| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 90.3

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 90.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

A Gentleman of Color: The Life of James Forten. By Julie Winch. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. x, 501 pp. $35.00, ISBN 0-19-508691-0.)

A comprehensive biography of James Forten is long overdue. Forten's life spanned the late-eighteenth- to mid-nineteenth-century era of nation building, and, to the extent possible for a "gentleman of color," Forten figured prominently in that process. Born in colonial Philadelphia in 1766, Forten served on a privateer during the Revolution, apprenticed to a master Philadelphia sailmaker, built a sail loft known for its quality products that brought him commercial successes, and left a legacy to his children and their children that perfectly blended entrepreneurial values and political commitment. At the time of his death in 1842, Forten was a beloved patriarch, an esteemed elder statesman in the biracial antislavery movement and the African American convention movements, a respected businessman, and enormously successful whether measured by economic, social, or moral standards. Forten entered deliberately and self-consciously into the major social and political debates of his times, and his consistency in the application of egalitarian principles to race issues was unrelenting. In every respect his life epitomized the possibilities for individual achievement inherent in the democratic promise. His is a life well worth remembering.

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