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(EDUCATION.) [PATRICK REASON.]
Account of the Free African
School in the City of New York.
[printed in] The New York Magazine or Literary
Repository for May 1793. [257] 320 pages. 8vo, later marbled wrappers. Copper engraved
view of the “Falls of Schuylkill, three Miles from Philadelphia.”
New York: Thomas and James Swords, 1793
[400/600]
A long and detailed description of the African School is followed by a list of the nine commissioners of
the institution. The article states how well the school has been doing and stresses the need for funding.
Patrick Reason (1816-1898) was the engraver that produced the frontispiece portrait of Phillis
Wheatley for the 1773 edition of her “Poems on Various Subjects” which was copied for a number of
subsequent editions as well. Reason was also the artist and engraver of the picture of the African
School that appeared in the 1828 Freedom’s Journal. The School was founded in 1787 by the New
York Manumission Society.
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(EDUCATION.) DONALDSON, ARTHUR.
Arthur Donaldson’s New
Year’s Gift To His Scholars.
Letterpress poetic broadside printed in two columns with
an American eagle at the top of the sheet; within a floral woodcut boarder, 13
1
/
2
x 7
3
/
4
inches; creases where folded; tiny hole at the conjunction of folds; some staining, paper
evenly toned.
Philadelphia, circa 1815—1825
[800/1,200]
In 1813 Philadelphia had 8 schools serving 414 African American and Haitian students. At least
one of them, possibly more was run by a white educator named Arthur Donaldson. According to his
printed petition dated 1810, seeking funds for the erection of a proper schoolhouse, Arthur Donaldson
opened his school “for the tuition of Children of Colour of both sexes,” as well as an afternoon “First
day school [. . . ] for the instruction of grown people of Colour of both sexes.” Donaldson, a white
man, described himself as “well-wisher” to the African race. The poem itself is somewhat autobio-
graphical, recounting his own past sins and salvation. Donaldson was the author/publisher of a
short-lived periodical, The Juvenile Messenger (1811-1813) and The Orthographic (1814).
Unrecorded: no copies at Library Company, or OCLC.
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