Lorraine

77642 — Small collection of material from African American writer and historian Lorraine Passovoy to the prominent collector Dion A. Stams revealing newly-discovered information about Chicago’s founder the Black fur trader Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable circa 1745-1818.<br /> <br /> It is now well known that du Sable settled near the mouth of the Chicago River in the mid-1700s building a home and establishing a trading post there. But he was not recognized by the State of Illinois as the founder of Chicago until 1968.<br /> <br /> In one of the typed letters in this group Passovoy 1919-90 shares with Stams 1908-98 that a 1763 letter in the Illinois Historical Collections came to light which is likely “the earliest reference to one of the first settlers of Chicago the free Negro Bapstiste La Pointe du Sable.†In light of this she was reworking her articles about him as the new information revealed he “may have built his first piteau-a-terre trading post decades earlier than I thought.â€<br /> <br /> This collection also includes another half-page typed letter from Passovoy to Sams and copies of two letters from Sams to Passovoy.<br /> <br /> Other materials in this collection include:<br /> <br /> Two copies of Point Sable and Chicago 1778-80 1982 by Passovoy self-published<br /> <br /> Two copies of The Mysterious Coast Button 1979 by Passovoy published by Peradam Publishing House<br /> <br /> The Black Root: Documents of Point Sable and Chicago 1983 by Passovoy and fellow du Sable scholar Virginia Julien<br /> <br /> Typescript of The Tailor Who Altered History never published<br /> <br /> Typescript of Jeannot by Passovoy never published<br /> <br /> These materials evidently were in Stams’ personal collections and several bear his personal markings and bookplate. Passovoy’s papers are held within the Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History and Literature at the Chicago Public Library. unknown