Pauline E. Hopkins: A Literary Biography

The New Era Magazine

The“NewEraMagazine” H opkins made a brief comeback as editor of the Boston-based New Era Magazine in 1916, together with Walter Wallace, her former colleague at the Colored American Magazine. The magazine attempted to recreate and revitalize the goals of the former publication, with a series on “Men of Vision” and the fragment of a novel, Topsy Templeton. Hopkins also planned a column entitled “Helps for Young Artists,” which showed her continuing concern for the advancement of young artists. New Era Magazine ceased publication after two issues and received hardly any comment, not even by Du Bois, who had commented on the changes of the Colored American Magazine earlier. Johnson and Johnson speculate that he might have seen the New Era Magazine as a potential rival to his own Crisis (Propaganda 68). The New Era Magazine is subtitled “An Illustrated Monthly Devoted to the World-Wide Interests of the Colored Race.” Its flyleaf advertises that it is “devoted exclusively to the best interests of the colored race, not alone in this country, but throughout the world. The rapid progress made by the race in this country during the past twenty to twenty-five years, as well as present-day progress will be fully and accurately shown. The magazine will deal fully and frankly with all questions affecting the real progress of the race, and will do its utmost to assist in developing the literature, science, music, art, religion, facts, fiction and tradition of the race throughout the world” (March 1916). Articles that were being prepared included essays about Africa, Puerto Rico, Haiti, color prejudice, mechanical arts, colored masonry, women of color and the suffrage movement, Negro artists in Europe, reforms in Liberia, education, music, practical help for young men in business, hints to young artists, reminiscences of early days, and business. The international and national concerns clearly distinguish it from the Colored American Magazine under Fred R. Moore. The overall design of the magazine also documents 270 Front cover of the New Era Magazine, February 1916. Courtesy of Black Print Culture collection, Special Collections and Archives, Robert W. Woodruff Library, Emory University. 272 Voices and Silences Hopkins’s continuing concern with matters of race, politics, and literature well beyond her more famous years at the Colored American Magazine. Hopkins can be credited with two articles about “Men of Vision,” which continue the earlier “Famous Men of the Negro Race” series. The articles treat Mark René Demortie and Reverend Leonard Andrew Grimes, while an essay announced for the Easter number was to be about Henry Highland Garnet. Hopkins began to publish a serial novel, Topsy Templeton, of which two installments still exist. One short story, “Converting Fanny,” is signed Sarah A. Allen and shows a considerable development in subject matter and narrative technique. It is likely that she wrote the sketch about Crispus Attucks that opened the second number of the magazine. The prospectus also mentions a series called “Facts Pertaining to the Early Greatness of the African Race,” planned for future issues. The title and contents were directly taken from Hopkins’s Primer of Facts. Looking back with the title of her magazine to Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin’s club publication Woman’s Era (1894–97) and with an editorial statement similar to that of the Colored American Magazine, Hopkins was forwardlooking in her attempt to exercise control over a race publication. She had prepared the necessary conditions for herself as editor and main contributor. Thus she is one of the few women journalists brave enough to venture into the full-scale publication of a journal. It is not clear why the magazine failed after only two issues, especially since the third number had been well planned and organized. Hopkins made free use of Harriet Beecher Stowe in the novel she meant to publish in the New Era Magazine. The two installments of Topsy Templeton show not only in the title that the subject matter of Uncle Tom’s Cabin was still in her mind. Miss Ophelia is the role model for Miss Sophronia Newbury, “tall, spare, white-haired, and thirty-five, with shrewd eyes and a friendly smile” (1:11). Miss Newbury and her sister Betty, whose full name is Mrs. Elizabeth Hopkins-Templeton, live in well-to-do circumstances in Boston. Miss Newbury is a spinster while Betty is married to a man, a noted intellectual , who suffers from a severe neurological disorder. They...