In first edition of his 1881 autobiography Life and Times, Frederick Douglass reminisced about the vocational dilemma he faced after the conclusion of the Civil War sixteen years earlier: "I felt I had reached the end of the noblest and best part of my life, my school was broken up, my church disbanded, and the beloved congregation dispersed, never to come together again. The anti-slavery platform had performed its work, and my voice was no longer needed. 'Othello's occupation was gone'" 1 (Douglass, 2013 [1881], p. 292). This essay will examine Douglass's struggle to resolve the existential crisis that he faced in the faced in the decade from 1865 to 1875. Douglass's vocational problems during that decade were compounded by a pressing need for revenue, not just to support himself, but to assist his four adult children and their growing families financially. While a proficient journalist and author of two well-received autobiographies before the Civil War, it had been as a highly skilled orator on behalf of the abolitionist cause that Douglass had gained the greatest fame. (Blight, 1991, 2, 4-5) It is not surprising, therefore, that Douglass would turn to paid public speaking on the lyceum stage to reinvent himself professionally. This essay will explore Douglass's career as a lyceum speaker and conclude that the lessons he learned in the first post-Civil War decade had a significant impact on both the rhetorical content and delivery style of Douglass's oratory in the final twenty years of his life (1875-1895). Novice Orator To trace this evolution one must briefly analyze Douglass's antebellum speaking career. An eastern shore of Maryland slave, born in 1818, Douglass had lived for much of his youth in Baltimore where he acquired rudimentary literacy through nearly legendary effort. His most
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