What primary sources exist for T. Thomas Fortune’s family history and the text After Wartimes?
Executive summary
T. Thomas Fortune’s clearest primary-source evidence for both his family background and the memoir text commonly titled After War Times is his own late-life autobiographical writing — a newspaper series and later book-form collection — supplemented by his published books and surviving correspondence preserved in library catalogs and archival collections [1] [2] [3]. Contemporary reference works repeatedly identify his parents Emanuel and Sarah Jane Fortune and note his childhood in Marianna and Jacksonville, but those secondary accounts themselves point back to Fortune’s own reminiscences and to archival holdings rather than to newly discovered documentary proof [4] [5] [6].
1. The single most direct primary source: Fortune’s “After War Times” autobiographical pieces
The core primary text is Fortune’s set of twenty‑three autobiographical articles, published in his later years under the title After War Times (also rendered as After War Times: An African American Childhood in Reconstruction‑Era Florida), which collects his first‑hand memories of being born into slavery in Marianna, Florida and of Reconstruction childhood episodes; modern editions and ebook reprints make that writing accessible [2] [7]. Several bibliographic records and book descriptions treat those pieces explicitly as Fortune’s own primary reminiscences, and WorldCat identifies multiple published editions of After War Times held in library collections, confirming the text’s existence as an authored primary source by Fortune himself [3] [2].
2. The newspaper origin: a 1927 Philadelphia Tribune series and contemporaneous publication traces
Reporting and local genealogy notes point to an autobiographical newspaper series published in the Philadelphia Tribune in 1927 under titles such as “After War Times: A Boy’s Life in Reconstruction Days,” which functions as the immediate primary manifestation of those memoir pieces before or alongside later book editions [1]. That newspaper publication is the documentary provenance scholars cite when tracing Fortune’s reminiscences back to their first public appearance, making the Tribune pieces a key primary source for both the text and the specifics of events Fortune recounts [1].
3. Family identifiers in biographical records that derive from primary memoirs and public records
Multiple biographical references — Britannica, BlackPast, Encyclopedia.com and local histories — consistently identify Fortune’s parents as Emanuel and Sarah Jane Fortune and report that Fortune was born into slavery in Marianna and later attended a Freedmen’s Bureau school after the Civil War; these published statements synthesize primary claims found in Fortune’s own reminiscences and in period documents, but the secondary sources themselves point back to Fortune’s writings and to archival records rather than producing new, independent primary documents in these snippets [6] [4] [5]. Where these sources assert family details, they are usually summarizing Fortune’s accounts and related contemporary records rather than reproducing separate new primary documents in the citations provided [6] [5].
4. Related primary documentary traces: other books, correspondence, and archival listings
Beyond the After War Times pieces, Fortune’s other published works (for example Black and White and his extensive journalism) are primary materials for tracing his life, thought, and public claims about his upbringing and family circumstances [3] [8]. WorldCat and archival finding aids also point to manuscript and correspondence collections that include letters to and from Fortune — for example the John Edward Bruce papers list letters written to Bruce from Fortune — which constitute primary documentary evidence of Fortune’s professional network and can corroborate biographical details if consulted [3]. Modern library holdings and reprints (Google Books, ebook platforms, WorldCat records) provide tangible locations where researchers can access these primary texts [2] [7] [3].
5. Gaps, verification steps, and where researchers should look next
While the available reporting and catalogs establish Fortune’s own memoirs and his published corpus as primary sources, those secondary summaries do not always display the underlying archival documents (for example original Philadelphia Tribune issues, local Florida census returns, or Freedmen’s Bureau enrollment records) within the cited snippets; researchers seeking documentary verification of specific family events (land records, precise migration dates, or Emanuel Fortune’s Reconstruction‑era officeholding) will need to consult the Philadelphia Tribune archives, WorldCat‑listed editions, and regional archives referenced by WorldCat or local histories for original issues and manuscript holdings [1] [3] [2]. The sources reviewed confirm the existence and library presence of Fortune’s own autobiographical texts and related correspondence but do not replace direct inspection of archival newspapers, censuses, or court/land records for independent primary evidence beyond Fortune’s voice [3] [1].