Earl Conrad

Earl Conrad (born December 17, 1912 in Auburn , † 1986 ) was an American writer and journalist . He is best known today for his 1942 biography of Harriet Tubman , an African-American fighter against slavery . He also wrote more than twenty other books. His biographies include one that he ghostwritten about Errol Flynn .

Writing activity

The historian Milton C. Sernett suspects that Conrad, who was of Jewish faith, had set himself the goal of writing the first serious biography about Harriet Tubman because of his own experiences of discrimination. Conrad had studied US history and came to the conclusion that it did not adequately recognize the contribution of the African American population. He considered several African Americans as the subject of a future biography and then chose Harriet Tubman because he believed her to be the most intriguing character, while she was the one least present in American memory.

Two biographies were written about Harriet Tubman, who fled slavery in 1849 and returned several times to the southern states to eliminate other slaves from slavery, and who served the northern states during the Civil War, among other things as a scout and spy, in the 19th century been. Sarah Bradford was a contemporary of Harriet Tubman and had authored these two biographies to help a materially distressed Harriet Tubman. Despite Bradford's benevolence towards their black fellow citizens, however, these biographies were shaped by a stereotypical notion about African Americans. Unlike Sarah Bradford, Earl Conrad Harriet Tubman had never met in person. She died in Auburn a year after Conrad was born. Like Sarah Bradford before, Earl Conrad endeavored to verify the details of Harriet Tubman's unusual life. He paid particular attention to the question of how much Harriet Tubman was involved in the women's rights movement. Most of his correspondents could not produce any evidence. Conrad decided to mention this connection anyway.

Earl Conrad found it very difficult to find a publisher for his biography. Most of the publishers turned it down because they were convinced that the biography of a black woman would not interest their audience. Earl Conrad therefore published several articles on Harriet Tubman in the 1940s to draw attention to his biography. It was finally a black-run publisher that decided to bring out the biography. The book ultimately turned out to be his greatest success and was reprinted in small numbers.

Publications

• Typoo
• The Da Vinci Machine
• The premier
• The Trial of William Freeman
• Scottsboro boy
• The Philology of Negro Dialect
• Horse trader
• Gulf Stream North
• Harriet Tubman: Negro Soldier and Abolitionist (1942)
• The Invention of the Negro
• Battle New York

literature

• Milton C. Sernett (2007): Harriet Tubman: Myth, Memory and History . Durham: Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-4073-7

supporting documents

1. ↑ Sernett, p 201
2. ↑ Sernett, p 203