Passage III

Jennie Carter: Journalist of the Early West

[1]

Two years after the Civil War ended, a woman from a small California town wrote her first Newspaper column. [A] It was published in the San Francisco Elevator, a prominent African American weekly that printed her column. Jennie Carter, writing under several pseudonym during her lifetime, but for her Elevator column she was Semper Fidelis, Latin for "Always Faithful." Her choice of pen name was fitting, like over the next seven years Carter wrote more than seventy essays, each one dedicated to promoting the welfare and interests of African Americans.

[2]

Carter's original proposal which to the editor of the Elevator had been to write a regular feature for children. It didn't take her long to admit, in a column called "Mistakes," that she had made one. The subjects she felt most passionate about were the concerns of an adult audience. [B] Her essays, subsequently, were timely and varied. Moreover, Carter sometimes wrote under the pen name of Ann J. Trask. Other columns discussed California and national politics, the temperance movement, and self-respect.

[3]

Some columns combined Carter's personal experience with social commentary. For instance, she vividly described the fear she had felt saving a woman escape on the Underground Railroad. She also turned the story into a call for racial equality. To support her position, Carter drew on her knowledge of the U.S. Constitution, the Bible, and the leading abolitionist newspaper of the day, the New York Tribune. [C]

[4]

Other black journalists were writing during this time, but Carter was one of the earliest African American voices from out west. [D] Whether the essay was scolding ill-mannered children or rejecting the practice of praising former slave owners in their obituaries her tone was unapologetic, straightforward, and often indignant. Carter was a skillful writer, fighting social injustice while at the same time managing to keep readers engaged. The columns of Semper Fidelis preserves what is a singular perspective on nineteenth century America.