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The senator and the socialite : the true story of America's first black dynasty

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Graham, Lawrence.
Format: Book
Language:English
Published: New York : Harper Perennial, 2007.
Edition:1st Harper Perennial ed.
Subjects and Genres:
Bruce, Blanche Kelso, > 1841-1898.
Bruce, Josephine.
Bruce, Roscoe Conkling, > 1879-1950.
Bruce, Blanche Kelso, > 1841-1898 > Family.
Bruce family.
United States. > Congress. > Senate > Biography.
Legislators > United States > Biography.
African American legislators > Biography.
Legislators' spouses > United States > Biography.
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Table of Contents:
  • 1875: A senator is sworn in and a dynasty begins
  • 1841-1861: Blanche Bruce's slave family in Virginia and Missouri
  • 1841-1860: The free aristocratic family of Josephine Wilson
  • 1862-1870: Bruce finds Kansas freedom, Ohio education, and Mississippi reconstruction
  • 1870-1874: Bruce builds a base of power in Mississippi and is elected to the U.S. Senate
  • 1877-1878: A senator and a socialite Marry despite family and class conflicts
  • 1878: A Black dynasty begins
  • 1879-1880: A new child and a new redemption congress
  • 1880-1888: Bruce leaves the Senate, joins the Treasury Department, then enters private life
  • 1889-1895: Bruce persuades President Harrison to give him a job and his wife gains her independence
  • 1895-1898: The senator gets appointed by President McKinley as his son breaks barriers at Phillips Exeter; the senator dies
  • March 1898-June 1902: The senator's son begins a courtship at Harvard, and the senator's widow carries out a legacy
  • 1902: Roscoe builds an alliance with Booker T. Washington
  • 1902: A marriage of the second generation, and life in Tuskegee
  • December 1903-1906: Roscoe and Clara build the next generation
  • 1906-1914: A triumphant return to Washington life: the Bruce family's second generation emerges
  • 1915-1922: Roscoe's downfall in Washington
  • 1923-1924: Roscoe struggles with Harvard's President, his family finances, and his children's success
  • 1925-1929: The family moves to Cambridge and New York, and Roscoe builds an alliance with John D. Rockefeller Jr.
  • 1930-1939: The third generation makes news, and the senator's grandson goes to prison
  • 1940-1967: The third Bruce generation erases a proud history.

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