and the women's rights movement.

Lincoln's death

At the unveiling of the Emancipation Memorial in Washington's Lincoln Park, Douglass was the keynote speaker. In his speech, Douglass spoke frankly about Lincoln, balancing the good and the bad in his account. He called Lincoln "the white man's president" and cited his tardiness in joining the cause of emancipation. He noted that Lincoln initially opposed the expansion of slavery but did not support its elimination. But Douglass also asked, "Can any colored man, or any white man friendly to the freedom of all men, ever forget the night which followed the first day of January 1863, when the world was to see if Abraham Lincoln would prove to be as good as his word?"

The crowd, roused by his speech, gave him a standing ovation. A long-told anecdote claims that the widow Mary Lincoln gave Lincoln's favorite walking stick to Douglass in appreciation. Lincoln's walking stick still rests in Douglass' house known as Cedar Hill. It is both a testimony and a tribute to the effect of Douglass' powerful oratory.

Reconstruction era

After the Civil War, Douglass was appointed to several political positions. He served as president of the Reconstruction-era Freedman's Savings Bank; and as chargé d'affaires for the Dominican Republic. After two years, he resigned from his ambassadorship because of disagreements with U.S. government policy. In 1872, he moved to Washington, D.C., after his house on South Avenue in Rochester, New York burned down; arson was suspected. Also lost was a complete issue of ''The North Star''.

In 1868, Douglass supported the presidential campaign of Ulysses S. Grant. President Grant signed into law the Klan Act and the second and third Enforcement Acts. Grant used their provisions vigorously, suspending ''habeas corpus'' in South Carolina and sending troops there and into other states; under his leadership over 5,000 arrests were made and the Ku Klux Klan received a serious blow. Grant's vigor in disrupting the Klan made him unpopular among many whites, but Frederick Douglass praised him. An associate of Douglass wrote of Grant that African Americans "will ever cherish a grateful remembrance of his name, fame and great services."

In 1872, Douglass became the first African American nominated for Vice President of the United States, as Victoria Woodhull's running mate on the Equal Rights Party ticket. He was nominated without his knowledge. During the campaign, he neither campaigned for the ticket nor acknowledged that he had been nominated. Douglass continued his speaking engagements. On the lecture circuit, he spoke at many colleges around the country during the Reconstruction era, including Bates College in Lewiston, Maine in 1873. He continued to emphasize the importance of voting rights and exercise of suffrage. In a speech delivered on 15 November 1867, Douglass said "A man's rights rest in three boxes. The ballot box, jury box and the cartridge box. Let no man be kept from the ballot box because of his color. Let no woman be kept from the ballot box because of her sex".

In 1877, Douglass visited Thomas Auld, who was by then on his deathbed, and the two men reconciled. Douglass had met with Auld's daughter, Amanda Auld Sears, some years prior; she had requested the meeting and had subsequently attended and cheered one of Douglass' speeches. Her father told her she had done well in reaching out to Douglass. The visit appears to have brought closure to Douglass, although he received some criticism for making it.

White insurgents had quickly arisen in the South after the war, organizing first as secret vigilante groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Through the years, armed insurgency took different forms, the last as powerful paramilitary groups such as the White League and the Red Shirts during the 1870s in the Deep South. They operated as "the military arm of the Democratic Party", turning out Republican officeholders and disrupting elections. Their power continued to grow in the South; more than 10 years after the end of the war, white Democrats regained political power in every state of the former Confederacy and began to reassert white supremacy. They enforced this by a combination of violence, late 19th century laws imposing segregation and a concerted effort to disfranchise African Americans. From 1890–1908, white Democrats passed new constitutions and statutes in the South that created requirements for voter registration and voting that effectively disfranchised most blacks and tens of thousands of poor whites. This disfranchisement and segregation were enforced for more than six decades into the 20th century.

Douglass' stump speech for 25 years after the end of the Civil War was to emphasize work to counter the racism that was then prevalent in unions.

