Title page and frontispiece portrait of the first edition of ‘Narrative,’ 1850. Meaning, those attributing authorship to Gilbert had to be conducting some research into the history of the Narrative, and were likely to come across the fact that Truth was also the publisher and distributor. Additionally, Gilbert’s name does not appear anywhere on any 19 th century editions of the Narrative. This statement confirms that she also considered herself the author. The attribution to Gilbert is problematic given that the first edition in 1850 and subsequent editions to 1878 reference Truth as the author in the publication statement with wording such as, “Printed for the Author,” or “Published for the Author.” Cursory research would show that Truth acted as her own publisher and distributor. This gave us pause and cause to look more closely at the history of the Narrative, the life of Sojourner Truth, and ultimately how to approach the cataloging of one of the most important books of the 19 th century by one of the foremost abolitionists and feminists. We were surprised to find upon searching OCLC, the union catalog used by libraries around the world, that authorship for the Narrative was given to Olive Gilbert in most of the catalog records for various editions. These new acquisitions allowed catalogers in the Technical Services department to reevaluate and re-catalog these editions of the Narrative according to more current standards. Over the past few years, the Rubenstein Library acquired some early editions of the Narrative of Sojourner Truth. Post contributed by Jessica Janecki and Lauren Reno

The book of life sojourner truth