I made a presentation to the summer Wesleyan Mellon Mays Fellows of a selection of resources related to their research interests. One item I showed was the book, Biographical Sketches and Interesting Anecdotes of Persons of Color. To Which is Added, a Selection of Pieces in Poetry. According to The Annual Report of the Library Company of Philadelphia, the work, compiled by Abigail Mott, “was designed as a textbook for African Free School students, with each paragraph of each chapter numbered to facilitate reading assignments.” Biographical Sketches “is the first American work celebrating African Americans. … There would be nothing comparable published in the United States until the works of African American writers of the mid-19th century.”
