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(Re)Presenting the Public in Print: Examining African-American Media Activism at the Century's Turn

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247 pages

Title
  • (Re)Presenting the Public in Print: Examining African-American Media Activism at the Century's Turn
Date modified
  • 08/21/2025
Creator
Abstract
  • Operating at the intersection of English Composition, Place-Based Rhetorical Scholarship, and African American Print Culture Studies, this dissertation examines African American public literacies in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century. Employing rhetorical analysis and close-textual examination of three activist magazines, including the National Association of Colored Women's Woman's Era (1894-97), The Colored Co-Operative Publishing Company's Colored American Magazine (1900-1910), and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's The Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races (1910-present), this research explores how African American activists used emergent forms of media (in this case, mass-produced newspapers and magazines) to shape who gets to participate within a public sphere of representation and speculate how to make this sphere more accessible to a wider range of readers and writers. Additionally, this analysis suggests that African American media in this period offers a model for local activism, civic engagement and public writing that students can draw from in their own academic and professional development. That is, this dissertation demonstrates how an exploration of turn-of-the-century media activism can inform contemporary concerns about public space, access, and marginal and minority representation, especially as such discussions are influenced by and occur within new media landscapes.
Administrative Note
Date created
Identifier
Keyword
Language
Resource type
Degree discipline
  • English
Degree grantor
  • University of Pittsburgh
Degree level
  • Doctoral
Degree name
  • Doctor of Philosophy
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MLA citation style (9th ed.)

Propper, Tara. (re)presenting the Public In Print: Examining African-american Media Activism At the Century's Turn. . 2017. d-scholarship.pitt.edu/concern/etds/8d6ea5c8-bf7e-420c-86f4-f146fea9dd34.

APA citation style (7th ed.)

P. Tara. (2017). (Re)Presenting the Public in Print: Examining African-American Media Activism at the Century's Turn. https://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/concern/etds/8d6ea5c8-bf7e-420c-86f4-f146fea9dd34

Chicago citation style (CMOS 17, author-date)

Propper, Tara. (re)presenting the Public In Print: Examining African-American Media Activism At the Century's Turn. 2017. https://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/concern/etds/8d6ea5c8-bf7e-420c-86f4-f146fea9dd34.

Note: These citations are programmatically generated and may be incomplete.

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