“England laughed at American authorship and we sent her Emerson and Uncle Tom's Cabin.”

—  Frederick Douglass

From its destitution of trees, Scotland was once a by-word; now it is a garden of beauty. Five generations ago, Britain was ashamed to write books in her own tongue. Now her language is spoken in all quarters of the globe. The Jim Crow Minstrels have, in many cases, led the negro to the study of music; while the doubt cast upon the negro’s tongue has sent him to the lexicon and grammar and to the study of Greek orators and orations.
1870s, Self-Made Men (1872)

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Frederick Douglass 274
American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman 1818–1895

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