Family life

Douglass and Anna had five children: Rosetta Douglass, Lewis Henry Douglass, Frederick Douglass, Jr., Charles Remond Douglass, and Annie Douglass (died at the age of ten). Charles and Rossetta helped produce his newspapers. Anna Douglass remained a loyal supporter of her husband's public work, even though Douglass' liaisons with Julia Griffiths and Ottilie Assing, two women he was professionally involved with, caused recurring speculation and scandals.

In 1877, Douglass bought the family's final home in Washington D.C., on a hill above the Anacostia River. He and Anna named it ''Cedar Hill'' (also spelled ''CedarHill''). They expanded the house from 14 to 21 rooms, and included a china closet. One year later, Douglass purchased adjoining lots and expanded the property to 15 acres (61,000 m²). The home has been designated the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site.

Anna Murray-Douglass died in 1882, leaving him with a sense of great loss and depression for a time. He found new meaning from working with activist Ida B. Wells.

In 1884, Douglass married again, to Helen Pitts, a white feminist from Honeoye, New York. Pitts was the daughter of Gideon Pitts, Jr., an abolitionist colleague and friend of Douglass. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College (then called Mount Holyoke Female Seminary), she worked on a radical feminist publication named ''Alpha'' while living in Washington, D.C. The couple faced a storm of controversy with their marriage, since Pitts was both white and nearly 20 years younger than Douglass. Her family stopped speaking to her; his was bruised, as his children felt his marriage was a repudiation of their mother. But feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton congratulated the couple. Douglass responded to the criticisms by saying that his first marriage had been to someone the color of his mother, and his second to someone the color of his father. The new couple traveled to England, France, Italy, Egypt and Greece from 1886 to 1887.

After Reconstruction

As white Democrats regained power in the state legislatures of the South after Reconstruction, they began to impose new laws that disfranchised blacks and to create labor and criminal laws limiting their freedom. Many African Americans, called Exodusters, moved to large northern cities and to places like Kansas. In the latter case it was to form all-black towns where it was felt they could have a greater level of freedom and autonomy. Douglass spoke out against the movement, urging blacks to stick it out. He had become out of step with his audiences, who condemned and booed him for this position.

In 1877, Douglass was appointed a United States Marshal. In 1881, he was appointed Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia.

In 1888, Douglass spoke at Claflin College, a black college in Orangeburg, South Carolina and the oldest such institution in the state. He urged his audiences to struggle and protest against slavery.

At the 1888 Republican National Convention, Douglass became the first African American to receive a vote for President of the United States in a major party's roll call vote.

He was appointed minister-resident and consul-general to the Republic of Haiti (1889–1891). In 1892 the Haitian government appointed Douglass as its commissioner to the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition. He spoke for Irish Home Rule and the efforts of leader Charles Stewart Parnell in Ireland. He briefly revisited Ireland in 1886.

Also in 1892, Douglass constructed rental housing for blacks, now known as Douglass Place, in the Fells Point area of Baltimore. The complex was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.

Death

On February 20, 1895, Douglass attended a meeting of the National Council of Women in Washington, D.C. During that meeting, he was brought to the platform and given a standing ovation by the audience. Shortly after he returned home, Frederick Douglass died of a massive heart attack or stroke in Washington, D.C. He was buried in Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, New York.

Legacy and honors

In 1921, members of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity (the first African-American intercollegiate fraternity) designated Frederick Douglass as an honorary member. Douglass is the only man to receive an honorary membership posthumously.

The Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge, sometimes referred to as the South Capitol Street Bridge, just south of the US Capitol in Washington DC, was built in 1950 and named in his honor.

In 1962, his home in Anacostia (Washington, DC) became part of the National Park System, and in 1988 was designated the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site.

In 1965, the U.S. Postal Service honored Douglass with a stamp in the Prominent Americans series.

In 1999, Yale University established the Frederick Douglass Book Prize for works in the history of slavery and abolition, in his honor. The annual $25,000 prize is administered by the Gilder Lehrman Institute for American History and the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale.

In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante named Frederick Douglass to his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.

In 2003, Douglass Place, the rental housing units that Douglass built in Baltimore in 1892 for blacks, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Douglass is honored with a feast day on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA) on February 20.

