JOURNAL ARTICLE

Stenographic Authorship: Pauline E. Hopkins and Literary Infrastructures.

  • Published In: College Literature, 2024, v. 51, n. 4. P. 445 1 of 3

  • Database: Academic Search Ultimate 2 of 3

  • Authored By: Dahn, Eurie 3 of 3

Abstract

Stenography or the practice of shorthand writing systems is viewed dismissively as rote transcription work the opposite of literary creativity. However Black writers and activists like Pauline Hopkins and Charles Chesnutt worked as stenographers to support themselves even as they engaged in the labor of writing. Expertise in shorthand offered the promise of upward mobility in the Jim Crow era for Black Americans. Despite being categorized as automatic work stenography was also seen as a kind of authorial labor. With a focus on Hopkins and her fiction this essay examines stenography's role in literary labor and Black activism to call attention to the unglamorous clerical infrastructure that supported the work of institutions such as the government legal system and press. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Additional Information

  • Source:College Literature. 2024/10, Vol. 51, Issue 4, p445
  • Document Type:Article
  • Subject Area:Literature and Writing
  • Publication Date:2024
  • ISSN:0093-3139
  • DOI:10.1353/lit.2024.a939751
  • Accession Number:180404619
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