WILLIAMS COLLEGE LIBRARIES COPYRIGHT ASSIGNMENT and INSTRUCTIONS for a STUDENT TIIESIS Your Unpublished Thesis, Submitted for A
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
WILLIAMS COLLEGE LIBRARIES COPYRIGHT ASSIGNMENTAND INSTRUCTIONS FOR A STUDENT TIIESIS Your unpublished thesis, submitted for a degree at Williams College and administered by the Williams College Libraries, will be 'made available for research use. You may, through this form, provide instructions regarding copyright, access, dissemination and reproduction of your thesis. The College has the right in all cases to maintain and preserve theses both in hardcopy and electronic format, and to make such copies as the Libraries require for their research and archival functions. _The faculty advisor/s to the student writing the thesis claims joint authorship in this work. _ 1/we have included in this thesis copyrighted material for which 1/we have not received permission from the copyright holder/s. If you do not secure copyright permissions by the time your thesis is submitted, you will still be allowed to submit. However, if the necessary copyright permissions are not received, e-posting of your thesis may be affected. Copyrighted material may include images (tables, drawings, photographs, figures, maps, graphs, etc.), sound files, video material, data sets, and large portions of text. I. COPYRIGHT An author by law owns the copyright to his/her work, whether or not a copyright symbol and date are place� the piece. Please choose one of the options below with respect to the copyright in your thesis. _J_1/we choose not to retain the copyright to the thesis, and hereby assign the copyright to Williams College. Selecting this option will assigu copyright to the College. If the author/s wishes later to publish the work, he/she/they will need to obtain permission to do so from theLibraries, which will be grantedexcept in unusual circumstances. The Libraries will be free in this case to also grant permission to another researcher to publish some or all of the thesis. If you have chosen this option, you do not need to complete the nextsection andcan proceed to the siguatore line. 1/we choose to retain the copyright to the thesis for a period of __ years, or until my/our deathls, whichever is the earlier, at which time the copyright shall be assigned to Williams College without need of further action by me/us or by my/our heirs, successors, or representatives of my/our estate/s. Selecting this option allows the author/s the flexibility of retaining his/her/their copyright for a period of years or for life. II. ACCESS AND COPYING If you have chosen in section I, above, to retain the copyright in your thesis for some period of time, please chooj'one of the following options with respect to access to, and copying of, the thesis . ..J.1/we grant permission to Williams College to provide access to (and therefore copying of) the thesis in electronic format via the Internet or other means of electronic transmission, in addition to permitting access to and copying of the thesis in hardcopy format. Selecting this option allows the Libraries to transmitthe thesis in electronic format via the Internet. This option will therefore permit worldwide access to the thesis and, because the Libraries cannot control the uses of an electronic version once it has been transmitted, this option also permits copying of the electronic version. Uwe grant permission to Williams College to maintain and provide access to the thesis in hardcopy format. In addition, Uwe grant permission to Williams College to provide access to (and therefore copying of) the thesis in electronic format via the Internet or other means of electronic transmission after a period of __ years. Selecting this option allows the Libraries to transmit the thesis in electronic format via the Internet after a period of years. Once the restriction period has ended, this option permits worldwide access to the thesis, and copying of the electronic and hardcopy versions. _ Uwe grant permission to Williams College to maintain, provide access to, and provide copies of the thesis in hardcopy format only, for as long as Uwe retain copyright. Selecting this option allows access to your work only from the hardcopy you submit for as long as you retain copyright in the work. Such access pertains to the entirety of your work, including any media that it incorporates. Selecting this option allows the Libraries to provide copies of the thesis to researchers in hardcopy form only, not in electronic format. _ I/we grant permission to Williams College to maintain and to provide access to the thesis in hardcopy format only, for as long as 1/we retain copyright. Selecting this option allows access .to your work only from the hardcopy you submit for as long as you retain copyright in the work. Such access pertains to the entirety of your work, including any media that it incorporates. This option doesNOT permit the Libraries to provide copies of the thesisto researchers. Signed (student author). Signed (faculty advisor) Signed (2d advisor, if appli'eal5le)----------------- Thesis title Ar+-a, ,C,t,..,k' · RtA.iineJ Date __:t.._'f'_,.L!