In 2007, the former Troup-Howell bridge which carried Interstate 490 over the Genesee River was redesigned and renamed the Frederick Douglass-Susan B. Anthony Memorial Bridge.

In 2010, a statue (by Gabriel Koren) and memorial (designed by Algernon Miller) of Douglass were unveiled at Frederick Douglass Circle at the northwest corner of Central Park in New York City.

On June 12, 2011, Talbot County, Maryland, honored Douglass by installing a seven-foot bronze statute of Douglass on the lawn of the county courthouse in Easton, Maryland.

Numerous public schools have been named in his honor.

Works

Writings

''A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave'' (1845)

"The Heroic Slave". ''Autographs for Freedom''. Ed. Julia Griffiths, Boston: Jewett and Company, 1853. pp. 174–239.

''My Bondage and My Freedom'' (1855)

''Life and Times of Frederick Douglass'' (1881, revised 1892)

Douglass founded and edited the abolitionist newspaper ''The North Star'' from 1847 to 1851. He merged ''The North Star'' with another paper to create the ''Frederick Douglass' Paper''.

Speeches

"The Church and Prejudice"

''Self-Made Men''

"Speech at National Hall, Philadelphia July 6, 1863 for the Promotion of Colored Enlistments"

"What to a slave is the 4th of July?"

Cultural representation

The 1989 film ''Glory'' featured Frederick Douglass as a friend of Francis George Shaw. He was played by Raymond St. Jacques.

Douglass is the protagonist of the novel ''Riversmeet'' (Richard Bradbury, Muswell Press, 2007), a fictionalized account of his 1845 speaking tour of the British Isles.

The 2004 mockumentary film, an alternative history called ''C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America'', featured the figure of Douglass.

The 2008 documentary film called ''Frederick Douglass and the White Negro'' tells the story of Frederick Douglass in Ireland and the relationship between African Americans and Irish Americans during the American Civil War.

Frederick Douglass is a major character in the alternate history novel ''How Few Remain'' by Harry Turtledove.

Frederick Douglass appears in ''Flashman and the Angel of the Lord,''by George MacDonald Fraser.

Frederick Douglass appears as a Great Humanitarian in the 2008 strategy video game Civilization Revolution.

Douglass, his wife, and his mistress, Ottilie Assing, are the main characters in Jewell Parker Rhodes' ''Douglass' Women'', a novel (New York: Atria Books, 2002).

See also

List of African-American abolitionists

Slave narrative

African-American literature

The Columbian Orator

Frederick Douglass and the White Negro

References

Houston A. Baker, Jr., Introduction, ''Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass'', Penguin, 1986 edition.

Further reading

;Scholarship

Gates, Jr., Henry Louis, ed. ''Frederick Douglass, Autobiography'' (Library of America, 1994) ISBN 978-0-940450-79-0

Foner, Philip Sheldon. ''The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass''. New York: International Publishers, 1950.

Huggins, Nathan Irvin, and Oscar Handlin. ''Slave and Citizen: The Life of Frederick Douglass.'' Library of American Biography. Boston: Little, Brown, 1980; Longman (1997). ISBN 0-673-39342-9

Lampe, Gregory P. ''Frederick Douglass: Freedom's Voice,.'' Rhetoric and Public Affairs Series. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1998. ISBN-X (alk. paper) ISBN (pbk. alk. paper) (on his oratory)

Levine, Robert S. ''Martin Delany, Frederick Douglass, and the Politics of Representative Identity.'' Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997. ISBN (alk. paper). ISBN (pbk.: alk. paper) (cultural history)

McFeely, William S. ''Frederick Douglass.'' New York: Norton, 1991. ISBN 0-393-31376-X

McMillen, Sally Gregory. ''Seneca Falls and the origins of the women's rights movement.'' Oxford University Press, 2008. ISBN 0-19-518265-0

Oakes, James. ''The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics.'' New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. 2007. ISBN 0-393-06194-9

Quarles, Benjamin. ''Frederick Douglass.'' Washington: Associated Publishers, 1948.

