User talk:174.7.184.145

An edit to the "Tar Baby" article correcting an important historical error was wrongly reversed.

A citation is required but missing for the claim of Robert Roosevelt's publication priority in Harper's. The only supposed evidence I can find that Robert Roosevelt 'published' the story is a family legend from the childhood of Theodore Roosevelt:

"My aunt Anna, my mother's sister, lived with us. She was as devoted to us children as was my mother herself, and we were equally devoted to her in return. She taught us our lessons while we were little. She and my mother used to entertain us by the hour with tales of life on the Georgia plantations; of hunting fox, deer, and wildcat; the long-tailed driving horses, Boone and Crockett. and the riding horses, one of which was named Buena Vista in a fit of patriotic exaltation during the Mexican War; and of the queer goings-on in the Negro quarters. She knew all the "Br'er Rabbit" stories, and I was brought up on them. One of my uncles, Robert Roosevelt, was much struck with them, and took them down from her dictation, publishing them in Harper's, where they fell flat. This was a good many years before a genius arose who in "Uncle Remus" made the stories immortal."

Commentary: Theodore Roosevelt was born in 1858. The Joel Chandler Harris Story was published in book form in 1881, copyright date 1880. "A good many years before" this would be ca. 1864-1868, when Theodore was a child, not likely directly involved in his uncle's business. The word 'published' is misused. That the stories "fell flat" also suggests a mistaken childhood understanding. That would require reader feedback to a weekly publication which would have gone to the editor, not the claimed author. And we are not talking about one story, but several - 'them'. A more likely explanation of 'falling flat' would be a polite rejection letter from the Harper's editor. Add to this that Theodore's autobiography, written from childhood memories, was published thirty years after the Joel Chandler Harris book, and forty or more years after the childhood events. There is more than adequate room for error here. Theodore gives no citation for this 'factoid', so although it appears to have been family oral history, it needs to be supported by a proper citation to the actual article in Harper's. If there were such a publication, one would expect several citations in the academic literature.

A detailed search was made of all Harper's Weekly issues from the first volume of 1857 to the 1880 volume, a total of 24 years. No such story could be found. Only in 1880 are there articles on the lives of former slaves in the South. They are by a different author, and no mention was made of the Uncle Remus folk tales. If someone else can find the claimed Roosevelt article and give a proper citation, then do it - honestly. Don't insist on repeating an old wives tale.

Honesty also requires that the publication history begins with the actual origin of the Wonderful Tar Baby story - those who shared their versions orally with Joel Chandler Harris, and the white Southern families who retold them. This makes clear that the words are not in their origin a racist slur, but from the mouths of black American slaves and a book honoring their intelligence and creativity.

One might even guess that the Tar Baby was not black, but dark amber, made from the congealed sap of the Southern Pitch Pine, mixed, as the story goes, with turpentine. . . like the pitch mixed with plant fiber commonly used to caulk the seams of boats. More likely than black petroleum tar. But this guesswork is not history, and I guarantee that no proper citation can be found.