Identifying Emma Dunham Kelley: Rethinking race and authorship

Though she has long been considered a pioneer of black women's writing, there is no evidence to suggest that Emma Dunham Kelley-Hawkins, author oiMegda and Four Girls at Cottage City, was African American. This author considered herself racially white, as did every recorded member of her family before her. Instead of simply asserting her whiteness to correct the "mistake" of her racial categorization in the scholarly reception of her novels, this essay explores the uses of authorial racial identity in critical practice. Reading the obsessive concern with skin color in Four Girls at Cottage City demands not only further consideration of Kelley's work alongside African American hterature but also attention to issues of white raciahzation at the turn of the century. However we identify Kelley, the critical history and continued interpretation of her work provide a rare opportunity to observe the consequences of destabihzing an author's identity or, more precisely, recognizing identity as unstable. (HJ)