Stanton, Elizabeth Cady; edited by Theodore Stanton and Harriot Stanton Blatch. ''Elizabeth Cady Stanton, As Revealed in Her Letters, Diary and Reminiscences'', Harper & Brothers, 1922.

Webber, Thomas, ''Deep Like Rivers: Education in the Slave Quarter Community 1831–1865.'' New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. (1978).

Woodson, C.G., ''The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861: A History of the Education of the Colored People of the United States from the Beginning of Slavery to the Civil War''. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, (1915); Indy Publ. (2005) ISBN 1-4219-2670-9

;For young readers

Miller, William. ''Frederick Douglass: The Last Day of Slavery''. Illus. by Cedric Lucas. Lee & Low Books, 1995. ISBN 1-880000-42-3

Weidt, Maryann N. ''Voice of Freedom: a Story about Frederick Douglass.'' Illus. by Jeni Reeves. Lerner Publications, (2001). ISBN 1-57505-553-8

;Documentary films

''Frederick Douglass and the White Negro'' [videorecording] / Writer/Director John J Doherty, produced by Camel Productions, Ireland. Irish Film Board/TG4/BCI.; 2008

''Frederick Douglass'' [videorecording] / produced by Greystone Communications, Inc. for A&E; Network ; executive producers, Craig Haffner and Donna E. Lusitana.; 1997

''Frederick Douglass: When the Lion Wrote History'' [videorecording] / a co-production of ROJA Productions and WETA-TV.

''Frederick Douglass, Abolitionist Editor'' [videorecording]/a production of Schlessinger Video Productions.

''Race to Freedom'' [videorecording] : the story of the underground railroad / an Atlantis

External links

Douglass sources online

The Frederick Douglass Papers Edition : A Critical Edition of Douglass' Complete Works, including speeches, autobiographies, letters, and other writings.

Works by Frederick Douglass at Internet Archive (scanned books original editions illustrated)

Works by Frederick Douglass at Online Books Page

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Written by Himself. Boston: Anti-Slavery Office, 1845.

The Heroic Slave. From Autographs for Freedom, Ed. Julia Griffiths. Boston: John P. Jewett and Company. Cleveland, Ohio: Jewett, Proctor, and Worthington. London: Low and Company., 1853.

My Bondage and My Freedom. Part I. Life as a Slave. Part II. Life as a Freeman. New York: Miller, Orton & Mulligan, 1855.

Life and Times of Frederick Douglass: His Early Life as a Slave, His Escape from Bondage, and His Complete History to the Present Time. Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., 1881.

Frederick Douglass lecture on Haiti – Given at the World's Fair in Chicago, January 1893.

Fourth of July Speech

Letter to Thomas Auld (September 3, 1848)

The Frederick Douglass Diary (1886-87)

The Liberator Files, Items concerning Frederick Douglass from Horace Seldon's collection and summary of research of William Lloyd Garrison's ''The Liberator'' original copies at the Boston Public Library, Boston, Massachusetts.

What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? July 5, 1852 EDSITEment Launchpad

Resource Guides

Frederick Douglass: Online Resources from the Library of Congress

Biographical information

''Frederick Douglass Project'' at the University of Rochester.

Frederick Douglass (American Memory, Library of Congress) Includes timeline.

Timeline of Frederick Douglass and family

Timeline of "The Life of Frederick Douglass" – Features key political events

Read more about Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass NHS – Douglass' Life

Frederick Douglass NHS – Cedar Hill National Park Service site

Frederick Douglass Western New York Suffragists

Mr. Lincoln and Freedom: Frederick Douglass

Mr. Lincoln's White House: Frederick Douglass

Memorials to Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass National Historic Site The Washington, DC home of Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass Gardens at Cedar Hill Frederick Douglass Gardens

Frederick Douglass Circle in Harlem overlooking Central Park has a statue of Frederick Douglass. North of this point, 8th Avenue is referred to as Frederick Douglass Boulevard

The Frederick Douglass Prize A national book prize

Lewis N. Douglas as a Sergeant Major in the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry

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