Full Description
Unjustly overlooked in its own time, Frank J. Webb's novel of pre-Civil War Philadelphia weaves together action, humor, and social commentary. The Garies and Their Friends tells the story of two families struggling for di¦ erent sorts of respectability: the Garies, a well-to-do interracial couple who relocate to Philadelphia from the plantation South in order to legalize their marriage, and their friends the Ellises, free black Philadelphians hoping to make the move from the working class into the bourgeoisie. Along the way the families confront racialized violence, melodramatic villainy, and sentimental reversals. Entertaining and fastmoving, the novel has a Dickensian mix of uncanny coincidence and interwoven personal experiences.
The historical documents accompanying this Broadview Edition provide reviews of the novel along with extensive materials on slavery, the color line, and contemporary Philadelphia.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Frank J. Webb: A Brief Chronology
A Note on the Text
The Garies and Their Friends
Appendix A: Contemporary Responses
From The Observer (London) (20 September 1857)
From the Literary Gazette (London) (26 September 1857)
From The Morning Post (London) (6 October 1857)
The Standard (London) (7 October 1857)
From The Daily News (London) (9 October 1857)
From the Athenaeum (London) (24 October 1857)
Appendix B: Law, Culture, and the Color Line
From William Goodell, The American Slave Code in Theory and Practice (1853)
From George M. Stroud, A Sketch of the Laws Relating to Slavery (1827)
From John F. Denny, An Enquiry into the Political Grade of the Free Colored Population (1834)
From Benjamin C. Howard, Dred Scott v. John F.A. Sandford (1857)
From Frederick Douglass, "The Dred Scott Decision," delivered before the American Anti-Slavery Society, NY (14 May 1857)
Edward Williams Clay, Life in Philadelphia, Plate IV (1829)
Appendix C: Black Philadelphia in the Antebellum Era
Map of Philadelphia (1848)
From A Statistical Inquiry into the Condition of the People of Colour, of the City and Districts of Philadelphia (1842)
From Robert Purvis, Appeal of Forty Thousand Citizens, Threatened with Disenfranchisement, to the People of Pennsylvania (1838)
From Joseph Willson, Sketches of the Higher Classes of Colored Society in Philadelphia (1841)
Letter from Harriet Beecher Stowe to Lady Hatherton (24 May 1856)
Appendix D: Racism in Philadelphia
From "The Philadelphia Riots," the Philadelphia U. S. Gazette (2 August 1842)
From History of Pennsylvania Hall (1838)
John Sartain, The Burning of Pennsylvania Hall (1838)
Works Cited and Select Bibliography