/t !:--"-t/....3 '---- --- Arturo A. Schomburg: RedefinedRevolutionary A.fro-Puerto-Rican Black Historian By Don Sidney Polite, Jr. Leslie Brown, PhD., Advisor A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honors in Africana Studies WILLIAMS COLLEGE Williamstown, Massachusetts May 15,2013 2 Table of Contents Introduction••• 3 Biographical Sketch . .. 6 Schomburg, Las Dos Antillas and Antillean War of Independence ... 15 The Scholarly, Intellectual Societies and their Relation to the Harlem Renaissance ••• 24 The American Negro Academy and the Creation of Elite Organizations... .. 26 Rivalry between the NSHRand ASNLH .. .. 29 The Negro Society for Historical Research ...31 Papers of the NSHR... .37 Carter G. Woodson and the ASNLH vs the NSHR.. 43 Carter G. Woodson and A.A. Schomburg Schomburg rips Woodson to pieces ....52 Schomburg asRespected Intellectual and Colleague ...56 Schomburg's Presidency, the ANA and the Talented Tenth.... 65 Valuing Schomburg for what he is ...76 Conclusion. ..79 Bibliography... 86 3 Introduction The name Schomburg is relatively well-known to many in the fields of African- American and Afiicana Studies, as it is attached to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, one of the most extensive research archives to the study of the global Black Diaspora. For his work in compiling the materials that served as foundation of this renowned collect, Puerto-Rican bornArturo Alfonso Schomburg is commonly labeled a "bibliophile," not as an "archivist." However, his influence and activities extended far beyond the mere collection of artifacts pertaining to theglobal Black Diaspora. For this reason, Schomburg should beunderstood as more thana collectoror a bibliophile. Understanding Schomburg has been a complex quest as several scholars have attempted to accurately capture him. In spite of the complexity of Schomburg and his work, scholarshiptends to focus on Schomburg's ethno-racial identity. For example, Earl Lewis writes in an essay, "The history of how Arturo became Arthur and yet remained Arturo is 1 the challenge for the next generation of scholars." While Schomburg's identity is a question that scholarship should grapple with, what we should learn from his life and work is the legacy that we inherit fromArturo Alfonso Schomburg. My questions are largely informed by three major works beginning with the dissertation written by Elinor Des Verney Sinnette "ArthurAlfonso Schomburg: Black 2 Bibliophile and Collector,"the most complete biography to date. Many scholars such as Earl Lewis, Thabiti Asukile and Lisa Sanchez Gonzalez continue to cite Sinnette's work in essays regarding Schomburg. Because this work is often the single source that runs 1 Earl lewis, "To Turn as on a Plvot:Wrlting African-Americans into a History of Overlapping Diasporas," The American Historical Review 100, no. 3 (1995). 787. 2 Elinor Des VerneySinne tte, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg: Black Bibliophile and Collector (Detroit: The New York Public Library and Wayne State University Press, 1989). 4 throughout subsequent studies on Schomburg, many of the assumptions and interpretations thatSinnette makes are taken at face value. A more recent extensive work on his life is necessary given the datedness ofSinnette's work. For instance, Sinnette titled her work, "Arthur AlfonsoSchomburg: Black Bibliophile and Collector." In the current moment of academic work, especially the work that I find myself a part of, Afro latinidad as an identity has become a much more accepted term. Given his birth on the island of Puerto Rico, and his continued relation to these origins in his identity, I write of him as Afro-Puerto Rican Arturo AlfonsoSchomburg, to highlight his diasporic and Puerto Rican background, instead of Anglicizing or Americanizing his identity. The implications that go along with Anglicizing his name and simply labelingSchomburg as "Black" in its title seems to relegate his Puerto-Ri.can identity as secondary. But I believe that this should be at the forefront of any consideration on his life and works. If we reconcile the fact that a man of Caribbean descent is central to the development of Black history as it is studied, we can expand the scope and complexity of the conceptions of early twentieth centuryBlackness and of Black movements. Another contention of mine is Sinnette's placement ofSchomburg's significance in the terms of bibliophilia, which is different from archiving. Bibliophilia or collecting, carries a connotation of someone who amasses a collection as a hobby, or an aimless obsession. Schomburg's vision, ideology and influence prove that this collection of his was a means to a deliberate and calculated attempt to aid in race uplift. By re-terming him and his activities in terms of archiving, his activities become proactive socio-political practices, which give more credence to the influence thatSchomburg held.